Rockets Tried to Keep Dillon Brooks Out of Kevin Durant Trade with Suns

Trade season is here. Well, it's been here, really since December 15th, for the Houston Rockets.

That's when they were first able to part with players signed (or resigned) last summer. It's mainly the latter, for the Rockets, as the list of players they doled out deals to last offseason is rather lengthy.

Aaron Holiday, Jae’Sean Tate, Clint Capela, Steven Adams, Jeff Green, Dorian Finney-Smith and Fred VanVleet.

Seemingly everyone except Tari Eason and Alperen Sengun.

Many of those players won't be traded. Most of those players, actually.

Even though the Rockets have reportedly been canvassing the league, while engaging in discussions with half of the teams, at least according to Kelly Iko of Yahoo Sports.

Iko stated that Eason, Finney-Smith and Capela have garnered a significant amount of interest around the league.

No deal Houston makes (or would make) would be bigger than the deal they already made.

Same holds true across the league, outside of any deal involving Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, which is unlikely.

(Although the Rockets are viewed as a dark horse team to acquire him).

In case you haven't figured it out, the deal being referenced is the one that brought Kevin Durant to Houston (along with Clint Capela).

Houston traded five second-round picks, the 10th pick in the 2025 NBA Draft (which was used on Khaman Maluach), Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks.

For the current seventh-leading scorer in NBA history.

As it turns out, the Rockets tried to keep Brooks out of the deal. Brooks said it himself.

"[Stone] was telling me the whole time that they didn't want to have my name in it," Brooks said. "They wanted to keep me to build more and more to that franchise. But overall, when you got a guy like Kevin Durant, you cannot pass up on it. And they're doing well. They haven't fell off -- like Memphis did."

Brooks' $21 million salary was essentially needed to complete the trade. The NBA is a salary cap league.

The salaries have to match.

The Rockets could definitely use Brooks right now. And this season.

He's a tenacious defender, who isn't afraid of anyone. And he became a near 40 percent 3-point shooter for the Rockets (39.7 percent to be exact on 6.3 attempts).

And he's leveled up this season, averaging a career-best 21.1 points, 3.3 rebounds, 1.7 assists, a career-best 45.1 percent from the field and 34.5 percent from deep.

The Suns are 24-17 and seventh in the West, in large part because of Brooks.