Houston Rockets Trade Rumors: Make A Play For Rudy Gay?

The Houston Rockets are just a little over two weeks past the red-letter date of Dec. 15.

What is that date you may ask?

The date that NBA teams are able to start making trades between one another.

As we know, for the most part, nothing interesting usually happens until right at the trade deadline.

What’s the deadline for this season?

Thank you for asking!

For the 2016-17 season, the NBA trade deadline will be Thursday, Feb. 23 at 2 p.m. CST.

That’s a lot of time between now/then and I’m sure there will be some happenings going on.

Now keep in mind that it may be slightly muted this season because of the ridiculous amount of movement that occurred in free agency this past summer.

This was because of the NBA’s unwavering popularity and their escalating salary cap.

A lot of players signed long-term deals making them harder to move but there are some how are still on palatable contracts that were signed before the league received their huge windfall of cash.

There is even one player that’s connected with the Houston Rockets.

Who am I talking about?

I’m talking about Rudy Gay.

Adrian Wojnarowski of the Vertical discussed earlier this month on his frequent podcast potential landing spots for the forward with long-time, former NBA executive Bobby Marks.

And yes, the Houston Rockets were mentioned as a team that would like to enlist in his services.

Gay doesn’t seem quite happy in the situation he’s in despite the Sacramento Kings take part in better basketball and are just four games below .500.

If the playoffs started today, they’d certainly qualify as the 8th seed.

Here’s what Gay told Sactown Royalty of SB Nation back in July:

"“I don’t know,” Gay replied when he was asked about new head coach Dave Joerger and the Kings’ roster. “Honestly, I haven’t paid attention. I don’t even know who our new players are to be honest with you. I’ve just been focused on trying to be healthy and trying to get in shape and get ready for the season, wherever that might be.”"

That’s not a ringing endorsement in regard to he likely signing a long-term deal with Kings.

The advantage to snatching up Gay is that he’s on the second-to-last leg of his three-year, $40 million deal.

This season, he will earn $13.3 million and has a $14.3 million player option for 2017-18.

Because of the rising cap as I mentioned earlier, it would extremely beneficial for Gay to opt-out in July to see if he can snag a deal that will pay him more under the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement that was just inked recently.

If the Houston Rockets were to pull off such a trade, it’d be strictly a rental with Daryl Morey’s hopes pinned on re-signing him next season.

So here’s the most important question.

Who would we give up for him?

Obviously, Corey Brewer would be on the block with his salary of $7.6 million and I’d also include K.J. McDaniels ($3.3M) as well as our 2017 first-round pick to make this deal work.

I’d expect that the salary for our first-rounder this season will be on the lower-end — around $1 million — if the Rockets continue their torrid winning pace.

Even if that’s not enough, I’d also dangle the Rockets’ 2018 second-round pick to get the needle moving as well.

Should Trevor Ariza ($7.8M) be considered in place of Brewer in the deal?

Absolutely.

Our draft picks are going to be the key to this deal as we don’t have much assets that we can move and I personally wouldn’t want break up our budding nucleus.

Next: THREE Options To Fill Clint Capela's Void

Lest we not forget that the Rockets did draft Gay in 2006 — one of former GM Carroll Dawson’s last moves — but we traded him away along with Stromile Swift to the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for Shane Battier.

As much as I love Battier as a player and as a person, I’d have to criticize this move considering how successful of a career Gay had in the Music City.

Nonetheless, Gay is special player with explosive offensive talent and is highly-underrated for his defense.

He’d fit in nicely with this bunch — with the exception of his three-point shooting — but it remains to be seen if something like this will ever happen.

We’ll have to see as the Orlando Magic, Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder have also been infatuated with him as well.

Gay, 30, is averaging 18.5 points/6.3 rebounds while shooting 45.5 percent from the field, 34.5 percent from behind-the-arc and 84.7 percent from the charity stripe through 24 games this season.

Go Rockets.

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