Houston Rockets: Which Players Will Get Traded?

The Houston Rockets are working their way into a plethora of trade rumors, and we’ll analyze what’s out there as they look to right the ship.

The Houston Rockets have a 28-29 record and are in ninth place in the surprisingly weak Western Conference. That’s a far cry from what was expected to be an outstanding season for a squad that planned on competing with the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Clippers in the upper echelons of the conference.

Instead, they have a losing record and have already fired their head coach Kevin McHale, replacing him just 11 games into the season after a 4-7 start that was even more ugly than it sounds with assistant coach J.B. Bickerstaff on an interim basis.

It hasn’t gone well for the Rockets, to say the absolute least, and they’ve made their intentions known to the rest of the NBA that they plan on making just about everybody on the roster available for trade discussions. They have begun to outright shop Dwight Howard and his massive expiring contract, and have made it clear they’re out to make a deal for just about anybody other than James Harden.

Howard has a player option at the end of this season and is expected to opt out of his contract to capitalize on the exploding salary cap, and with the Rockets in their current bizarre malaise, it’s hard to come up with a single reason for him not to do so.

Ty Lawson, Trevor Ariza, Howard, Terrence Jones and Corey Brewer have all been mentioned at least in passing whispers in regards to trade rumors, but there’s a lot of noise in the buzz at this time of year.

We’ll try and cut through it all to give you a more crystalized idea of what to expect as the Rockets near the trade deadline on Feb. 18.

Next: Howard