Why Rockets trade for Howard works

Interesting article from John Hollinger, who's pretty knowledgeable about salaries and how pieces fit. It's an ESPN Insider piece:

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story/_/page/howard_120702/nba-top-landing-spot-dwight-howard

For those that don't have Insider, he brings up 5 teams who want to trade for him - Houston, Brooklyn, Lakers, Dallas, and Golden State. He has the best deal for Howard being Houston. Here's his quote:

"Houston

The Rockets are looking at merely renting Howard for this season and hoping he'll re-sign afterward. It's a huge risk, mainly because any deal with Howard also is going to stick the Rockets with a bunch of bad contracts that might be on their books long after Howard is gone. But between New Jersey's cap situation and the fact Houston can offer the best deal if it has Howard's Bird Rights, it could be a worthwhile risk.

At first glance, it seemed as if Houston's offer sheet with Omer Asik might complicate matters by eliminating some of the Rockets' ability to soak up bad contracts from the Magic.

Actually, nothing of the sort. Thanks to the provision in the new CBA that trade dollars between teams need only be within 50 percent of each other, the best way to unload a bunch of money in a superstar trade now exists above the cap, not below it.

Houston wouldn't be taking bad Orlando contracts into cap space; it'd be taking them on and sending two-thirds of the dollar value back.

A workable deal can be had hinging on the expiring contracts of Kevin Martin and Kyle Lowry going to the Magic, as well as a flotilla of young assets to help the Magic rebuild.

Chief among them are the six first-round picks Houston has from the past three seasons: Patrick Patterson, Marcus Morris, Donatas Motiejunas, Jeremy Lamb, Terrence Jones, and Royce White.

Amazingly, the Rockets can trade all six of them, as well as last season's starting backcourt of Martin and Lowry, and still have a very strong team. They'd solidify the backcourt by re-signing Goran Dragic and Courtney Lee, starting Chandler Parsons and Luis Scola at forward, and having Howard at center with Asik backing him up.

The rest of the team would be built from the Magic's leftovers; for instance, if Houston included Patterson, Morris, Motiejunas and Jones, Orlando could conceivably dump Jason Richardson, Davis and Duhon on Houston along with Howard.

Doing that would leave Houston with a second unit of Duhon, Richardson, White, Lamb, Davis and Asik -- not too shabby -- and the Rockets still could fortify that with another guard via the under-cap midlevel exception. (Incidentally, it also would threaten to make Houston the first team in recorded history to sign a player with cap space and pay luxury tax in the same season.)

But what of a post-Howard nuclear winter? The Rockets would be capped out with a very average roster for a couple of seasons, but even that scenario presumes they couldn't work a sign-and-trade to get some assets back. At worst, they'd have one very good year with Howard and two bad ones after he left. It's a risk that seems worth taking."

 

I read that too - thing is right now if they choose to trade him he won't have a choice. I have no doubt they'll trade him rather than lose him for nothing.

 

You missed this part:

"The rest of the team would be built from the Magic's leftovers; for instance, if Houston included Patterson, Morris, Motiejunas and Jones, Orlando could conceivably dump Jason Richardson, Davis and Duhon on Houston along with Howard."