Rockets: 3 Reasons Lakers' Prince's shade at Dillon Brooks crosses the line

2. Brooks possesses an expensive skillset

One of the more coveted skillsets in the NBA over the last decade has been 3-and-D players. Every team wants players with the ability to anchor down on defense and shoot threes at a high clip.

Granted, Brooks' 3-point shooting is inconsistent (to put it politely), but he did shoot at or above 36 percent from deep in each of his first three seasons in the league. But even if he wasn't capable of shooting, he's legitimately elite on defense.

We're talking about an All-NBA wing defender. That's a highly coveted skillset. Which is why he had multiple teams interested in his services.

In fact, Taurean Prince's own Los Angeles Lakers were reportedly lining up a visit with Brooks, in addition to the Dallas Mavericks. These are two contending teams with generational talents.

Let's not kid ourselves here and pretend that he doesn't bring anything to the table. And especially not on the defensive end. Again, he was just named to one of the league's All-Defensive teams. That's nothing to laugh at.

The Rockets could have easily lost out on Brooks if they weren't willing to overpay, as he could have quite well landed the mid-level exception and walked away with four years and $50+ million.

As Salman Ali of Red Nation Hoops pointed out, Brooks' annual figure on this contract will be less than the following players (who don't perform nearly as well on the defensive end):
-Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins ($27.3 million)
-New York Knicks forward R.J. Barrett ($26.8 million)
-Atlanta Hawks forward De'Andre Hunter ($22.5 million)

Is Prince going to throw shade at them too? Perhaps he should.