Houston Rockets: Team might have a trade partner for Ryan Anderson

The Houston Rockets have been reportedly trying to unload Ryan Anderson’s contract for quite some time now and it appears there’s a trade partner in the works. Let’s look.

Houston Rockets fans — this team has worked diligently in the off season to try to put together a contending team that can hopefully duplicate the success that they had last season. It won’t happen — that team was special — but there’s no reason why the mark that they hit is close to what was eked out in 2017-18.

As you know, Clint Capela has yet to be signed and Carmelo Anthony continues to dominate the rumors with the Houston Rockets being his final landing spot. Luckily, the team does not have to worry about the cap with Capela because whatever deal he takes — whether it’s from another team or elsewhere — it doesn’t necessarily count toward the cap limits.

But adding Melo would and he’s probably going to cost a pretty penny to add, if it’s a one-year deal or possibly a few more seasons attached. This is all contingent on if he’s bought out from Oklahoma City Thunder — which is likely — because the team has yet to find a trade partner for him, including the Houston Rockets.

But there’s some rumblings from Bryan Kalbrosky of HoopsHype indicating that there may be a new trade partner for Ryan Anderson in the works.

Who is that you may say? The Sacramento Kings. This is not too surprising of a potential move because the Kings are always a great partner to deal with salary dumps and players to use them as a negotiating tool to leverage more money. Most players have no intentions with Sacramento but usually their gobs of cap space invoke teams to give players what they want.

Remember when Patrick Beverley was offered a significant amount of money from the Kings back in the 2015 off season to only use that to ink his current four-year, $23 million deal? Leveraging with the Kings can work and they can also help us unload Ryno, to where they have the patience to absorb his contract and inherit his three-point marksmanship.

Any trade involving Anderson will have to include some draft picks as the Kings are looking to

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rebuild — aren’t they always? — into hopefully the contending team they were throughout the aughts.

They won’t be able to trade their 2019 first-rounder because of the Ted Stepien rule which prevents teams from trading picks in consecutive years but they can certainly deal any picks in the future.

The team has already dealt their 2019 second-rounder to the New York Knicks in the Pablo Prigioni/Alexey Shved deal way back when so that’s not going to be available. Those are two names I haven’t recited in awhile. My, have things changed for the Rockets!

But all of their picks 2020 and beyond are up for sale and I’d listen and offer whatever the Kings are looking for that’s reasonable to unload this albatross of a contract.

This also certainly signals that Melo is not willing to take a cheap contract if he joins the Rockets and that he wants to be paid close to what his $27.9 million player option is for 2018-19 if a buyout were executed. However, depending on what his buyout could be for, at least the Rockets would only have to worry about calculating what they pay him based on what the Thunder have agreed to buy him out for, likely with the stretch provision.

Anderson is owed $40 million over the next two seasons before becoming a free agent in 2020 so the Rockets will have to make a significant offer on their end — to which they will — to ensure that the absorption of his pact is worthwhile.

We’ll have to see how this pans out but I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Next: The THREE biggest mistakes the Rockets have made this off season

Anderson, 30, averaged 9.3 points and 5.0 rebounds with a shooting line of .431/.386/.774 through 66 games — 50 starts — in 2017-18.

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