How Brandon Knight fits with the Houston Rockets

The Houston Rockets got more than just a salary dump in a trade with the Suns, because Brandon Knight is a legitimate play maker and scorer.

After over a year’s worth of effort, the Houston Rockets finally found a team willing to take Ryan Anderson in a trade. On Thursday evening, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski announced that the Rockets sent Ryan Anderson and De’Anthony Melton to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss.

Anderson agreed to reduce his salary from nearly $21 million to $15.6 million, matching Knight’s salary for the 2018-19 season, in order to complete the trade, according to Woj.

Speaking of Brandon Knight, he could fit in very well with Houston. He can play either guard position, he’s a solid 3-point shooter and he is a playmaker. Unfortunately, Knight missed the last 25 games of the 2016-17 season and then he tore his ACL in the summer of 2017, forcing him to miss the entire 2017-18 season.

Knight has missed about a season and a half of basketball, so the Rockets took a big risk to acquire a player that hasn’t played an NBA game in so long. Although, Knight is just 26 years old, so he should be able to bounce back well from an ACL injury.

Knight also had the worst year of his career in the 2016-17 season. Devin Booker‘s presence sent Knight to the second unit, and his minutes and points averages took a sharp dive. However, Knight still has career averages of 15.2 points, 4.3 assists and he has shot 35.7 percent from 3-point range.

If Knight does get his career back on track, it’ll be a huge win for Houston. He’ll fit in well playing beside Chris Paul or James Harden as a spot up shooter or secondary ball-handler. At best, he could receive 15-20 minutes a game and average double-digit points and a few assists, which would make Houston very deep at guard. At worst, he will act as injury insurance and won’t get much playing time unless one of Harden, Paul or Eric Gordon is out.

In the 2015-16 season, Knight averaged 19.6 points and was clearly the second best player on the Suns. He won’t get enough looks on a deep Rockets team to put up those kind of scoring totals, but clearly Knight can fill it up when given the green light.

When healthy, Knight is good enough to play meaningful minutes on any NBA team. But he is injury prone. Knight played just 52 games in the 2015-16 season and 54 games in the 2016-17 season before missing the entirety of last season.

It’s hard to say how Knight will perform in a Rockets jersey, because its been so long since we’ve seen him on the court. We’ll see if Knight has the potential to get his career back on track when the preseason starts. Until then, he’s a high-ceiling, low floor type of player.