Reports came out Tuesday indicating that the Houston Rockets had Patrick Beverley on the trade block. That in and of itself wasn’t necessarily a surprise.
Though, there’s a whole lot more to those rumors than Houston potentially shipping off the defensive stud.
Houston is now looking at also flipping both Lou Williams and Ryan Anderson in efforts to land a top-end free agent this summer.
Free Agency Scuttle: Houston is making Ryan Anderson/Lou Williams/Patrick Beverley available via trade to create summer spending flexibility
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 21, 2017
Trading those three key assets would be more about freeing up cap space in order to go big in free agency.
Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Paul Millsap and Kyle Lowry … four free agents Houston, according to league sources, plans to pursue in July,
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 21, 2017
To be clear here, Houston has already been linked to Chris Paul. It will join the likes of the San Antonio Spurs in pursuit of the All-Star point guard.
The goal here for the Rockets is rather simple. As currently constructed, they cannot compete with the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference. Sure James Harden is a franchise player, but the rest of the roster doesn’t add up.
Going after Paul is interesting in that Mike D’antoni moved Harden to point guard in his fast-paced offense. It would indicate a move back to the two-guard for the MVP candidate.
If Houston is able to move Beverley, Williams and Anderson without taking guaranteed contracts back, it would then have nearly $40 million more in cap room than it currrently possesses.