After acquiring Chris Paul in a stunning blockbuster trade with the LA Clippers on Wednesday, can the Houston Rockets add Paul George too?
Rockets GM Daryl Morey is creative and tireless in his pursuit of star players, and the possibility of George leaving as an unrestricted free agent a year from now surely would not be enough to scare off Morey.
How would a George trade work? And could Houston offer enough to sell the Indiana Pacers? Let's take a look.
Non-guaranteed contracts help Rockets match salary
Not long after the Paul trade was first reported by The Vertical, Houston auspiciously began collecting non-guaranteed contracts from teams throughout the league. In all, the Rockets added five of them: Darrun Hilliard, Ryan Kelly, DeAndre Liggins, Shawn Long and Tim Quarterman.
Houston included two of those players (Hilliard and Liggins) in the Paul trade, along with their own non-guaranteed contract for Kyle Wiltjer, allowing the Rockets to make the move now before the new league year begins July 1. But Houston retained the other three, which could be crucial in a George trade.
Since the Rockets are staying over the cap and using exceptions, they'd have to match George's $19.5 million salary in a trade with the Pacers. That would mean sending out a minimum of $15.5 million.
Besides Paul and James Harden, Ryan Anderson is the only other Houston player with a sufficiently large salary to match George on his own, and Indiana probably wouldn't have much interest in the remaining $61 million and change on his contract. (ESPN's Zach Lowe reported Wednesday that the Rockets were unable to find a team to take Anderson's contract into space without getting any compensation from Houston in return.)
Enter the non-guaranteed contracts. The Rockets could send two of them along with Sixth Man Award winner Eric Gordon and make a cap-legal trade for George without needing to send any bad salary the Pacers' direction.
Now to convince Indiana to accept it.
The Capela problem
Besides Harden and Paul, Houston's most valuable trade chip is 23-year-old center Clint Capela, who emerged as a solid starter last season. And that presents a problem in a George trade because the Pacers would be building around their own center, Myles Turner.
It's possible Indiana believes Turner, 21, could play with Capela, given he started at power forward alongside Ian Mahinmi as a rookie before moving to center last season. More likely, if the Rockets were willing to include Capela in a George trade they'd have to recruit a third team to take him and send the Pacers draft picks or other young players.
Houston probably needs to include Capela, because otherwise the team's offer for George is badly limited. Gordon's contract, which has three years and $40.5 million remaining, looks reasonable after he enjoyed a career year in Mike D'Antoni's system. He'd also be going back to his hometown. Still, Gordon is 28, so he doesn't bring much upside to the Pacers.
Having traded their 2018 first-round pick to the Clippers in the Paul deal, the Rockets can't offer Indiana a first-rounder until at least 2020. (Technically, such a pick would have to come two years after the one sent to the Clippers conveys because it is top-three protected.) Given that Harden and Paul will probably still be in Houston then, the Pacers would probably have to project the Rockets' 2020 first-round pick coming at the end of the first round.
Perhaps a more distant unprotected first-round pick would hold more value to Indiana because of the possibility that Houston is rebuilding by then. But it would be hard to make a pick five or more years down the road the centerpiece of a trade for an All-Star, particularly given the Boston Celtics' ability to offer attractive draft picks within the next couple of years.
Rockets' best hope for George? Patience
Because Boston can make the best offer now, Houston should probably be hoping for the Pacers to hang on to George for the time being to try to make a run with him. If Indiana is on the fringes of the Eastern Conference playoffs around the trade deadline, the competition for George might not be as stiff.
It would be difficult for the Cleveland Cavaliers to pull off a three-team trade involving Kevin Love at midseason, and the Celtics might not want to mess with their chemistry for a likely rental. Even a relatively paltry Rockets offer could be the best the Pacers have on the table, because it doesn't include the bad salary they would have to take back from the Lakers.
Of course, the non-guaranteed contracts Houston acquired Wednesday would long since be off the books, perhaps used in another trade to add depth. But by the deadline, the Rockets could include other minimum-salary players signed before the season with little hit to Indiana's cap situation.
So while Houston adding both Paul and George this summer is a long shot, it could remain a possibility this winter.