Rockets acquire Suns picks, return Nets picks to Brooklyn

Wachuwant?

 

Right - and that only gives the Rockets even more leverage.

The Nets cannot complete their deal with the Knicks without getting their own picks back.

Which means more pressure on the Nets to get a deal done with the Rockets.

 

If there are no toppings it is just ice cream, right?

 

Which explains why we doubled the picks?

(to be honest, it would have been amazing if one of those picks via the Knicks had come our way too, but that's with my Rockets homerism glassees on. The Nets fans would be blowing up deluxe if they'd given up even more to us)


As it stands, if just one of those PHX picks lands in the lottery, I think we win?

 

This is not to attack you or the rest of the credentialed media covering the trade, but I really dislike the coverage of this trade being spun as "two extra" FRPs. Practically, it is extremely likely to be one extra 2029 pick, which is not nothing, but is about the bare minimum I would have wanted for such a significant trade-down in 2025.

When it comes to the "added assets" in the trade, the only way to actually get significant value from both the unprotected pick and the swap in 2029 is if the Rockets are better than both the Suns and Mavericks, or if one or both of them is in the lottery and actually wins. It is far more likely that one of the teams is at least equal to or better than the Rockets, meaning that part of the swap will not be exercised. It's not completely worthless, but I would imagine that things would have to go really wrong for Dallas and really right for Houston for it to matter.

For 2025, the Rockets have effectively given the Nets the option to swap the Suns pick with their own. A clear downgrade for the Rockets unless the Suns win the lottery, but this is a 1-for-1 swap. Using last year's standings, this is like trading the #9 for the #22, which is a really big move down the board.

For 2026, the Nets would have had a significant amount of cap room they would be obligated to spend ($70M?). We saw just this year how being able to add VanVleet/Brooks/Green/Landale in FA can stabilize and raise the floor of a team from horrendous to mediocre.

If you want to argue that a 2027 Suns unprotected first where possibly they have lost KD in Free Agency, and will have around $140M committed to 4 players with a $170M Cap, is better than the 2026 Nets pick, and especially, is a better trade asset in the summer of 2025, I will buy it, although I think that's a bit of a gamble. Additionally, in the NFL, trading a future pick for a more current one is always hit by a heavy penalty in terms of value.

So is a 2029 Phoenix unprotected pick worth an effective move from #9 to #22 next year? Probably, but then where is the added value for delaying the pick from 2026 to 2027?

This just feels like the Rockets didn't get enough based on the desperation of the other team. The Nets were heavily incentivized to sell Bridges before the draft and FA so they can start their rebuild fully aligned. Meanwhile, the Rockets were not in any hurry at all. It was on the Nets to close this deal quickly, and instead it feels like the Nets just called the Rockets back and said "we'll accept that framework you proposed six months ago," while Stone should have embraced his inner Kevin Costner and told them "that deal is now off the table, Sean. We live in a different world and I want David Putney you pancake-eating MFer."

 

Why couldn’t they? Us not being in control of our picks due to OKC didn’t prevent us from shipping Harden off.

 

Maybe - the Nets control the Knicks draft for the next 5-6 years. That is a long time to control a team's draft. Consider where the Nets were when the Rockets dealt Harden to them. It is a big gamble and risk for any team to give away 5-6 years of control. The Nets also will get another #1 for Bogdanovich and now they can get multiple #1's for Claxton and Johnson that they otherwise would have had to hold onto.

When it is all said and done we are going to be talking about close to 10 first round picks and half with no protections.

How so? He could have ended up getting the Suns picks at the deadline or even next year. He would have been dependent on the Nets bringing it up, but they would still have had Bridges and likely would still be getting offers for him in 6 months or a year.

Yeah - he potentially lost leverage - although I don't think so, he could have told the Nets that he no longer was interested in the Suns picks.

Regardless - he did accomplish increasing the liquidity of the assets by pushing the expiration date further back, and he did get back more assets.

 

true , but we had the added bonus of our picks being top 4 protected … which at least gave us a chance to keep

 

I don't think we really doubled our picks, because I don't think the 2025 pick swap is worth much.

It isn't like we were fleeced; we did get back picks from Phoenix and by the time those picks vest, it is likely Phoenix will be really bad. It is even possible one of those picks or swaps end up being the #1 pick in some draft. So we can only measure it by the prevailing value at this time - hell I could offer you one free lottery ticket or two and you ask for one and by luck that one is the winner.

Do we win if one of those Suns picks end up in the lottery? Not necessarily, because I believe the Nets would be in the lottery as well over the next few seasons.

Some of this is going to come down to ping pong balls.

My position is that the Rockets had all the leverage and should have extracted more from the Nets - and someone like OKC would have gotten more than we got.... but that doesn't mean the Rockets got nothing out of the trade, they were able to push back the expiration date for the assets and they got a greater number of assets.

 

Stone got family members on here or something cuz god damn some of ya'll are going to war for him over this lol

 

Rockets did have control though. the OKC picks were protected for top 4. It took some luck to not give away most of them, but the hard tank was controllable to be the worst team and have a 50% chance of keeping the pick.

That was not an option for Brooklyn and won't be an option for the Suns or Knicks if they implode.

 

I didn’t want to be the one to break that news

 

Some random speculation on why we didn't get more.
-Although the knicks/ nets and nets/rox trades appeared to be contingent, it was not announced as a 3-team deal. That likely means that the Rox didn't have information on the knicks/nets deal ahead of time. If they had, it would have put us in a stronger negotiating position, since then we could squeeze both New York and Brooklyn at the same time.
-Our lack of knowledge of the knicks / nets deal is probably why we didn't get any knicks picks in the deal.
-I agree with Nook that this seems to be a weakness by Stone. It looks like he was negotiating with limited information. A top GM would have been able to figure out NY was involved and get an optimal deal.
-That being said, the upside of how much we could have improved the deal is limited by NY's offer. Maybe we could have got 1 of the Knicks first rounders. I doubt Brooklyn does the deal if they have to give us 2 Knicks picks.
-I think it's quite hard to determine the value of our giving Brooklyn a way out of their mediocrity. There are plenty of teams in the league that are willing to be mediocre if they are profitable or as long as the owner can treat the team as a toy. It's very subjective.

 

Depends on if you believe the Nets GM's claim that he was not allowed to trade Bridges without getting his picks back.

Also - Harden demanded a trade and refused to play, then went on television in an interview and called out the front office.

The Rockets did everything they could do to not trade Harden because they did not have complete control of their draft picks.

 

Stone always strikes me as the “big direction” guy who strives to get the big, medium, most important outcomes correct. It’s possible that there are rooms to squeeze Marks a bit more but I just don’t think it’s his forte.

It’s ok, I just beg him to not make any major mistakes and over time hone these skills to improve on the margins.

It also takes a lot of luck to be in a position to win. So far in his tenure things seem to be on his side more often than not and let’s just hope it stays that way.

 

I agree with you. Tillman Fertitta and most Rockets media sellouts want to trade off the Youth. Is Ime Udoka the Voice of Tillman Fertitta ear to trade off the Young Players for a 35 year old Kevin Durant (Should be Out of his Prime) that is a Rental.

Locked on Rockets Jackson Gatlin, Roosh Williams (Fake Name) looks Indian, Chop Shop, these sellouts want to destroy the Team Chemistry.

 

Do people think the nets don't make the bridges trade without getting those picks back? The Knicks paid probably double what he's worth, it's a MASSIVE overpay the likes of which we rarely see. Are we SURE the nets say no to 5 picks for a solid role player if the rockets don't give them back their picks? It looks pretty clear to me that Stone got bluffed out of his shoes here.

It sucks that at this point it's pretty clear that Tillman (obviously) is a complete moron and Udoka is a horrific influence (as most coaches are), so overall it's a pretty depressing situation

 

I guess we're going to disagree about their options. I wouldn't personally retool over rebuild if I were in charge of Brooklyn, but that's been their MO in the past. The last time they had max cap space they literally signed both KD and Kyrie so I wouldn't underestimate their ability to draw free agents either. Not having a good outlook isn't the same as being forced to accept whatever terms we threw their way. IMO, they could have been a 40+ win team just waiting until the trade deadline to accept the Knicks' offer, maybe as a big FU to us. I don't believe the Knicks offer was now or never, especially considering how much they offered.

 

I just don't think it is true that the Rockets had all the leverage.

For some reason the Knicks paid a billion picks for a guy who wanted to be traded there. This (to me) begs the question of what other deals the Nets had on the table for Bridges? ((I am of the opinion that they could have traded him straight up for Green and Brooks, and with the advantage of hindsight, perhaps we'd all be thrilled)) Who knows what return they could have got, but whatever return it was, it may have made a positive basketball difference for them. They had a bunch of injuries last year, and weren't far off the playoffs.

Further, they are unpredictable, and always trying to use the future assets to improve right now. They already had a bunch of future 1sts which they could have used to bring back decent players.

All told, they could have been a 6-8 seed pretty easily for years.

(really, if they were serious about the tanking thing, they should have shut everyone down last season and tanked hard - all we had was swap rights, and we sucked badly, AND there was decent talent available - side note!)