Rockets Projected to Stand Pat, Avoid Temptations of Trade Market

Since taking over as Houston Rockets General Manager, Rafael Stone has mostly compiled a stellar track record. He's earned the respect of his peers.

And he's generally earned the respect of Rockets fans. At least he should have, by now.

Stone has mostly hit on all of his draft picks. Mostly.

There have been misses. There always are, as the draft is a crapshoot. Josh Christopher, TyTy Washington, Usman Garuba.

Hence the word mostly.

His vision for roster building shouldn't be questioned, however.

Although the Rockets desperately sought a superstar who could consistently close games for years, they never overplayed their hand or mortgaged their future to land such player.

And ultimately they didn't have to, thanks to the Phoenix Suns' self-implosion. The Suns, who ultimately took the exact opposite approach as the Rockets, as it pertains to roster building, became superstar desperate and compiled a trio of Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant, not realizing the need for a viable point guard to help create and facilitate for such dynamic scorers.

The result was an 85-79 record over two years, with no semblance of postseason success. The one year they did make the postseason resulted in a first round sweep and....again, they only made the postseason once, despite going all-in on superstar-level talent.

The Rockets benefited from the disastrous experiment, nabbing Kevin Durant for a deal composed of Dillon Brooks, Jalen Green, five second-round draft picks and just one lottery draft pick (which was the only first-round pick sent out).

After acquiring Durant, the franchise agreed to a contract extension with the future Hall of Famer.

However, they too, have a somewhat similar conundrum as those Suns. Now, after Fred VanVleet’s fateful knee injury prior to the preseason.

They need a point guard, now.

Zach Harper of The Athletic expects the Rockets to resist the urge to explore the trade market this trade season.

Harper explained.

"Because of the Fred VanVleet injury and good play from Aaron Holiday and Reed Sheppard in his stead, Houston doesn’t really need to make any moves. Plus, the Rockets are hard-capped at the first apron, which is $1.2 million away. Just let Kevin Durant and this top-ranked offense go to work and see how it looks in the playoffs."

The Rockets are hard-capped but they could create about $12.3 million in salary by moving both Tari Eason and Clint Capela (although trading Eason isn't advisable, based on his play this season). They could also technically part with Dorian Finney-Smith and create $12.7 million (although they wouldn't do that without seeing him even take the court).

Their easiest path to adding a big-name player is to trade Fred VanVleet's $25 million, but that's also not easy because he'd have to sign off on such a deal, due to his implied no-trade clause.

Based on their limitations, staying pat is probably the best path.