Rockets get: Future first-round draft pick, 2021 second-round pick (via LAL)
Pistons get: Trevor Ariza, 2020 No. 16 pick (Isaiah Stewart)
Houston Rockets: B
When the Rockets acquired Ariza and the No. 16 pick in Wednesday's NBA draft from Portland as part of the return for Robert Covington in a deal reported Monday that cannot be finalized until after the pick is made Wednesday night, I assumed bringing back an old friend was part of the arrangement. Turns out Ariza was just matching salary for Covington, as Houston has now shed his salary in this move.
As my ESPN colleague Adrian Wojnarowski noted in reporting the deal, moving Ariza gives the Rockets more flexibility to use their non-taxpayer midlevel exception, which would hard-cap them at the apron, $6.3 million more than the luxury-tax line. With Ariza, Houston would have been limited to the smaller taxpayer midlevel exception.
Given the limited cap space available this offseason, there's a good chance the Rockets can get better value for their money with the midlevel exception than the 35-year-old Ariza, whose $12.8 million salary was a bit generous for his production at this stage of his career. Getting a contributor on a reasonable contract for multiple years would be a good outcome for Houston.
At the same time, the Rockets now have an additional spot to fill as they try to convince James Harden and Russell Westbrook they can still contend with this roster. Including guards Chris Clemons and Ben McLemore, whose salaries are non-guaranteed, Houston enters the offseason with just seven players under contract.
The cost of this is the Rockets going a fifth consecutive draft without making a first-round pick. Eventually, that streak will have to end. Houston still has the other first-round pick acquired from Portland, which is protected in 2021, and we'll see when the Rockets actually get the pick sent back by Detroit.
According to Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports, the Pistons' first-rounder is top-16-protected through 2024, top-10-protected in 2025-26 and top-nine-protected in 2027. Houston won't be getting a prime pick but could end up replacing this with a decent one when Detroit is back in playoff contention.
Detroit Pistons: C+
The most important implication of this deal is the Pistons are almost certainly out of the running for Fred VanVleet, who had been linked to them as an unrestricted free agent. Instead, Detroit is using a solid chunk of its previous $30 million or so in cap space to take on Ariza's contract and the No. 16 pick.
This leaves the Pistons in the ballpark of $15 million in cap space depending on cap holds and non-guarantees, not enough for a serious offer to VanVleet. So it looks as though reports that they were more focused on accumulating draft picks than spending in free agency were correct.
Based on where Detroit is in the rebuilding process, that's the right move. VanVleet is probably a tad too old to make sense for a team with limited starting-caliber young talent at the moment. A player like that would work better when the Pistons have built up their talent base with more contributors and are a player or two away from competing in the East, not just competing for a playoff spot.
The question, then, is whether it's wise for Detroit to encumber its draft pick for years to come. Because of the so-called "Stepien rule" preventing teams from going without first-round picks in back-to-back future drafts, the Pistons can't guarantee another team they'll get a first-rounder in a trade they make between now and the conclusion of the 2022 draft.
Detroit can still trade a first-rounder conditional on when the pick to Houston conveys, but that pick could never be unprotected and might have to turn into a second-rounder at the end of the seven-year period for which picks can be traded. As a result, this trade could hamper the Pistons' flexibility in the future.