How can the Houston Rockets trade Ryan Anderson?

The Rockets are officially looking to trade Ryno once again. How can they make this deal happen?

As we wrote about earlier today, the Rockets are looking for partners to take on the salary of Ryan Anderson. It will certainly not be easy to do, as he signed a 4-year, $80 million salary back in 2016.

While he certainly did not impress after returning from injury, Ryno certainly didn’t have as bad of a year as people may believe. He still shot nearly 39% from 3-point land and improved his rebounding from last season.

Is he worth $20 million? Heck no. But, with some incentives, will some team be willing to take his contract? We can hope so.

Let’s discuss a couple of ways this can be done:

Adding in a player

To clear space in order to land a big free agent, the Rockets will need to trade multiple assets on their squad from last season. If one of these players could be packaged with Ryno, maybe the deal would be a bit sweeter for the team.

The likely culprit is long-time Anderson teammate Eric Gordon. These two have played with each other quite awhile dating back to New Orleans and could see themselves traded out of Houston together. EG is coming off a great season and playoffs and his value is high.

Another candidate could be P.J. Tucker. This one would sting a bit after how well he played in the postseason, but if it means getting a LeBron James or a Paul George, then you certainly must do it.

Throwing in draft picks

The Rockets have multiple first round picks that they can use to incentivize another team into a deal. For a rebuilding team with a bunch of cap space, these draft picks could be huge for their future.

Let’s switch sports for a second. In the NFL, the Cleveland Browns, a rebuilding team, took the horrendous contract of the Texans’ Brock Osweiler, mostly because they had the money to do so and they wanted the draft picks that were attached.

While the NFL and NBA are obviously very different, hopefully, the same motives can apply.

Combination

It will likely take a combination of these two circumstances to get Ryno’s contract out of Houston. Most teams, even rebuilding ones with space, don’t want that much cap space taken up by one underperforming player.

Another scenario could be a three-team deal like what was rumored last summer. That never came into fruition, but maybe it could in the summer of 2018.

Next: The Rockets are exploring the trade market for Ryan Anderson

We just gotta trust in the Morey and the front office to get us out of this situation. Hopefully, it is resolved soon.