Why The Houston Rockets Hold All the Cards in a Kevin Durant Trade

Why The Houston Rockets Hold All the Cards in a Kevin Durant Trade

jabari for three and the win yeah he got it we are here in the field of rocks news this is Rockfield podcast of course I am your host Benula i’m a credential reporter covering the Houston Rockers and Real Grand Valley Vipers you can always find my reading work over at Rockers on their side which is part of Sports Illustrated and of course you can always find me on Twitter XBinkley Hoops and of course I know it’s been a long time since we talked um it’s been a slow burn up to this point for the Houston Rockets as the NBA season is coming to a conclusion here pretty soon with Indiana and Oklahoma City fighting it out with the Patience up surprisingly 2-1 over the Oklahoma City Thunder a lot of teams are still patiently waiting for the finals to before this upcoming draft um I think a lot of the moves that will be made will be made after that point or at least right before that point and of course today I really want to talk about the Kevin Durant rumors with Giannis Andrew Koopo kind of reports come out stating that he may be committing to the Milwaukee Bucks so he may actually be off the market here pretty soon um so a lot of attention is going to switch to Kevin Durant and of course the Rockets having the future draft picks that they have and all the young players that they have um and making the playoffs last year they are a very attractive team that’s why they’ve been mentioning a lot of the uh trade rumors recently and actually we been hearing a lot of stuff coming out from a lot of different sources and the latest is that uh out of Phoenix uh radio station out of Phoenix 98.7 is stating that they believe that Kevin Durant will be traded um by next week or possibly even earlier and also reports have been saying the last couple days that the Rockets and Spurs are the preferred destination uh for Kevin Durant of course we’ve been hearing a lot of Rockets and Durant uh talk for like the last year considering the Rockets have Phoenix picks this year which is number 10 pick and they have that pick in 2027 and 2029 as well and and with Phoenix struggling like they did last season they’re trying to switch their focus from win now to win later and to do that you have to be able to get young players and draft picks in any type of trade especially when you trade away a player like Kevin Durant what I want to talk about today is um a couple of trades that I absolutely would not do if I’m the Houston Rockets and a trade that would be ideal if you could do it but I don’t know necessarily know if that’s going to happen um first let’s go ahead and just definitely start with the trades that I think the Rockets are absolutely absolutely not do i’m starting to see more and more chatter that um Rockets could possibly offer jaylen Green Jabari Smith the number 10 pick and possibly even a number another one of Phoenix’s pick and if I’m the Houston Rockets there’s no way I do that and there’s a reason why I’ve been saying on Twitter for a while is Phoenix is a desperate team in this situation the Houston Rockets are the team that won 52 games last year that were second in the West they have several players under 23 years old that are in their rotation and they have Phoenix’s picks so if you’re the rocks in the situation you have no reason to try to outbid other teams because ultimately you can easily just say to yourself okay you want this much from us we’re not willing to give you that we can just stay pat and focus on bringing in more depth to our team for instance bringing in another point guard to take some of that burden off off of Fred Vanley who I do believe will be back uh next season on a different deal extended deal probably well it’ll definitely be less money and it’ll be over a two or three year period um bringing a backup point guard bringing in another shooter um that like play like a Luke Canar somebody that is a knockdown shooter that you can depend on especially when you get in those tougher games towards the regular season especially in the playoffs the Rocks can easily stay pat and go that direction they don’t have to make a trade it’s not like they’re a team that finished ninth or 10th like San Antonio Spurs uh who finished outside the playoffs and they are desperate to make a move because they feel like the only way they can get into the playoff contention is by making a move the Rockets don’t have to do that because we saw last year with the roster that they have they were already one of the better teams in the NBA and one win away from going to the second round who knows what would happen after that um and the Rockies young players are just going to get better despite what you say about Jaylen Green and players like that they will get better um it just depends on how much better they will get coming into this next season so if you’re the Rockets the Phoenix Suns are the desperate team so why would you give them Jaylen Green Jabari and their 10th pick or even multiple picks to me that would be insane to even do that because again you don’t have to make a major trade this off season i’ve also seen some um some um trades going out saying that the Rocks could give up um maybe Jaylen and Tari Een um because remember Jaylen Green’s contract is going to increase in July his new contract is going to kick in he’s going to be making $30 million in July right now he’s only making 12 million so even if they did make a trade it would basically have to be a handshake trade at this point because Rockets have to wait till July before that actually kicked in when the new NBA season kicks in um but even though I would be hesitant to even give up Jaylen I would absolutely not want to give up a player like Jabari i just think Jabari is such a key i think he’s an underrated player on this team he fits any lineup that you want to do if you Jabari fits any lineup that you want to go with you want to go with a bigger lineup you can have Jabar at the small forward position which we saw last year uh you want a small ball lineer Jabari can play the center position which we saw a little bit last year a lot more the year before if you want to go with traditional live Jabari of course can play power forward which he’s played her entire career and if you’re making any type of trades where you’re trading away multiple players guess what you’re going to have to still have players that can be versatile and play multiple positions and to me that player is Jabari and can you imagine the line with Jabari and Kevin Durant where Jabari is playing small ball five and then Kevin Durant is playing power forward in like short stance i mean that would be a great situation because you’ll be able to spread the floor with your big man give room give more room to players like Amen Thompson to be able to operate that would be a great lineup so for me Jaylen and Jabari and a number 10 pick is just way too much to give for Kevin Durant and don’t get me wrong Kevin Durant is the top 75 player all time future Hall of Famer we saw him in games against the Rockies he can still get buckets he can still go out there and give you 30 points and still pull down 67 rebound great player still but he is 36 he will be 37 next season he has multiple injuries he has dealt with the last few season we saw his season end last year with an ankle injury um you have to keep all that in mind when you’re bringing in a player like Kevin Durant it’s great as he is um if you do bring him on any kind of deal you have to get some insurance that you’re going to be able to sign him beyond the one year because his contract is up after next season so it’s another thing that you have to factor in so to me a trade of Jaylen and Jabari just way too much if if you’re asking me um now one other trade that I would possibly actually make is if you’re saying “Okay we’ll give you Dylan Brooks plus some um other contract fillers and possibly one or two of your of of your picks that we actually that the Rocket Rockets actually have.” And the reason why I say that is is even though Deon Bur had his best shooting season from three-point range in his entire career last year reached out over 39% close to 40% you can have Amed Thompson slide down to that small forward spot and yes you will lose some shooting of course with Amed Thompson compared to Dylan Brooks but you’re bringing in Kevin Durant and Kevin Durant as good as Dylan Brooks shooting was last year he’ll never be as good as Kevin Durant that’s not any slight against Dylan Brooks because we’re talking about Kevin Durant one of the greatest shooters of all time that something like that makes a lot more sense now of course you would have to add multiple players cuz Dylan Brooks is only making around 20ome million dollars a year uh over the next couple seasons so you would definitely have to add in some contract fillers to get to Kevin Durant’s salary um which he’s making around um if I’m not mistaken around $45$50 million a year next season um you would have to work out to where you possibly would have to give up another player of course you still have players like Jock Landell who’s still under contract um you possibly would have to give up um someone else that maybe you don’t want to give up to be able to fill that position but a a trade center around Dylan Brooks uh to me would probably make more sense because like I said Almond Thompson kind of slide down into that position and then you won’t be losing anything on the defensive end court because our man took over as a Rocky’s best defender last season and then Kevin Durant will make up for any shooting plus that you’ll be losing from uh trading play Dylan Brooks of course that would be ideal another trade would also be uh resigning Fred Van Lee or picking up his option and trading him to Phoenix the only problem with those two trades is Phoenix is probably going to want another young player in the trade because they’re looking for young players and draft picks but if you’re the Houston Rocket you talk to him you say “Hey we’re still giving you back your picks that’s better than um what you would get from any other team that doesn’t have your picks.” Uh even if you talk about trading with San Antonio Spurs um who’s to say what those picks are even going to mean for you because they’re not your picks the Rockets actually have your picks um that’s what I would say if I’m talking to the Phoenix Suns so that’s why I think the Rocks is such a attractive trade partner in this whole situation is because they have Phoenix Suns picks which was like a master stroke kind of by Rafael Stone at the time a lot of people didn’t like it because they were like “Why are you trading Brooklyn picks to pick up uh Phoenix Suns picks when Phoenix Suns had three you know former allstars and we saw ultimately it blew up exactly what I’m sure Rafael Stone was hoping for and it turned out to be a great move by Rafael Stone um but ultimately I’ll end it with this that again the Rockets are not the desperate team in this entire situation they are the ones with the young players on the rise they are the ones that won 52 games last season they are the ones that have Phoenix’s pick so if you’re the Houston Rockets there’s no reason why you should give Phoenix Suns anything they want phoenix Suns should be the ones that make all the concessions in any type of trade and if they don’t want to make those concessions then you look at them you say “Hey thank you for taking out the time.” Um but you know good luck to you and then if you’re the Rockies you move on because there’s a lot more avenues for the Rockies to get to get even better next year compared to for the Phoenix Suns so again if you’re the Rockets you kind of stay back you make them I won’t say a low ball offer but you definitely don’t give them everything that they want in any trade to me if you’re giving them Jaylen plus a Jabari or Tari E that’s just way too much um in any trade scenario if you ask me um but we’ll see how this plays out as we get closer and closer to the draft of course the draft is the end of June um if we get any breaking news on Kevin Durant beforehand we will definitely break in and you know as just you know we get closer to the draft and free agency I’ll start to have a lot more shows and um definitely bring you all the latest news uh when it comes to that so again I appreciate your support u if you’re not subscribed definitely subscribe i know it’s been a slow period up until this point the last few weeks but it’s definitely going to start to pick back up so if you’re not subscribed to the channel definitely subscribe to all the subscribers already thank you for supporting the channel as usual appreciate all the support and make sure you check out the next episode of Rocket Fuel Podcast [Music]

Here is why the Houston Rockets hold all the cards in any trade with the Suns. The Suns are the desperate team, not the Rockets.

Follow us on:
Twitter: @RocketFuelPod: @BinkleyHoops @Vator_H_Town
Apple Podcast:
https://apple.co/46aZMfJ
Spotify Podcast:

#nba #jalengreen #kevindurant #houstonrockets #rockets #alperensengun