I was thinking about what an excellent job Stone has done rebuilding the Rockets after TillMan Fertitta bought and destroyed the best squad in the league, and realized that many fans who are overly negative about how bad we looked during the tank might benefit from seeing just how adeptly he crafted a team capable of going toe-to-toe with the very best teams in the NBA in an amazingly short period of time.

Hopefully the squad can stop choking away close games and learn how to win on the road so that he can get the recognition he deserves as being Executive of the Year.

There have been a LOT of moves made around the periphery, bu for the purpose of this exercise, I will only mention players that had solid trade value, because the returns on those players were the building blocks of the team we have now, in addition to the Big-3 picks gained by making the controversial and painful decision to purposely tank to the very bottom of the league for each of the past 3 years. I will also ignore 2nd round picks (SRPs) completely, because I don’t really value or care about them. Sue me. But please do know that many SRPs were both found and harmed in the process of this rebuild.

First, let’s remember who was on the squad at the end of the 2020 bubble season that marked the true death knell of the Harden Era Rockets and left us with multiple disgruntled superstars and 4 future picks (well, 2 picks and 2 swaps) in the hands of Sam Presti.

James Harden, Russell Westbrook, PJ Tucker, Robert Covington, Eric Gordon

Holy crap. That’s really the complete list of ostensibly positive value assets that Stone was left with. Keep in mind that the first 3 of these guys were doing everything in their power to get away from Houston, taking away the tools of time and leverage that are most beneficial to a GM when looking for trades, so calling Russ and PJ “positive value assets” is wording it kindly.

The first move was a masterclass. Over a period of 2 days before the opening of Free Agency that ended up turning RoCo into Christian Wood, the Garuba pick, and a protected Detroit FRP that appears on track to become 2026 & 2027 SRPs, but could potentially be as high as a late lottery pick in a couple years if Detroit can turn it around. We no longer have any of these assets, so one should rightfully question why I call it a masterclass. Well – just trust me… It was incredible value at the time, and I believe you’ll agree that what we used the Detroit pick on was a worthwhile investment.

With no picks in the draft that year, Stone still managed to add KJ Martin and Jae Sean Tate to the squad by buying a pick from Sacramento for a few million dollars. KJ is gone for SRPs (again, I don’t care about these, but nice positive value turnaround for a few Million bucks deserves to be noted). Tate remains a valuable part of our core, though, after being scouted and plucked from down under.

The next move was getting rid of a malcontented Russel Westbrook. The return was not great. John Wall coming off injury (a truly negative value contract) and a heavily protected Washington FRP that will almost certainly convey as their 2026 SRP. Yes, just over a year after Fertitta openly bragged about getting Russell Westbrook for the amazing price of merely Houston’s 2024 and 2026 FRPs (and swaps in 2021 and 2025)… not to mention the relief of shedding the worst contract TillMan had ever seen in CP3… we were able to flip our first superstar for what will likely end up being a 2026 SRP. Doesn’t get much lower than that in terms of losing trades, but before you judge Stone too harshly, wait for the final tally.

After a very brief dalliance in the Harden/Wood/Wall experience, James pouted his way out of town in a deal that changed the way superstars are dealt. Instead of seeking a potential up & coming star, the value in the return came in the picks. 3 unprotected BKN FRPs along with 3 swaps. Not amazing by today’s standards, but that is because it is the trade that truly created the market we see today. In hindsight it was a truly revolutionary move, betting on the eventual failure of the other franchise to reap the value instead of taking a star-in-the-making. There was a chance to get Jarrett Allen that some fans still bemoan, but trading him and our own SRP away brought back the FRP that eventually became Josh Christopher (in other words nothing of value) and a 2023 FRP from Milwaukee. So Harden and a SRP brought back 5 FRPs and 3 swaps. We’ll check in on those in a minute.

It also set the team up to feature an offense centered around All-Star in the making Christian Wood, as the team chased the playoffs at Fertitta’s behest. The WOW lineup rode the 2nd-best defense in the NBA (behind the Champion Lakers) to an above-.500 record when disaster struck (the blessing-in-disguise type) when Christian Wood went out with an ankle injury. Somehow, Wall, Oladipo, and 26 other guys (an NBA-record 30 in total) weren’t able to find a win and after the All-Star Break, the tank was on to take a risky coin flip gamble that Houston could keep their own 2021 FRP instead of swapping with OKC’s FRP from Miami in the late teens.

You know how that turned out. In the biggest win of the season (and arguably the entire 3-year rebuild), Houston retained the right to draft its own pick instead of sending pick 5 to OKC as the first pick of the Westbrook disaster. TillMan was visibly shaken and humbled by how far his team had fallen. But in a COVID-shortened season with poor attendance around the league, it was the best possible time to lose big, and it made him realize that the surest way to acquire talent was by having a very high draft pick. A strategy he would return to in each of the next 2 years of the rebuild.

In the draft, Stone used our FRP on Jalen Green, and 4 of the other picks he had acquired on Alperen Sengun, Usman Garuba, and Josh Christopher, who along with KJ, Tate, and Kevin Porter Jr (acquired for a top-55 protected SRP that would never convey), the youth movement was on.

But Eric Gordon remained despite rumors that he could have fetched a late FRP, and it wouldn’t be until over a year later that he would finally be moved along with the 2023 Milwaukee FRP to acquire the LA Clippers’ 2023 FRP.

And that was the final farewell to the Harden-Era Rockets.

This may seem like an overly-long essay, but it’s actually an extremely brief recap of the highlights that actually affect the current team’s structure. Again, let me reemphasize the vast number of smaller moves that were made along the way as waiver-wire claims and trade returns were able to create SRPs, and SRPs were used to get rid of FRPs. The entire time, attention was paid to preserving cap space for the 2023 FA class, when the Plan was to literally buy our way back into playoff contention just in time to avoid sending a lottery pick to OKC.

But I can make it briefer:

TL;DR:

Aside from James Harden, Stone was left with very few assets, but managed to turn them into 2, mid-FRPs in 2021 and 2023.

Russell Westbrook and Robert Covington trades were directly responsible for acquiring the 16th pick in the 2021 NBA Draft from Sam Presti. These two players essentially became Alperen Sengun (and nothing else…although that alone may be the most impressive work of the rebuild)

PJ Tucker and Eric Gordon turned Jarrett Allen (the best player in the Harden trade return) into Cam Whitmore.

In addition to that non-existent Jarrett Allen piece that eventually became Cam, James Harden has brought back Tari Eason, unprotected FRPs from Brooklyn in 2024, 2026, and likely swaps in 2025 and 2027.

Trading away the vets for the draft power to acquire these 3 young players and the Nets’ draft future for the next 4 years, also set the team up for failure on a grand enough scale (with an assist from KPJ and Daishen Nix at PG) to acquire 3 straight top-4 picks thanks to winning the figurative coin flip in each draft lottery (an event as unlikely as winning the top overall pick in 1 year, 14%) that would become Jalen Green, Jabari Smith Jr., and Amen Thompson.

Those 6 guys, along with Tate and BKN’s foreseeable draft future represent the next iteration of Championship contention in Houston. Despite all the minor moves that clutter peoples’ thoughts, the connections are stark and direct when distilled down to the basics.

The precious cap space that Stone protected the entire time at the expense of displaying a better product over the last few years was used to stock up on Championship-quality veteran mentors that are currently teaching the kids how to win. But they will fall off the books by the time the young core needs to be extended…or perhaps even traded for additional draft assets.

Thanks for reading.