Not with Kings having $10.5 million cap room right now (i.e. the 2011-12 season). They can take Dalembert's contracts figure without sending anything back. If they ended up with BOTH Lowry AND Dalembert, it would require them to send some salary back. Maybe Chuck Hayes?
Well, in recent history you do have Luol Deng: in 2004 Chicago traded their unprotected pick in 2005 and the first pick in the second round. Keep in mind that this was after Chicago had had the second best chance of winning the lottery 4 out of the previous 5 years. Obviously it was a unique circumstance, since the Suns were trying to clear cap space, but it's not unprecedented. One interesting way to possibly acquire a top pick might be to try and "buy up" another team's future obligation, then try and push back that obligation in exchange for reductions in protection. For example, you can look at the infamous Marcus Williams trade that caused the massive tank job in Oakland this year. The original deal, consummated in the summer of 2008, called for a 2011, lottery protected first rounder with decreasing protection until the top 10 in 2013, whereby it would be fulfilled with two second rounders. In 2009 however, Larry Riley decided that they absolutely needed to be able to trade their 2010 pick, so they sent a second rounder to New Jersey to push back the owed pick by a year, while also reducing the protection on the pick, leading to the situation where their pick was only top 7 protected this year, and top 6 protected next year. Ostensibly, the Rockets could try and trade an extra pick for a protected pick from a cellar dweller, then try over the years to reduce that protection down. I do hope they try this with Dallas pick; there are way too few other assets on that roster to put together acceptable trade packages. The Rockets might also try acquiring Portland's protected pick from Charlotte; Paul Allen has as much influence over his front office as any owner and has proven impatient in the past; it certainly wouldn't be out of character to demand a blockbuster trade that necessitates a future pick.
