Houston Rockets fans shouldn't panic over recent Suns upgrade

The Houston Rockets are counting on the Suns to fail.

That's what happens when a team owns such a sizeable share of another team's picks. The Rockets want the Suns to perform as poorly as possible. That way, they'll maximize their lottery odds without playing poorly enough to land in the lottery.

On Wednesday, those odds got a bit worse. The Suns made a trade, and it ought to make them a better team. They attached some second-round draft capital to Josh Okogie in exchange for big man Nick Richards.

Suns upgrade at Rockets' expense

It's difficult to compare Okogie and Richards directly. To begin with, Richards is a big man and Okogie is a wing. More importantly, Okogie was only seeing 14.0 minutes per game on a contending Suns roster, whereas Richards has been on the floor for 21.0 minutes a night for the Hornets.

Box Plus/Minus (BPM) suggests that this was a downgrade for the Suns. Okogie's mark of 0.5 is solid, whereas Richards' -1.9 leaves much to be desired.

This is one case where you shouldn't listen to BPM.

The Suns have been disappointing this year, but the Hornets have been one of the worst teams in the NBA. Only 4 Hornets (LaMelo Ball, Mark Williams, Miles Bridges, and Brandon Miller) have had positive BPMs in 2024-25.

Even Williams' robust 5.5 BPM should come with caveats. He's shared the floor with Ball for 272 possessions this year. Richards has benefited from his playmaking across just 68 possessions. With Williams so closely tethered to Ball, it's sensible that Richards' BPM would suffer.

Either way, it's not necessarily Okogie we should be comparing Richards to. He'll potentially be replacing Jusuf Nurkic in the Suns' starting lineup.

How do they compare?

Suns add talent at weak position

Once again, BPM paints Richards poorly. At 0.4, Nurkic has a significantly higher BPM.

Yet, he's one of 8 Suns with a neutral-to-positive (Grayson Allen is at 0.0) mark in that metric. The Suns are a better team than the Hornets, so their lineups perform better.

Talk about in-depth statistical analysis!

Time will tell how this shakes out. Richards is a better defender than Nurkic, and Nurkic is a better offensive player. It feels likely that Phoenix will opt to start Richards and let Nurkic feast on second units.

How concerned should Rockets fans be?

Richards barely moves the needle

The alert status here is somewhere between yellow and orange - closer to yellow.

It's not a huge deal.

Richards is a steady hand. The Suns needed him more than they needed Okogie. This deal makes them a better team.

How much better? That remains to be seen. This is a marginal upgrade. The Suns don't have enough assets to make a bigger move:

The Rockets have them, remember?