Houston Rockets: 5 Best and Worst Trades in Team History

Every NBA franchise has moves that determined the team’s future. Some lead to championships, while others make owners look like goats. Let’s take a look at the deals that made the Houston Rockets what they are, for better or worse.

Best 5 Trades:

5. Rockets trade Hakeem Olajuwon to the Toronto Raptors for a 2002 first-round draft pick (Bostjan Nachbar) and a 2002 second-round draft pick (Tito Maddox), Aug. 2, 2001.

I know what you’re thinking: Any move trading away Hakeem “The Dream” is a bad one. And normally you’d be right. Except that Houston actually made a smart move trading Olajuwon to the Toronto Raptors after Hakeem refused a $13 million extension in 2001. Olajuwon averaged career lows that season and retired due to a lingering back injury. Meanwhile, the Rockets absolutely reeked the following year, earning them the No. 1 pick in the 2002 NBA Draft. That turned out to be Yao Ming, who gave the Rockets some of their most memorable years in the last 13 seasons. So even though the trade itself wasn’t stellar, sending away the 38-year-old Olajuwon worked out pretty well in the end.

4. Rockets trade Jeremy Lamb, Kevin Martin, two future first-round draft picks and a future second-round draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for James Harden, Cole Aldrich, Daequan Cook and Lazar Haywartd, Oct. 27, 2012.

We’ll have to wait quite a few more years just to see how brilliant a move this was, but as of right now, the Houston Rockets are one of the league’s youngest and most exciting teams to keep an eye on moving forward. The Rockets have been eliminated from the playoffs as the eighth seed in the West, but that doesn’t mean the trade that put James Harden in a red-and-white jersey was anything less than stellar. Before the start of the season, the Thunder decided they didn’t want to give Harden the big extension he probably deserved and shipped him to Houston a year before his contract expired for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb and three draft picks. Harden immediately emerged as a superstar, while OKC now has its hands full in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs with Russell Westbrook out.

I hate seeing players get hurt, but this seems like the basketball gods showing the Thunder how terrible that decision was: With defenses keying in on Kevin Durant, it’s up to Serge Ibaka and Kevin Martin to carry the offensive load. As some point that formula is going to run dry and after watching Harden emerge into a top-three shooting guard this season, I guarantee the Thunder are rethinking the deal that will singlehandedly put butts in the bleachers in Houston for years to come.

3. Rockets trade Kelvin Cato, Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley to the Orlando Magic for Tracy McGrady, Reece Gaines, Juwan Howard and Tyronn Lue, June 29, 2004.

At the time, not many people knew how lopsided a seven-player deal between the Houston Rockets and Orlando Magic would be. Tracy McGrady, Juwan Howard, Tyronn Lue and Reese Gaines for Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley and Kelvin Cato seems pretty fair, right? Wrong. Of course, hindsight’s 20/20, but the Rockets really got the better end of the stick here. T-Mac and Yao Ming formed one of the more formidable All-Star duos in the West for years, while the Magic traded Francis after less than two years. Although the Rockets never cashed in on this trade with a championship (thanks to Ming’s many injuries and McGrady’s inability to step up in the clutch), the joy this duo brought Houston’s fan base was a decidedly better fate than that of the Magic and Steve Francis.

2. Rockets trade Otis Thorpe, Marcelo Nicola and a 1995 first-round draft pick (Randolph Childress) to the Portland Trail Blazers for Clyde Drexler and Tracy Murray, Feb. 14, 1995.

When Houston acquired Clyde Drexler from the Portland Trail Blazers in 1995, the Rockets probably didn’t really know that they’d immediately get a title out of the deal. But by sending Otis Thorpe out and bringing in Hakeem Olajuwon’s long-time friend and former college teammate on board, the Rockets shocked the world and won the 1995 NBA Finals as the sixth seed. During that Finals sweep against the Orlando Magic, Drexler averaged 21.5 points, 9.5 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game. No offense to Otis Thorpe, but those kind of numbers and an improbable Finals run worked out remarkably well for the Houston Rockets.

1. Rockets trade a 1977 first-round draft pick (Wesley Cox) and a 1978 first-round draft pick (Micheal Ray Richardson) to the Buffalo Braves for Moses Malone, Oct. 24, 1976.

The Rockets acquired future Hall of Famer Moses Malone in one of the quickest and virtually painless trades in NBA History. To sum things up, Malone was moved between six teams in a span of five months to sum things up. The Rockets got Malone in 1976 for a pair of draft picks that turned into virtually nothing after Malone spent exactly six days and played all of six minutes with the Buffalo Braves. Malone gave the Rockets two MVP seasons and took them to the 1981 NBA Finals, where they lost to Larry Bird‘s Boston Celtics. Any time you trade a failed draft pick and a player with massive future problems with drug abuse for a top 25 player of all time, you know you’ve succeeded as an organization.

Worst 5 Trades:

5. Rockets trade Ralph Sampson and Steve Harris to the Golden State Warriors for Joe Barry Carroll, Sleepy Floyd and cash, Dec. 12, 1987.

This one is slightly unfair to the Rockets, because this 1987-88 trade didn’t come back to haunt them in any capacity. If anything, it was a decent move that saved Houston from overpaying an increasingly overrated player who was starting to feel the after-effects of a fall in 1986 in the NBA Finals that would lead to chronic knee issues and ultimately end his career five years later. But this trade deserves a spot on the list because anytime you trade one of the “Twin Towers” (Hakeem Olajuwon was the other) to the Golden State Warriors for Joe Barry Carroll and Eric “Sleepy” Floyd, you can’t escape catching a little flak for it.

4. Rockets trade Scottie Pippen to the Portland Trail Blazers for Stacey Augmon, Kelvin Cato, Ed Gray, Carlos Rogers, Brian Shaw and Walt Williams, Oct. 2, 1999.

Maybe this is more a reflection on how the Houston Rockets handled Scottie Pippen than how the actual trade went down, but here’s a fact that’s impossible to ignore: In the lockout shortened 1998-99 season, the Rockets acquired Pippen and teamed him up with Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley, but because of chemistry issues, things didn’t work out and Pippen was sent to the Portland Trail Blazers the following year. I repeat: THREE HALL OF FAMERS COULDN’T GET ALONG AND WERE SPLIT UP AFTER ONE SEASON. Sure, they were in their twilight years and yes, there were a lot of great teams in the West that year, but that’s a botched move if I’ve ever seen one. Especially when you consider that Pippen and Barkley had already played together on the Dream Team. Talk about “What if?”

3. Rockets trade Chucky Brown, Mark Bryant, Sam Cassell and Robert Horry to the Phoenix Suns for Charles Barkley and a 1999 second-round draft pick (Tyrone Washington), Aug. 19, 1996.

This would be ranked as one of Houston’s best trades if Barkley had been able to stay healthy and if John Stockton hadn’t knocked down a dramatic game-winner in Game 6 of the 1997 Western Conference Finals. The Rockets acquired Barkley in a trade the season before, sending Sam Cassell, Robert Horry, Mark Bryant and Chucky Brown to Phoenix in the process. Sending away vital parts of a championship team is not usually a good idea, and although Barkley submitted a few good seasons, his health eventually gave out. That Rockets team never lived up to its potential and Houston made one of its costliest moves in franchise history by gambling on the older Barkley. Poor Chuck. This might be the most memorable moment from his time there:

2. Rockets trade Elvin Hayes to the Baltimore Bullets for Jack Marin, June 23, 1972.

By the end of the 1971-72 season, the Rockets had just played their first season in Houston after moving from San Diego and Elvin Hayes had been the team’s franchise player for four years. Despite averaging 27.5 points and 16.3 rebounds per game in his four years with the Rockets, Houston decided to shop him to the Baltimore Bullets for Jack Marin and cash considerations before the 1972-73 season. If you’ve never heard of Jack Marin, that’s because Jack Marin was entirely nonessential for the Rockets moving forward. Any time you trade a future Hall of Famer and NBA champion (Hayes was the best player on the 1978 Washington Bullets team that won the title) for somebody who doesn’t go down in franchise history as an all-time great, you’re doing something wrong.

1. Rockets trade Moses Malone to the Philadelphia 76ers for Caldwell Jones and a 1983 first-round draft pick (Rodney McCray), Sept. 15, 1982.

This one is a little difficult, considering how many times eventual Hall of Famer Moses Malone was shipped around in half a year. After acquiring Malone, the Rockets proceeded to win their first division title. This ultimate workhorse won the MVP award in 1979 and 1982 and led the Rockets to an NBA Finals appearance in 1981 while averaging 26.8 points and 14.5 rebounds per game. But the Rockets decided to rebuild and ended up trading Moses–who had signed a free-agent offer sheet with the Philadelphia 76ers–for Caldwell Jones and a first-round pick in the 1983 draft, sending the two-time MVP to Philadelphia. The 76ers ended up winning the championship the very next season behind Malone’s third MVP season. It’s true that Houston’s struggles without Malone led to a terrific Ralph Sampson draft pick, but the fact that Philly won the championship immediately following the trade and the fact that Sampson never won Houston a title means this was a pretty boneheaded decision. When a player is this happy the season after being traded away, you’ve made a mistake.