Houston Rockets: A great trade to complement Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

The Houston Rockets need to tweak their roster in some way as they start their ascent. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will help. What’s the ultimate trade?

Houston Rockets fans — it’s late December and it’s amazing that we’re already starting to talk trade proposals this early into the season. It’s a testament to how things have gone for the Houston Rockets, an underwhelming feat to say the least.

As of late, they were able to reel off five wins in a row and climb back above the .500 mark for the first time since late November.

My, my, my, how the tables have turned. You know, it wasn’t supposed to be this way, this Houston Rockets team was supposed to come close to repeating their 65-win, historical feat from last season and it simply was just about them picking up where they left off.

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What this team is running into now is a situation where the offense still remains robust but they’ve forgotten how to remain steadfast on defense throughout, causing their efficiencies to begrudgingly tumble.

But instead, this season has been myriad of head-scratching, wondering if Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute making that much of a difference to the team’s success. That notion is debatable but we can only work with the situation that’s in front of us and those players are obviously no longer in Rockets Red.

Any way, the Houston Rockets have made it clear that they want to improve their performance on the guard front and have made acquiring Kentavious Caldwell-Pope a priority to trade for, with teams having the flexibility to trade players as early as last Saturday.

The trade deadline is Feb. 7 this season so there’s plenty of time but the Houston Rockets don’t have the luxury of sitting on their laurels if they want to make something of this season.

With that being said, I have the ultimate, yet even three-way trade proposal that will get all parties talking about players that they can part with and acquire.

As you probably know, Caldwell-Pope has the power to veto any trade but he’d lose his Bird rights if he were approve a pact to another destination. In Caldwell-Pope’s one-year, $12 million deal, he has a 15 percent trade kicker to help soften the blow of the possible dollars he’d lose if he didn’t remain with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Bird rights are designed for players that are tenured with any given team the right to maximize their dollars by not having their salary count against the cap and it comes in handy for players seeking the maximum amount of money allowable under the current collective bargaining agreement.

It’s foolhardy to denote Caldwell-Pope as a max player but it’s important for me outline what he stands to lose if he decides to agree to a trade to any given team.

But here’s what Daryl Morey should do.

He needs to get Magic Johnson, Rob Pelinka and Vlade Divac to discuss a three-way trade that I think will help all involved. Yes, the Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings will need to get into cahoots with each other.

Here’s what needs to go down:

The Houston Rockets need to package Carmelo Anthony ($1.5M), Brandon Knight ($14.6M) and their 2019 first-round pick for Caldwell-Pope. To also help fulfill some of the Rockets‘ needs for a wing, Justin Jackson ($2.8M) would also be acquired from the Kings and the Lakers’ Michael Beasley ($3.5M) being shipped to the Kings to make things whole. The Rockets would then ship their 2021 first-rounder to the Kings to help soften the blow of losing Jackson.

I’m thoroughly convinced that if anybody were to take on the salaries/baggage that comes along with Melo and Knight, that a draft pick would have to be attached. I’m okay with this because this window is starting to slowly close and they must win now while the opportunity is there.

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Jackson just inked a four-year, $13.5 million deal last season that’s on par with 120 percent of the rookie scale so he’ll make $2.8 million this season, $3.3 million in 2019-20 with a $5.02 million team option for 2020-21.

It’s going to take a lot of convincing for Morey to land the sharp-shooting 6-foot-8, 210-pound small forward in Jackson as the Kings have made a modest investment but I think his style of play fits what the Rockets do. The former first-round pick from 2017’s shooting line is .451/.367/.731 through 30 games this season — three starts — while averaging 6.9 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.4 assists. His defensive rating is a decent 115 per 100 possessions which is right on par with the rest of the Rockets‘ roster.

If this deal were to get done, the Rockets would be able to address two things that are badly needed — addressing the depth of the guard position with Caldwell-Pope as well as another wing in Jackson who could defend adequately and has plenty of upside.

Will it actually happen? That remains to be seen and who knows where the Rockets storylines end up once things get closer to the deadline.

Until then, let’s sit back and watch these Rockets hopefully climb back into the Western Conference standings.

Next. How Kentavious Caldwell-Pope fits with the Rockets. dark

Caldwell-Pope, 25, is averaging 9.1 points, 2.5 rebounds and 0.9 assists along with a .407/.349/.905 shooting line through 31 games — three starts — in 2018-19.

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