For 18 months, the Houston Rockets have been trying to unload the bloated contract of trade Ryan Anderson — who has two years, $41.7 million left on his deal — but could find no takers. Teams wanted multiple first-round picks and other sweeteners that were just too steep a price for Houston.
The Rockets finally found a trade partner in the Phoenix Suns, but it came at a steep price — promising rookie De’Anthony Melton. Of course, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN never sleeps and broke the story.
Houston has traded Ryan Anderson and De'Anthony Melton to Phoenix for Marquese Chriss and Brandon Knight, league source tells ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 31, 2018
Anderson will be the Suns starting power forward, and front office will continue to pursue trade scenarios to bring on a starting-caliber point guard before start of season. https://t.co/uLs5TT7IqU
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 31, 2018
For Houston, they unload a salary they desperately wanted out from under in Anderson, a player who can hit threes but was basically unplayable in the postseason because of his defense. This is part of Houston’s money-saving summer (letting Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah-a-Moute go), the Rockets were $20.4 million over the tax line before this trade and will save about $11.4 million in salary/tax because of it. In return, they get a potential backup point guard in Brandon Knight who — if back to form after a torn ACL, something still up for debate — can give them solid minutes behind Chris Paul, or at least better ones than Michael Carter-Williams. Marquese Chriss is long and athletic and could fit in an uptempo style, it’s just hard to imagine him getting many opportunities on the deep Rockets roster.
For taking on an additional $5.6 million a year in salary, Phoenix gets a guy who will start at the four for them (splitting time with Josh Jackson) and a promising rookie in Melton, a player who sat out this college season because he was in the middle of the NCAA/FBI recruiting scandal. With that, Melton fell to 46th in the draft but at Summer League stood out as one of the rookies with real potential, averaging 16.4 points and 7.2 rebounds a game, he played good defense and showed potential as a three-point shooter. It’s just Summer League, and Melton has a lot of development to do, he could well spend time in the G-League this season, but it’s a good roll of the dice by the Suns (plus they get off two contracts/players they wanted away from). One can envision the 6'4" Melton and Suns star Devin Booker as a quality backcourt someday.
However, it means the Suns are going all in on Booker as the team’s primary playmaker and ball handler if they cannot find another point guard. That has had mixed results (at best) in the past, he’s really a two guard who can handle the ball at times, but we’ll see if the Rockets can find their point guard.