Houston/Portland/Brooklyn Hypothetical Trade Construct (If Charlotte passes on Scoot)

First off, let me give credit Jackson Gatlin here for bringing this trade concept up in a tweet last night. It truly is a magnificent trade construct that actually has am material chance of coming to fruition.



The first question you have to ask yourself is what direction is Portland going to go as a franchise? This trade really only exists in a world where they decide to rebuild around Dame. Well, luckily for Houston, they have answered that for us pretty directly since the results of the lottery last night







Using the above evidence, it seems highly unlikely that Portland would draft Scoot Henderson to help maximize a contending window around Dame. In fact, they are pretty much telling you that above that they would try and use the pick to trade for a win-now player instead of another PG. This is where Brooklyn comes in. As you will see in the clip below and that has now been brought up on numerous occasions, Dame has a huge interest in trying to get Mikal Bridges to Portland. It is not hard to discern that if Portland looks to acquire a win-now player for #3, that Mikal Bridges would likely be target #1



So let's go back to Jackson's hypothetical trade above and explain why it is way more feasible than every other Scoot trade up scenario for the Rockets

Portland: This one is pretty easy to explain, they leverage the #3 pick for a young win-now player that Dame has had eyes on teaming up with. This is even easier to see why they would do this considering the top prospect on the board at #3 plays the same position as Dame

Brooklyn: This trade might be the only opportunity for Brooklyn all decade to truly take back control of the direction of their franchise by controlling their own picks as well as getting a top 4 pick. While Mikal Bridges is a nice player, Brooklyn does not have a path to anything meaningful over the next couple of years due to the lack of control over their picks and the Ben Simmons contract. This trade would allow Brooklyn to not only grab a Top 4 talent in the draft, but it would allow them to truly tank next season and add another top pick to build around as opposed to their current stage of "Try and be competitive because we have to" mentality. Because they would pivot from that mentality, they would be able to sell off a lot of their veteran wings for future/young assets, therefore giving them more chips to play with during the stages of their rebuild. Now, I could see Brooklyn dangling a Nic Claxton in this scenario as an attempt to get the 2025 swap or 2026 pick back to them as well. They might also need one more smaller piece (Think Pick #20) if they dont try and dangle Claxton for future compensation.

Houston: I will save the characters from explaining why the Rockets would do this. In fact, the point of this thread really revolves around this talking point: How much would you be willing to give up in this type of trade construct?

For all the counters of "Why would Brooklyn and Portland involves us in a Mikal for #3 trade"? You do realize that if they leave us out of a trade like that, our Brooklyn pick next year skyrockets in value the moment that happens. I personally think Brooklyn would prefer the above model just because it allows them more control over their rebuild. If #3 gets traded for Mikal Bridgesm the Rockets are huge winners in that case with or without being involved in the trade.

I know people are going to come into this thread and do the "Why is this not in the Trade Thread or #4 Package Thread". My answer to that is this easily seems like the most likely path to the Rockets ability to trade up for Scoot Henderson. If anyone else thinks there is a more likely avenue to this, I would love to hear it, but I don't see it.

My Prediction: If Charlotte passes on Scoot at #2, I think a deal like this gets done and Houston drafts Scoot at #3

 

How much more would you be willing to give up?