The Oklahoma City Thunder added to their stockpile of future first-round picks by getting two from the Houston Rockets in exchange for the No. 16 pick in Thursday's first round.
Can the Thunder possibly add any more picks? Was the price worth it for the Rockets to move up to take the top-rated player in my stats-based draft projections?
The deal
Rockets get: 2021 first-round pick (No. 16: Alperen Sengun)
Thunder get: 2022 first-round pick (via Pistons), 2023 first-round pick (via Wizards)
Houston Rockets: B
After the departure of Daryl Morey, the Rockets still took a favorite of statistical projections in Sengun, who was atop my stats-based projections. On the draft broadcast, ESPN's Mike Schmitz mentioned Sengun also topped several teams' projections. Still, he dropped all the way to 16th because of concerns about whether his precocious production in the Turkish Basketball Super League will translate against better athletes in the NBA.
That gave Houston an opportunity to get two of my top three after taking Jalen Green with the No. 2 overall pick. Dealing for a fourth first-round pick came at a cost to the Rockets, who had to surrender a pair of future first-rounders. Fortunately for them, both are heavily protected.
Per ESPN's Tim MacMahon, Houston is giving up a first-rounder acquired from the Detroit Pistons in a deal struck during the 2020 draft and the first-rounder from the Washington Wizards as part of the Russell Westbrook trade.
The Detroit pick has different protection each year but is protected through at least the top 13 each of the next four drafts, top-11 protected in 2026 and top-9 in 2027 before converting to a second-round pick if not yet conveyed. With No. 1 pick Cade Cunningham, we'd expect the Pistons to be competitive at some point, but they might be able to time it so they keep their pick until they become a competitive team and give up one in the 20s.
Meanwhile, the Washington pick has a four-year window between 2023 and 2026, starting out lottery-protected and ending up top-8 protected in 2026, at which point it would convert to a pair of second-rounders. So suffice it to say, the Rockets won't be sending a premium pick to Oklahoma City and may in fact not send two first-rounders.
At the same time, Houston could give up two picks in the same range as this one, meaning the Rockets -- and the projections -- better be more right about Sengun than the 15 teams that passed on him.
Oklahoma City Thunder: B
Everybody expected the Thunder to make a trade involving future first-round picks during the draft. Nobody expected them to be adding more of them rather than consolidating. Oklahoma City did have the opportunity to move one of two picks at No. 16 and No. 18 and still get the player they wanted (Florida guard Tre Mann) but it's interesting the deal settled on two future first-rounders instead of one of Houston's back-to-back selections at Nos. 23 and 24.
As a result, the Thunder now have up to 12 extra first-round picks above and beyond their own -- some of which they can swap -- over the next five drafts. At some point, that's too many first-rounders to keep on a roster, so we'll see whether Oklahoma City keeps rolling them over or starts packaging them to move up at some time.