Rockets acquire Suns picks, return Nets picks to Brooklyn

The Harden to BKN trade worked out better than expected. Although there were signs that the Durant-Harden-Irving big 3 had the potential to implode, nobody thought it would be that easy. The Kyrie antivax saga came out of nowhere that essentially sabotaged the whole thing. And both Durant and Harden got injured at just the right time.

 

I think OKC and San Antonio, then Houston. But it’s definitely a good situation for us.

 

Those three are definitely above the rest, and what's interesting is you could make an argument for each. OKC has the most draft capital, Houston as the best blend of draft capital and prospects, and San Antonio has the singular best asset.

 

OKC has some players, too.

 

I don't think they are trading Shai, JDub, or Chet, just like we're not trading Sengun or Amen. We have more young prospects available for trade.

 

Gotta include Orlando also. They don't have a bunch of extra picks but their 2 best young guys are considerably above anyone we have currently.

 

“Considerably?” No way. I’m not sure I’d trade Sengun and Amen straight up for Franz and Paolo.

 

I'm with you I wouldn't make that trade.

 

Exactly. OKC isn’t trading their homegrown big 3 for anybody, ORL isn’t trading Paolo or Franz for anybody, SAS isn’t trading Wemby obviously.

When it comes to trade offers that could actually happen, IMO we’d win a bidding war vs anybody in the league if necessary.

 

Really? I would, as much as i like Amen.

 

The real issue was that Harden got hurt - he was playing at an MVP level before he was hurt in Brooklyn and Durant was playing like the best player in the world in the playoffs, if Harden is healthy the Nets win their series and possibly win the whole thing.

As for the Brooklyn deal overall - I still prefer the Sixers deal, because it had Maxey in it - and he is the type of player that the Rockets covet as a two guard.... young (just turned 24), has averaged 26 points a game the last two seasons and has some talent as a 3 point shooter.

 

Luck was on our side. Who would have thought that Durant would be more durable than Harden in their playoffs run? Still, the Kyrie thing played an important role. It pissed off Harden and forced Durant to take side. Ultimately it soured and doomed the big 3's relationships beyond repair. If they stayed intact, we would be looking at some mediocre FRPs.

In hindsight, the Sixers deal might have landed us Maxey but also given us the Simmons headcase. I assumed that Simmons was the "center piece" of the deal. I remembered we were debating whether Simmons or Herro (the alleged Miami deal) would be better for us.

 

With pure 20/20 hindsight, the move would've been to route Simmons to Sacramento for Haliburton and just have Maxey/Haliburton, but that would've been very uncharacteristic of a typical blow it up team. If Harden was destined to the Nets, in retrospect it would've been so much better if the Rockets kept Jared Allen. Actually at the time I was annoyed the Rockets traded away Allen in the deal, but mostly because I was really down on Oladipo. That part of the deal, IMO, is not being scrutinized enough on Stone's part. How did Oladipo do well enough in the medicals to not only get traded to the Rockets, but also get an extension offer, is beyond me. The guy was DOA and never recovered.

 

I wouldn't trade Amen for anyone. I wouldn't trade Sengun for anyone not named Jokic or Anthony Edwards. If Amen was starting from the start of the season and playing 30+ mins he would be a candidate for DPOY (but would lose to Wemby) and be getting votes for the all-star game. The guys saying we should include Amen for Fox are crazy.

 

Stone has been very lucky in this rebuilding process, not just on the lottery ping pong luck. He made some good trades and good picks. But he was also saved by good luck. Oladipo rejecting the extension was almost like divine intervention. And trading Jared Allen might have caused us to get Sengun. I don't think anybody would trade Sengun for Allen now. The Nets imploding was for a big part good luck.

 

I don’t understand the logic in this. If Maxey is worth all of that then he surely would have been good enough to not have all of the talent that is currently on the Rockets because they would have won too many games.

You still now have enough assets to get a player as good as Maxey right now while still having much of the talent that is on the team. The ceiling is likely much higher now in my opinion.

 

Exactly. You can’t compare apples to apples. Everything would be different if we had taken the 76ers deal. We probably wouldn’t have Sengun, certainly wouldn’t have Amen, etc.

 

none of the players I’ve heard of being available are better than Maxey. Relative to his age and production, it’s hard to find any. You basically have to do what okc did with SGA and bet on the ceiling of an up and coming player. But honestly hindsight is 20-20. There were clearly mistakes made in the Harden to Brooklyn deal. Jarret Allen is an easy example. Olidipo is another. But the nets picks are going to be more valuable than Philly’s, and Maxey has exceeded his perceived ceiling from 4 yrs ago. At this point I figure the deal was a good one, even though Stone didn’t maximize all he could.

 

I'd take Fox but definitely not if we have to include Amen. Anthony Edwards maybe the only player I'd include Amen in a trade for.

 

I didn't like the Oladipo part of the Harden trade either, but to be fair to the Rockets medical staff, the Heat also traded for him, and committed $18M after he had reinjured his quad and had to sit out for a full year.

The extension offer, reportedly 2 years, $45M, would have been timed exactly to expire when John Wall's max deal did; it ultimately would not have affected the Rockets cap space or ability to sign FVV/Brooks/Green/Landale last summer.

It makes a lot more sense to view the Oladipo extension offer through the lens of what the Rockets executed with FVV; overpay on a per-year basis in order to bet on a player who had previously shown all-star level talent, make a movable salary/asset, and to avoid a long term commitment to a non-core player on the wrong side of 30.

Even if Oladipo had suffered the exact same season ending injury he did with Miami, his new extension would have almost certainly been covered by insurance, so he'd be a very valuable expiring contract as part of a salary dump, acting as a $23M salary filler that would only cost the team about $4.6M in out-of-pocket costs, or as a way for a very cheap team to reach the salary floor with "phantom money".

It didn't work out ultimately, but the opportunity cost was holding onto Caris LeVert for a year and trading him; LeVert returned a lottery protected low first rounder and three second rounders; not the end of the world.