Rockets acquire Suns picks, return Nets picks to Brooklyn

Asset accumulation (especially draft capital) could have been better.

 

If we make any trades this season or in the off-season with Suns or Kings, we should 100% have all the leverage. If they don't wanna play ball then let them find other suitors. We're young enough where we can just see how it all plays out without making any trades. Even the Suns picks, which will likely be 3 lotto picks, we can just draft good players with those.

 

I think the mistake was the Westbrook trade. We'd be right there with the rest of them had they not made that horrendous trade. Otherwise, Stone has done a fantastic job. He did great in the Harden trade. He did great in turning 2 Nets picks into 4 Phoenix picks. That's literally never even been done before. He did great in getting a late first rounder for a guy as awful as Christian Wood. He did great in the deal that moved our pick up when we dealt Gordon, enabling us to get Cam.

I wonder if we could have gotten a late 1st for Tate at some point. I'm not sure how much we can get now. I definitely don't think he's better than Dorian Finney Smith, for example, and he just got 3 second rounders. Maybe we could get two?

How do you think he could have done better? Genuinely curious.

 

The Sun's should but KD will only accept trades to good teams. Not sure on Booker. Beal just cares about getting his numbers

 

Do KD and Booker have no trade clauses? I know Beal does not sure on them.

 

Tate was never worth more than a 2nd . He's a good role player but not an asset

 

They do not. The clauses rare, Beal has one and recently LeBron on his recent extension.

 

With Beal's NTC I don't see that happening. It is crazy to me that PHX didn't demand Beal lift the NTC on condition to his trade from WAS -> PHX. Beal is not going to want to leave the comfort of PHX for another destination unless it is great for him. And that seems pretty unlikely. PHX is stuck with Beal. They have pretty much made all the moves they can. They have 1 FRP to trade and can't aggregate salary because they are in the 2nd apron. Not much they can do.

 

that’s the thing…we had the leverage with Brooklyn and didn’t fully press it to our advantage, because Stone wanted to be buddies with Sean Marks. That love letter press conference after the trade…lol

 

Pretty sure they have 2 to trade. Pretty sure Sacramento and Miami would be interested in those picks if they're rebuilding.

Doubt Beal wants to come off the bench.

 

They don’t have control of ANY of their own draft picks until 2030 that’s why they can’t choose to tank even if they want to

 

The Westbrook-CP3 trade is still haunting us. It has to be the second worst trade in the past 10 years, second only to the PG13-SGA trade. OKC made out like a bandit on 'roid.

 

Agreed- shocking trade.

I do think we have managed to skate by without it hurting us TOO much though.

Picks:
2021 - did not convey (Green). [Further we screwed them by giving up 2 garbage picks for Alpy - those picks are yet to convey, and the Thunder got rid of them]

2024 - Nicola Topic. However it wasn't all bad, we got the #3 pick thanks to the lotto balls, and had our choice of player well before OKC.

2025 - our pick swap has had the Suns pick added to it, and unless things drastically change it looks like we upgraded our pick rather than losing the swap with OKC.

2026. Top 4 protected. Currently we have no ammunition in this draft.

So the end result of the trade will be that we lost our pick in 2026.
Somehow we have managed to tank our way out of 2021, and flip assets to actually improve our picks in the 24 and 25 scenarios. There is nobody they have drafted that we couldn't have drafted had we preferred to do so, and we have accumulated some great talent.
The Alpy trade (so far) is far more significant in terms of draft pick use, and it sits in our favour.

 

I was gonna bring up the 1st harden trade, which i think is the single worst trade in nba history, but realized it was 12 years ago! Man how time flies. I think the pg13 trade in theory wasn't THAT bad, though they overpaid. They did put together a team that had legit title chances, though injury obviously ruined it. The nets harden trade if i was brooklyn i would do 100 times outa 100, that 2021 nets team was EASILY going to win the title and chances like that are sooooooooo rare outside of the kd/curry warriors.

 

There have been way worst trades Than Westbrook CP3 as much as I hated it.

Rudy Gobert for 6 first rounders and paying him that kinda money.....

Dejounte Murray trades either one were horrendous.

Westbrook to the Lakers.

Vucevic to Bulls.

Harden to Sixers trade.

 

I didn’t really see it that way. We either didn’t want Bridges, or wouldn’t match the Knicks offer, so Stone used it to put us in the same position with the Suns. We were still the lynchpin to that trade. It doesn’t happen without us. And Brooklyn insisted they weren’t interested in trading right up until it happened.

We’ve got the Suns in the same position. Unless they go on a miraculous winning streak, they have got to deal with us before the deadline. Their GM is writing his own pink slip if he lets us use their pick this year, then decides to blow it up later and gets a bunch of mid-20s picks for Booker and/or Durant. He has the opportunity now to maximize their return. Just like Brooklyn, they will deny they are interested right up until the end, but they really have no choice.

 

Amen.

 

Yeah, we have been lucky with the lottery, even though we missed out on the Wemby sweepstake. We got top 4 picks 4 years in a row.

 

Here’s the challenge with the Suns situation. It’s not so straightforward.

We can’t trade their 2025 pick back to them before the draft because of the Stepien rule since we don’t have a 2026 pick. So the Suns can’t / won’t do a deal for that pick during this season.

Then, the Suns 2026 swap is owed to other teams (not Houston or Brooklyn). So the Suns tanking next season will not help them.

So really, the 2026-27 season is the first season we can give back to the Suns as a tanking option. But then BKN has their 2028 swap.

Hence the Suns have sooo screwed themselves it’s basically not feasible for them to bottom out and rebuild well even if we trade with them.

Makes me wonder if we use the PHX picks elsewhere just as future probable lottery pick trade assets rather than necessarily doing a deal with PHX.