Now that the 2013-14 regular season is over, here is where the Rockets will pick in the 2014 NBA Draft: First Round: - Rockets will pick 24th, 25th or 26th, depending on an NBA Tiebreaker that should take place later this month between the Rockets, Blazers and Heat (all finished at 54-28). Second Round: - Rockets will receive the 42nd pick of the draft from the New York Knicks, via the Marcus Camby trade of July 2012. - Rockets will send their own second round pick (54, 55 or 56) to Philadelphia (via Milwaukee) from the Samuel Dalembert trade just before the 2012 NBA Draft. <HR> Miscellaneous: - One other footnote: The Thunder will receive the 21st pick of the draft from the Dallas Mavericks, which was the the other first round pick that Houston sent to OKC as part of the James Harden trade (via Dallas to LAL in Lamar Odom trade, LAL to Houston in Jordan Hill trade).
This is good to get rid of the Dallas pick obligation. I remember a lot of people speculating that down the line, that pick, once the protections were removed, would become really valuable, and could become a similar situation ala Pau Gasol trade. To explain further, Pau won for LA immediately (and everybody laughed at Memphis), but Marc turned into something really good later. Glad that this trade is turning out to be even more lopsided.
I'm almost certain OKC will draft Jerami Grant if he's available. Hopefully Rockets trade up to nab him. He's going to be a defensive beast.
Rockets FO seems to have a good track record with late first rounders and second rounders. We'll just have to trust their scouting.
Harden is most likely going to be named first team all nba. Protections or not, Houston won that trade.
Another Miscellaneous Note: Rockets had the ability to receive the 76ers 2nd round pick but it was top 55 protected. This is will not be transferred over, and does not carry over into future years, this potential pick transfer has expired.
Future Draft Pick Inventory (beyond 2014): No commitments for any of the Rocket owned 1st or 2nd round picks. Future Considerations: Rockets receive the Clippers' 2015 second round pick (only if 51-55), via Raptors Rockets receive the Knicks' 2015 second round pick. Rockets receive the Timberwolves 2015 second round pick. (or Nuggets, whichever is less favorable) Rockets receive the Trailblazers 2017 second round pick. (Some reports say this is actually the 2018 2nd round pick, to be confirmed)
Im going to be interested to see who Morey takes with this pick given that in the past few years he's had a team in a different stage where they were looking for upside more than anything. The few times in history that Morey had the ability to take best fit over upside, the Rockets ended up with the Battier trade, Brooks, and Landry. I'll be pretty interested to see who he gets or what kind of trades Morey can possible conjure up this Summer. But first things first.... playoffs!
Yes, Jerami is OKC type. With the right coaching/developing, he could be as good as most picks in the lottery. This is why good teams keep getting better.
If we don't trade our picks, Bogdan Bogdanovic(first round in 20s) and Russ Smith(mid second round) seem likely to be available.
What if that pick turned into Hakeem 2.0? Not saying that is realistic, but there was an ever so slightly of a chance that it could become a really valuable pick down the line. I should have explained further; I agree that the Rockets won that trade no matter the situation. I was just trying to compare similar situations.
In the famous words of Charles Barkely " it's terrible" that the Knicks didn't just die like they were suppose to... the 34 overall pick sounds nice
What makes this interesting though is that we're set at pretty much every position except the 4. We just need to bolster the bench. I wouldn't be surprised if we take a wingman, since Casspi, Hamilton, and Garcia don't seem capable of being the backup, or if we try to trade it for a Battier type player.
I also think the pick is likely to be traded. It might go with Lin or Asik in a draft-night trade. Otherwise, we could trade it for 2 second-rounders (signed to multi-year deals with only the first season guaranteed) or a 2016 first-rounder (with protections). The last thing I expect to happen is Morey surrendering $1m in 2015 cap-space on a late first-round flyer (with obviously some exceptions if certain players fall, but that's not likely to matter).
I do see Morey also considering drafting a guy from Europe that can be stashed for a season or two. Best case scenario would be the Rockets agree to trade for third star before the draft so they have unrestricted use of draft pick.
