Houston Rockets: After Capela deal, offloading Anderson will be the cherry on top

The Houston Rockets have officially re-signed Clint Capela to a five year, $90 million deal. Offloading Ryan Anderson is the next move to make that will be the cherry on top of this offseason.

The move that we’ve all been waiting for has officially happened. The Houston Rockets and Clint Capela have finally agreed to terms to a deal. After being far apart on a deal for nearly a month, the two sides settled in on a five year, $90 million deal.

This deal averages $18 million a season but, the initial salary is lower than that. He’ll earn $15.5 million this coming season. His salary then blooms until it reaches over $20 million in the 2022-23 season, the last year on the deal.

This guarantees that the Houston Rockets will have the core three of Capela, Chris Paul, and James Harden for a very, very long time. Earlier this month, the Rockets extended Paul for four more years meaning he’ll likely end his career in Rockets uniform. Harden is signed through 2023 on a supermax deal that has him in Houston until he is 32. This core three will guide the team to the playoffs for a long, long time.

Once the team officially adds Carmelo Anthony, this offseason will have turned into a pretty good one. Sure, there were superstar aspirations but, how realistic where those hopes to begin with? Retaining Paul and Capela were, rightfully so, at the top of the Rockets priority list.

The Houston Rockets have recovered quite nicely from losing Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute. James Ennis will provide a similar 3-and-D presence off of the bench that LMM did. Melo will mitigate any offensive loss plus some.

However, there is one more move to turn this offseason from good to great. That move would be offloading Ryan Anderson’s contract. The Rockets, reportedly, have an interested trade partner that could be willing and able to absorb Anderson’s money without giving the Rockets any back.

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That team would be the Kings. Unfortunately, the Kings just spent some of that money when they coaxed Nemanja Bjelica back from Europe. But, the Kings could still be interested in taking this deal. Or, another team could swoop in and rescue the Rockets if the deal sweeteners were nice enough.

It will definitely take some serious assets to offload the albatross that is Anderson’s contract. The Rockets can’t trade their 2019 first round pick so, the 2020 first round pick will have to do. Likely, the team uses it and maybe some second that are both fairly unprotected to get a team to take on this deal.

If the Houston Rockets can find a trade partner before the start of the season, it will be the cherry on top of this offseason. Anderson is eating up entirely too much money, salary and luxury tax, to not play meaningful minutes for this squad.

His departure will open up the opportunity for other guys to get more minutes. Other guys on this team like Melo, Ennis, and maybe even Zhou Qi and the newly signed Isaiah Hartenstein will need minutes for this team to be successful.

If they can pull this off, this offseason will be a great success. I’m sure Daryl Morey is looking for more and more ways to improve this team. There is no downside to departing ways with Anderson. So, yeah, trading him away will be the cherry on top of this already good offseason.