Rockets acquire Suns picks, return Nets picks to Brooklyn

We used the pick we got to get Sengun. Sengun's gonna be a 22 yr old all star he is much better than any hypothetical haul you could have got waiting to trade WB.

Worst moves Stone has made so far:
-offering 45M to Oladipo (thank god dude rejected)
-trading for AJ Griffin
-signing Daniel Theis
-drafting Tyty Wash, JC and Garuba

 

We don’t have Sengun solely because that pick was part of the compensation. It was just a mid 1st. There’s other way to get a mid first without taking on 2 more max years of injured John Wall. I just think it was a bad deal for us. Anyway, ancient history at this point.

 

Russ would have been just as much of a malcontent had we held onto him. I would have rather had the pick. That lotto protected 1st from Washington was packaged with the 1st round pick from Detroit (Christian Wood trade) to OKC for Alperen Sengun. Neither pick ended up conveying to OKC in the end. That more than makes up for whatever extra Washington got from trading Russ' contract.

 

Well the Rockets will probably be over the cap when Jabari is up for extension. So 100% cuz it ain't my money.

 

It was an asset that was one of two pieces that Presti thought was good enough to trade the rights to Sengun.

For as many poor trades and poor draft pick management moves that Stone has been accused of, the Rockets have one of the best young teams in the game while still having draft capital. I get that Stone makes a lot of mistakes, and he may not be able to turn this team into a champion, but overall, the rockets front office looks like they are in the upper third.

 

I hear you; I think that’s fair. He’s gone from a C to a B for me and I was very down on him his first 3 yrs. He can get to an A from me if he gets us to contending level.

 

What was your understanding of what the Wizards ended up with when they traded Westbrook to the Lakers?

They didn't get a pick. The Lakers pick wenr to Indiana (#22 in the 2021 draft) and the Wizards got Aaron Holiday and draft rights to 2RP Isaiah Todd (!)

Apart from that a bunch of garbage players to try and win with Beal, and it never worked.

Considering we owed our pick to OKC, getting vets to win 5 more games was bad business, Wall was tank commander and the pick was essential in trading for Alpy.
Solid.

 

I honestly think the only real negative move there was AJ Griffin, and that was a minimal loss.

1. The deal for Oladipo was short term, meaning by the time we had to pay any of the young guys he either would be recovered from his injuries and thus a much more valuable trade asset, or he wouldn't have and we wouldn't resign him. It didn't really hurt us anymore than having John Wall on the roster did. The team wasn't competing and no star player was going to sign with us no matter how much cap room we had.
2. Agreed, but again, I can live with the loss of a second round pick.
3. Daniel Theis didn't pan out, but we were able to quickly move off of him without consequence. We actually brought back Dennis Schroeder and Rockets Legend Bruno Fernando in that deal (not to mention Turkish legend Enes Freedom). No draft picks were lost. And the cap wasn't hurt.
4. First of all, Josh Christopher is the actual GOAT! But aside from that, at the time, the Rockets were looking to draft high upside assets. They didn't need a quality 8th man coming off the bench. They needed building blocks. So they took big swings. They missed on some. Sure, but they knew they would. Perhaps they could have drafted Quentin Grimes instead of JC, but when the Pistons traded away Grimes, all they got was Tim Hardaway Jr. So I'm not sure it was a huge loss. Herb Jones is the only guy drafted after JC and Garuba that I really think they would have kept. And the only guys that went after Tyty that look like decent rotation guys are Andrew Nembhard and Max Christie and I don't see either of those guys moving the needle for us, or bringing back a notable trade haul.

I think there is a better argument to be made about trading away Jarrett Allen. Though I personally believe we wouldn't have traded for Sengun if we kept him. But we'll never know.

 

Jarett Allen would have made us better, we wanted to be worse. Or not. Those first moves were kinda confusing as I guess even Stone wasnt sure how to proceed.

At the end of the day I'm extremely happy with what Stone has done with the Rox as compared to what Morey has done with the Sixers lol.

 

The Wizards/Lakers part of the trade was effectively Westbrook and two second rounders for Kuzma, KCP, Montrezl Harrell and #22. I don't know how you can look at that package and not say that it was better than 40 games of John Wall. Just because the Wizards have completely botched their sell-off, getting rid of Harrell and KCP too early, and Kuzma too late, does not mean they didn't get an objectively better deal than the Rockets despite trading a player with one less year on his deal and being one more year on the wrong side of 30.

This Wizards pick is so strange to me, in that it's likely going to be utterly worthless (Washington needs to finish outside the bottom 8 in the next two years, or it will become two second rounders). And yet, we have a very clear indication of its value in a trade, since it was moved twice in successive years:

2021: Detroit Top-9 protected through 2027 pick + Washington Top-8 protected through 2026 pick = #16 overall (Alperun Sengun)
2022: Detroit Pick + Washington Pick + 2023 Denver Pick = #11 overall (Ousmane Dieng)

Credit to Stone I suppose for creating two very valuable-sounding assets (First Rounders from DETROIT and WASHINGTON OMG!) when he actually made a synthetic CDO out of two subprime mortgages, and hocked that diversified piece of garbage onto an unsuspecting sucker. And credit to OKC for bundling that crap with yet another overvalued asset (OMG, an UNPROTECTED FIRST ROUNDER (...from the NBA champions...)) and getting an even bigger return.

 

Our pick was important to us, and we needed to be bottom 4 to keep it.
Also, the trade was a 5 way, pick 22 wasn't with Washington.

Objectively losing our pick to OKC is much worse than gaining both our own pick (Green) AND the asset that enabled us to walk away with Alpy.

I guess we disagree, but the Green/Sengun tandem is 2nd in the West vs the team still figuring out their starting point.

 

Hell naw: they gotta negotiate it down.

 

For what purpose? Once you are over the cap it's better to be way over it. Cuz then his contract could match others in a trade.

 

Negotiate what down? We are other the cap either way.

 

Fertita's pockets and the cap aren't the only concern anymore. If we max everyone we'll run into the second apron very quickly. As Phoenix has discovered it's very restrictive.

Also, overpaying a player makes it hard to trade their contract later. The Wizards gave Otto Porter Jr a max because why not? They were over the cap with Wall and Beal's contracts anyway right? When they wanted to unload him their options were limited. He wasn't even a bad player either. He was pretty similar to Jabari.

 

We obviously shouldn’t “max” Smith. But he absolutely should be extended.

 

I agree he should be extended. That chain was talking about rookie max extension for Jabari, which we really shouldn't do.

 

Oh, my apologies then. That’s an absurd suggestion. The fact that Smith is a really good, complementary player who WON’T demand the max is the very reason why he’s so valuable.

 

I don't think we would have traded for Sengun either. Allen at the 5 and Sengun at the 4 would have been interesting though. Tyty, JC and Garuba were terrible picks

 

There is no reason for DET to take on the Beal contract when they have Beasley, THJ, Ausar, Fontechio, Sasser to play that wing position.