The Houston Rockets are among the many teams in the second tier of the NBA behind the Warriors that will by trying to upgrade their roster this summer in an attempt to catch up to the champs. The problem for the Rockets is that their roster is pretty much set for next season, with little cap space (approximately $11 million) and no first round draft picks.
So, for the Rockets to get significantly better this offseason, they’ll first have do some subtraction before they can do any addition to their roster equation. Houston has been rumored to be interested in the Paul George sweepstakes, and could dangle Eric Gordon out there as the potential centerpiece of that deal with picks around it, but there’s another, somewhat surprising, player that is on the market ahead of Thursday night’s draft.
According to Sean Deveney of Sporting News, the Rockets are actively shopping point guard Patrick Beverley in an effort to clear up some cap space and potentially acquire assets. Deveney reports that Beverley is open to a trade, and he should have plenty of interest on the market considering his cheap price tag at $5.5 million for next season and $5 million, non-guaranteed for 2018-19. That’s incredibly cheap for a defensive point guard the quality of Beverley, but also raises questions about how much cap relief the Rockets can really gain from moving him.
There’s of course the chance that Beverley is part of a package that would unload more salary, but just moving Beverley still doesn’t get Houston near max space. Moving the defensive minded point guard seems like a strange decision for a team with that as one of their glaring holes without him, but the Rockets must have a plan in place for this summer that involves that chunk of cash and the potential picks they could get for Beverley.
