Amen Thompson, Jalen Green and Rockets young core untouchable?

Amen Thompson, Jalen Green and Rockets young core untouchable?

coming up we have Jackson Gatlin from locked on Rockets join us to give the definitive stance of where the Houston Rockets want their offseason to go yes they’re looking maybe to compete now sure they have their eyes on male Bridges and maybe swapping draft picks is a part of their agenda heading towards the draft but what about that young core could Brooklyn pry away some young talent to rebuild on their side we get all the details and provide us somewhat dim view for Brooklyn Nets fans everywhere we dive in coming up next you are locked on Nets your daily Brooklyn Nets podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every [Music] day Brook yo ah yes my friends it is the lockon Nets podcast Radio locked on podcast Network it’s your team the Brooklyn Nets every single day I’m Adam arre there is no Doug Nory we will have a Jackson Gatlin and we still thank you as always for making us your first listen of the day we are 100% free on all those great platforms and let you know that this episode is brought to you by prize picks the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports go to prize.com lockon NBA and use promo code all lowercase locked on NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 and as we say this can be a clarifying conversation when we think about what Brooklyn might be willing to do should the right offers come across the table but a lot of times when you’re looking at it from a Brooklyn perspective out Doug and I set High bars for what it would take to get male Bridges away sometimes the pick swaps seem oh so easy to do and even acquiring young Talent Jackson really lays out the path here where Houston is in a pretty Prime position to want to acquire talent to compete now but also not touch that core maybe up to six players who are all 22 years or younger so that they still have a consistent future going forward we dive into all these aspects of it and we also let you know I let you know that the audio on my end is a little bit rough as we were in a bit of a different environment getting this one all together here it’s still an excellent conversation we always appreciate you for bearing with us enjoy it as we dive in right now all right so obviously Jackson the only way to have this conversation about ultimately from a Brooklyn that’s perspective how we get better how this team improves at the cost of the Houston Rockets is for me at least from the Net’s perspective to ask what is Houston trying to accomplish this off season because so far we’ve heard they’ll swap Nets picks back with them for future picks from Phoenix they want to get out of the third pick overall potentially to trade for male Bridges or maybe they just want to move back in the draft possibly with Memphis is the agenda for Houston to compete right now just to improve their long-term prospects like what is the goal for this team over the course of this offseason in the upcoming draft Yeah so I think first off right with the hiring of em OD DOA this team wanted to take their next step in their kind of rebuilding process right last year right after they hired Oka they started talking about going into phase two of the rebuild and I think we saw that this past season right they had a 19- win Improvement 41 and 41 on the year they want to continue building on that success that doesn’t mean that the Rockets are necessarily in a position where they’re ready to go you know chips all into the center of the table and you know mortgage every single asset they have under their roof to get you know whatever the next star player is that’s available they still have a little bit of time to to grow and nurture and develop the young talent that they do have on the roster but they are trying to be competitive right and to do that you need impactful win now players but it’s kind of that they’re straddling the fence between wanting to win but also still wanting to be able to add maybe another piece or two another you know young talented prospect that they can maybe slow playay the development of because you look at the standings just just in the Western Conference we’re not even going to pay attention to the entirety of the league just in the Western Conference next season you’re going to have maybe 13 quite possibly 14 of the 15 teams in the west who all have playoff aspirations or who all want to be competitive basically everybody except for the Portland Trailblazer so is now the time to strike if you’re the Rockets to try and make a a win now move or or acquire a win now player to bolster your chances next season or would they be better off just kind of slow playing things letting things develop give it another year or two before they start you know using some of those assets to pick up win now pieces that complement the players that they already have on the roster and I think with eem Oka as the head coach I think that’s kind of like accelerated their timeline a little bit right e is a guy who’s already been to the finals as a head coach he was very clear about his goals for this past season for the Rockets them wanting to make the playoffs they fell a little bit short of that goal but at the end of the day that’s why they’re in this precarious position where you know having the Nets pick jump from nine to number three gives them a lot a lot of options in this year’s draft I think if the pick had stayed where we thought it was going to be and had they not received the lottery luck that they had we probably wouldn’t be hearing so many rumors about them wanting to trade the pick because obviously it’s easier you have a little bit more leverage uh to trade the number three overall pick than you would if it was you know down at number nine or 10 or what have you a little bit later in the lottery as we as we say on a locked on Nets Doug and eye if it had been that the Nets had the pick then obviously would been the worst possible Lottery spot they could have landed in only because it conveyed to Houston does it end up being the third you also mentioned there too when you look at the standings both teams finished 11th in their respective conferences but nine more wins for the Houston Rockets like if the Brooklyn Nets had been 41 and 41 well first of all their standing would have looked a little bit shinier in the Eastern Conference you’d be talking about still sitting there in the play in tournament but arguably having a season that I think Nets fans would have been satisfied with showing some improvement okay the core the male Bridges Cameron Johnson is working out the disaster that was Ben Simmons from a health perspective Maybe that goes differently all these factors but both these teams new head coach for Brooklyn now obviously they’re going to try to go in a more positive direction but both these teams are in precarious spots about how they move going forward is there any sense that Houston is taunting Brooklyn like with their own pick control here as well 2024 aside is the idea here maybe as well specifically when we think about Phoenix hey we’ll take to your point the longer term you know Prospect here if we can’t add players potentially but we can maybe trade away the Brooklyn Nets picks before we worry about utilizing our own is there some leverage here they’re trying to anchor on Brooklyn say hey if you want your picks back now is the time because otherwise they’re going somewhere else and that team is going to be watching you now and thinking about how good those could be over 25 26 and going forward yeah I I think from from the perspective about like the Suns picks right I think it’s always you talk about NBA draft picks as as kind of the the currency in the NBA and it’s I like to use the uh the buying a new car analogy right the the the moment you like realize that asset the moment that asset you know you have to draft that pick and it becomes a rookie player or whatever then it depreciates in value by whatever 30 50% whatever you want to call it so being able to kind of I guess Kick the Can down the road if you will if you’re the rockets and trying to have those conversations with the Nets and say hey we’ll give you your picks back just give us you know some of you know a little bit of access to those Suns picks because then it would allow the Rockets a little bit more time to decide hey okay well we don’t have to worry about what we’re doing with these picks further down line we have more of a lifeline on what we’re going to ultimately decide to do with these draft assets rather than the Nets picks which we’re already seeing start to convey right we saw it turn into tar een uh a couple years ago uh right now we’re seeing the number three overall selection and and they still have the 2025 swap next year the 2026 unprotected and then the 2027 swap as well so like at the end of the day you know as we keep navigating the timeline of of the Rockets control of these nets picks I think they’re kind of losing some value because they’re going to have to figure out okay are we trading basically when they made this James Harden trade years ago I think they envisioned okay we’re going to trade James Harden for all these nets assets and then these assets are going to be what we then down the line flip into another star player another star deal right we heard some rumors about the Rockets potential interest in pursuing Donovan Mitchell potentially right so the Rockets are right there with the Brooklyn Nets that was the first time art years perked up where it was like hey remember and we say this to the Nets fan fan base all the time around Donathan Mitchell was oh well you’ll just go get him you’ll just go get him I was like yep in now when someone starts offering all of your picks to go get Donovan Mitchell and all of a sudden you don’t have the same leverage you perceived yourself to have in an offseason exactly and and I think from a leverage perspective and this is the argument that I keep coming back to and this is why I’m so curious your thoughts on this Adam is I I think we have seen enough evidence in the NBA landscape over the last however five 10 15 years that teams that I think it’s very rare to find a team that doesn’t bottom out completely to then rebuild themselves back up into what you hope is one day a contender right I think that’s kind of the life cycle of the NBA and I think it’s a tried and proven like method of hey all right we we don’t have the the the pieces to be a contender right now we’re going to strip it down to the nuts and bolts we’re going to be bad for a couple years and we’re going to recoup and get those top draft assets a lot of young talent and we’re going to hopefully have a brighter future because of it that’s exactly what the Rockets did for a few years right they were one of the Laughing stocks of the NBA for the last three years and then guess what we saw kind of the fruits of that labor payoff this season a 41- 41 year and a lot of Hope and optimism on the horizon that they’re headed the right direction with a a an incredibly young talented core six of really exciting players Alper and shenon looked like you know an All-Star this past season Jaylen green came on really late but but had a really strong close to his season I think that if you’re the Nets to me it’s just been screaming in my face this whole time why wouldn’t you want to try and regain control of your asset to be able to have at least a brief window right of of okay maybe you’re only bad for a year or two right but hell with the Cooper flag draft right around the corner in 2025 like that’s why I I think a Nets trade for the Nets to be able to get back those assets makes so much sense to me but I’m curious your thoughts on on this perspective because I think that’s why there’s leverage here from the Rockets is those Nets picks matter or have more intrinsic value to Brooklyn than to any other team in the association and that’s kind of where I land yeah this is always what Doug and I talk about having control of your own picks means you can dictate how you want to approach season over season why do the Nets try to end up still staying competitive this last year and then by the way when it doesn’t work out you only have 32 wins it looks even worse but why did you come in saying oh we want to compete making the playoffs is a part of our goal it’s because you don’t have your own pick control if not you can make a lot of different choices you look back at that Houston trade obviously even at the time now it’s hard to go back and wonder what if I think the Nets organizationally looked at Mel Bridges and Cameron Johnson from the Kevin dur tra trade and said hey this represents why it’s not so Bleak to have a superstar leave and have another Superstar leave and have another Superstar leave however because you didn’t have your own pick control it prevented you from being open to pass through trade offers a team that’s been rumored now with ties to H Houston in the ninth overall pick in the Grizzlies supposedly they were willing to open up the coffers to bring in male Bridges but you don’t make that choice at the time because you’re uncertain about having control over your own destiny we’ve advocated that the Brooklyn Nets is not it’s not about not liking male Bridges game it’s about being miscast in Brooklyn as the one or onea when he should be an elite three is the reality of probably where he should be in a hierarchy of a team so rather than sit here and say let’s be average and muddle our way through for two or three more seasons and then start to look at Phoenix Phoenix picks which by the way are still beholding to whether or not they’re good or bad and what choices they make for their roster going forward get control now be really bad right now and then in 2025 you know it’s almost kmit for Brooklyn if they chose to go this way tank now get in one of the deepest draft classes that we have seen in recent memory and find a way to bring in other core pieces with some guys that you like right now and just reset the clock it does not look like they’re going to do that but every indication would suggest they should be doing that how much do you think pride is playing a factor in this right because we’ve seen GMS who are you know so they they dig their heels in right how much do you think the idea of having a secondary trade with Houston where you basic almost concede defeat in the James Harden trade we like hey we we the James Harden trade blew up or well the big three kind of blew up in a spectacular fashion right there’s like so many parallel universes where Kyrie Irving James Harden and Kevin Durant win like multiple titles together or if KD’s shoe size was like a little bit smaller right no toe on the line against the but like all these different you know uh alternate realities but how much do you think it plays into the fact that like maybe Shawn marks is looking at this like I I I can’t go and deal Bridges to Houston to get back our draft assets that we traded for James Harden in the first place yeah listen I mean you there’s always been like some Saving Grace around what’s gone on for Brooklyn and and for the GM Shawn marks because injuries right Kevin Durant when you make the trade initially he’s still recovering then you have some injuries with Kyrie Miner you have the insanity that was obviously an unprecedented error around basketball in the country the world so all of these things keep giving a little bit of cover where you go well you know if not for this random occurrence sure even the Ben Simmons injuries are kind of on the one hand it’s a knock on Sean March for saying well then why make the trade at all you almost would have been better off to let to let James Harden walk outright into free agency than to take on the contract of Ben Simmons which are still a year away from getting out from underneath I would say most GMS in his spot would feel a need to save face and also there’s very few GMS in the league that are as Teflon as he is that have his long a tenure that he has he’s going into the third or fourth iteration of of the Brooklyn Nets from when he first came in cleaned it up had Kenny a a Plucky team with Spencer dwy D’Angelo Russell Jared Allen makes the trade for you know James Harden when you have these other options after you bring in Superstars that falls apart now you’re in another pseudo rebuild but you may still do a two-year window where it’s Mel Bridges and Cameron Johnson and these kind of middle of the road veterans so I think that some of this does but I also believe that with every passing season in any circumstance it softens the blow of acknowledging that you made a mistake so if Brooklyn sits here and says yes we got a call for Kevin Durant and we should have just traded Mel Bridges right then and there we shouldn’t have resigned Cameron Johnson every year that it gets away from that is I think another step where you can say and now we’re going to Pivot now we’re going to make a new decision and the fan base reacts a little bit softer although for Brooklyn I will say this fan base has held on to rightfully The Grudge of what GMS have chosen to do over the last decade and how damaging it’s been to long-term future look no further than the finals right now where we’re recording obviously ahead of game one but Kyrie Irving is there that is a process of Brooklyn Jason Tatum Jaylen Brown the Boston Celtics that’s a process of Brooklyn and choices that they made years ago so it’s hard man it doesn’t seem so what you’re saying is in a way regardless of who wins the finals Celtics or or Mavs the the the Nets can have their own little mini parade because they sort of helped both of those teams out right listen I don’t know if they get one ring for the entire organization a handful I don’t know you send one to Billy King wherever he is now right but somebody deserves some credit here at least the fan base deserves something so yeah it is an interesting set of circumstances right back to the conversation with Jackson Gatlin after we tell you about our friends over at prize picks you know that you could turn $10 into $1,000 in a single game watching your favorite sports all summer long you can make prize picks lineups in as little as 60 seconds you just need to pick more or less on two to six player stat projections and you’re locked in looking for promotions well prize picks has got you covered each and every week from lowering selected player stats projections on Tuesdays which increases your chances to get a win and also getting your entry fees back if you have a losing lineup on Fridays that’s today putting the lineup you’ll get your fees back if you lose that’s called great coverage and you know the prize picks is America’s number one fantasy sports app with over 5 million active members get in on the daily action with your friends and become a part of the prize picks Community today oh you know that if you want to go ahead and look over this weekend and say Jaylen Brown for more than 25 points yeah you could throw that that in there with a mix of any number of Boston players maybe go Luca on overade three-pointers going to need that if they want to bounce back in the NBA Finals you download the app today use promo code locked on NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 download prize picks today use promo code locked on NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 it is of course prize picks pick more pick less it’s that easy you mentioned that young four for the Houston Rockets I always thought of them more in the mode of an OKC hey you keep drafting you have all this assets you keep filling the pipeline you wait until certain guys Bubble Up and then all of a sudden you’re a number one seed in the Western Conference and you’ve turned this thing around I’m fascinated one by the fact that oku who this is very rare in NBA basketball terms that a coach is dictating the tempo of a franchise as opposed to you know your Elite core player that you believe in I think it’s probably the right move for them but when you mention having six players 22 or younger from tari to uh alrin to Jaylen to Amen to Jabari and cam how many of those guys are viewed by the organization as foundational core pieces because I think Houston in a lot of ways they lucked out with Jaylen green and being accidentally maybe patient enough for him now to go from being how do we dump this you know poison pill quote unquote contract to oh maybe this guy’s an important piece or at a minimum an important trade piece that can actually get you something back yeah I I think if you would have asked me six months ago about the Rockets core 6 right the the glaring answer would have been well Jaylen green has really struggled he had a really bad two-thirds of his uh third season here this P this past campaign and he was the guy that was being actively you know shopped in trade talks and being discussed and a lot of rumors about his future with the Houston Rockets which was really tough to stomach right because he was kind of the the first domino in the Rockets rebuild they got incredibly Lucky in bottoming out that first year where they did have pick obligations owed to the OKC Thunder they basically had a coin flip as to whether or not they would keep that top four selection and then thankfully it landed top four they got the number two overall pick and they were able to draft Jaylen green had it landed outside of the top four it would have gone to OKC and that would have been a catastrophic start to the Rocket’s attempt to rebuild and pivot from the James Harden era but I do think when you look at the entirety of the young Corp Alper and shingun has cemented himself as the best of the six so far he was borderline Allstar this P not even borderline he played like an All-Star this pth season just didn’t get the the nod from a a voting perspective a popularity perspective whatever you want to call it if the Rockets have won a few more games I think maybe he’s in the All-Star Game instead of somebody else I don’t know but I think up and down the core Jaylen would have been the guy that you would have looked at and said okay he’s probably the most likely to be traded as of six months ago but then the way that he turned things around at the end of the season and also I’ll highlight here em OD DOA never wavered right em Oka never lost sight of the forest for the trees like he he knew what he was building and working on with Jaylen he remained patient with him throughout the season throughout all the ups and downs in his play and it’s really tough to say that that none of the cor that that everybody is untouchable when it comes to the core six I think for the right deal obviously you have to be willing to make a move right if a star player becomes available what have you then yeah maybe Jabari is the one that’s included or maybe Jaylen is on the way out if the right player becomes available the difficulty here in this discussion is I don’t think male Bridges necessarily warrants parting ways with one of the young cor six I see tar een thrown around in a lot of hypothetical trades especially coming from the net side of things and I think just this is like a League wide thing it’s not just a Nets thing it’s not just a Brooklyn thing but I feel like League wide tar e is really undervalued I know that internally the Rockets probably value tar een more than anybody else of the corex from a sheer like metrics perspective their internal valuations how he impacts winning at the highest level now he is coming off of season where he only played a handful of games he basically was playing on a broken leg all year with this weird like tumor thing that he had very strange but uh when he does play he’s one of the most impactful players on the floor so I can’t see a world where the Rockets would be willing to part with him especially because you can make a very very legitimate argument here that in one or two years tar e might be a better player than Mich Bridges is like that’s the tough thing to to discuss which is why I think when we get into these hypotheticals about if theck it’ss were to deal with Brooklyn I think we’re more talking about just the draft asset side of things right like how how can the Nets get those picks back and generally the hangup that I find Adam is that 2025 swap right that seems to be the Tipping Point in any of these potential deals where I see lots of rockets F who are like yeah give them back give them the number three pick give them 202 hell give them 2027 but nobody wants to give up that 2025 pick that’s like the Crown Jewel and here’s where I and I might get a lot of flame a lot of flack for this I’m not as high on the idea of the 2025 draft as others are mostly because I think the idea of coveting like the the uh the the Peter Griffin like Family Guy like the mystery box right like what it could be this right like we could we could get a boat or we could get a mystery box because it it could even be a boat like I don’t like I can’t do that because for and and for a couple different reasons one we see what happened this past year Nets were 11th in the Eastern Conference and and I’ll be it’s a weak Eastern conference right I think we can safely assume maybe some things go a little bit differently maybe the Nets have an even better record you know next year or they could have even played better than they did this current season right maybe a little bit higher in the standings what have you that pick was supposed to be nine in the lottery right Rockets got incredibly Lucky Pick jumps up I don’t like the idea of like trying to bank on the Nets downfall especially when it feels like Shawn marks and Company have just dug their heels in and they are just fully committed to the idea of hey we like Michael Bridges we like cam Johnson we’re going to try and lure and attract another star here because here’s the thing is even if that’s not necessarily the right recipe for success in your eyes my eyes whatever for building a long-term sustainable Contender what I could see Brooklyn doing is maybe taking all those Suns picks right and throwing them in a deal for a Donan Mitchell type and then suddenly a team with Donan Mitchell male Bridges cam Johnson Nick Claxton like that’s a team that’s going to be consistently at least what top six in the Eastern Conference probably fighting for a top four seed every year and then suddenly the value of the Nets picks that the Rockets own are they Plum it right and then you’re not talking about potentially having oh all these lottery picks and all these top assets I feel like a lot of rockets fans are viewing the Nets picks as like this pile of gold of like oh yeah we’re GNA have top three picks every single year and it’s like no that’s not the reality of the situation all it takes is one rushed decision from Shawn marks and Company to then tank the value of those picks and if you don’t capitalize on the value that you have right now either by making a trade with the Nets or with another organization then I think you’re going to be really disappointed in what ultimately those picks could or could have become and that’s what the irony is about it right because Houston has control of the picks and any team having control of your picks it maybe inspires an organization to make more keep winning keep competing win now mode decisions whereas if you have your own picks then you can again as we say control your own destiny so the irony that by not being willing to maybe give up the 2025 pick let’s say theoretically back to Brooklyn in a trade for male bridges in this instance and we can talk a little bit more about whether or not I think that’s realistic at any level but by not giving it up Brooklyn says okay fine we’re not going to make that deal and by not making that deal we’re going to go ahead and make decisions that actively make us a more competitive team now Championship level few and far between they’re going to have a lot of money to work with next summer once they get off of Ben Simmons contract so may they can outright sign somebody that’s great but you mentioned listen top six top five whatever it is if you’re being competitive middle of the p NBA team it removes the value off of those picks and what I find fascinating right now is for how negatively 2024 is being looked as a draft class to your point well 2025 is being looked at equally as impressive and equally as deep and that’s great but we know that there’s always misses there’s always hits and I think maybe Doug and I sometimes disagree about having that pick in the draft is the prospect of what could be whereas when you look at players that have been in the league we talk about some guys that are established well if you’re established but you haven’t really shown anything yet that’s not so favorable over a draft pick in a future draft class and the few guys like a Jaylen green that finally show a little flash well now they get treated much much differently by that organization they don’t now they say yeah okay great 2025 first round draft pick I’ve got a player that has shown to be capable at the NBA level and I think that makes a really big difference here when you get into these kind of negotiating Waters now that being said let’s anger up some of the Brooklyn Nets fans here because I have a visual aid Jackson Gat going to the I I like that first we went first I had to upset Rockets fans by saying I’m not valuing the 2025 swap as much and now you’re going to anger the Nets fans so here we go let’s go that’s the way we work it here if you’re over on YouTube obviously you can see you put out this hypothetical and you asked this about Memphis Grizzlies trade as well but you put up Houston Rockets getting male Bridges and the sun’s 2027 first round pick Nets getting Dylan Brooks their 2024 pick back third overall their 2025 pick back and the 2026 pick back as well now what’s excluded there the Houston Rockets 2025 pick potentially if we want to get into those Waters what’s also interesting here though is the Dylan Brooks piece of it just just briefly why is Dylan Brooks there’s a salary match part of it I get that but is it effectively just that is he just not viewed as being a part of what they want to do going forward and we all know the history of Dylan Brooks I’m not trying to put down his personality or otherwise but it just does seem like for everything that Houston is building and trying to accomplish here Dylan Brooks is like the easy hey making over $22 million let’s get him out of here if we can and obviously you’re bringing a player in process yeah so first off just from a personality perspective I will say Dylan Brooks is nothing like what I thought he was going to be like I thought he was going to be one of the worst like like not like a bad like toxic Locker pres I just thought he was not going to be like a nice dude he is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever interacted with as an NBA player like he is so friendly so down to earth he really cares about giving back to the community all that just want to say like Dylan Brooks the human being is an incredible person that said Dylan Brooks the player I think he was on maybe his like best behavior for the first you know half or two-thirds of the season he wasn’t doing a lot of the things that Rockets fans were worried about him doing when they first signed him from the Memphis Grizzlies so we did see him kind of revert back to some of that like Memphis Grizzlies Dylan Brooks a little bit near the end of the season some ill-advised you know shot taking uh you know the defense maybe took a little bit of a slip near the end of the season just some things that you could kind of see and project out you’re like man we have him under contract for three more years he’s still a very he’s still a high quality NBA player a legit starting quality NBA 3 and D wing um you know upper echelon Defender but I do think in a vacuum right like M Bridges is is clearly the better player when it comes to you know versus Dylan Brooks what I will say though is I do think he’s a guy that you know the salary matching is there but that’s not necessarily the issue because the Rockets do have other avenues of salary matching when it come when it would come to potentially a Michel Bridges trade they could package any combination of J shant Tate jock landale Jeff Green hell Stephen Adams although I think they they project Stephen Adams to be a big part of what they want to do next season so I doubt he gets used as just salary filler U but all those contracts I just named are all effectively expiring deals very team-friendly contracts um that could you know just immediately come off the books or potentially be flipped down the line at the trade deadline to a team that wants some salary relief that kind of thing and then on the Dylan Brooks front I do think he’s a player that even if he doesn’t have a long-term fit in Brooklyn necessarily he’s a guy that I think could very easily you could flip him for additional value down the line right so he’s used his filler in this trade but then down the line you could recoup maybe an additional future first or something from a team that actually wants his services on a contending team the hardest part yeah the hardest part about it for I think just from a Net’s perspective is is three years right like whether or not he’s flippable or movable anything the Nets want to try to do if it’s not a young guy then we want him to be a guy that’s expiring that’s coming off the books at the end of this season right so that as much as anything if it was Dylan Brooks on a one-year deal and the money was even a little bit heavier I think the Nets might be interested in that type of situation whether it’s with Houston or another team I was saying hey great end of this season it clears off the books and we’re good now the other thing you mentioned there is all of the salary matching that the Houston Rockets can do there’s other names other players but you didn’t mention any of the young guys so again let’s go back to the core of this if it’s about male Bridges what is the what is the limit to how deep Houston would go into the young core six and include pick control back for for the Brooklyn Nets it doesn’t mean you know not every pick we’re talking about 24 get their 25 back whatever it looks like is there an appetite from the Houston side to say and we would maybe give you 24 and 25 and a player and two play two young players knowing that maybe Brooklyn could also say Dorian finny Smith you think that he’s a nice three and D Wing to add into this mix and have you compete now like we can do some things on our side to give you veteran players that help move the needle see the the difficulty here is i i i largely do believe that the Rockets view the core six as as Untouchable unless there is a top four yeah as unless unless there is a true blue like top 20 top 15 guy like if if you were talking in a potential like Donovan Mitchell trade then yeah I think suddenly some of those names are maybe getting dangled right like if they think they can get their hands on Donovan Mitchell and if they think that he would want to be a fixture in Houston long term and not immediately bolt after next season then yeah I think maybe you’re you’re talking about including one of the young names but for a guy like M Bridges who is a a an upgrade over Dylan Brooks absolutely you’re not gonna give up on the future of those other young guys yet because they’re not in that place where they’re ready to strike as a true blue Contender just yet and on top of that the Rockets do have access to their non-t taxpayer mle this offseason which clocks in at just under $13 million so they can add other win now pieces without necessarily having to do it via trade or without having to give up on any of these young guys yet um and that’s that’s the difficulty in this is I I do think it all kind of boils down to how much the Nets truly want to truly value getting those picks back and whether or not that that hangup is that 2025 pick and I’m at a point where I would value the established player so M bridges in this instance I would value the established player who has proven himself to be an all-nba capable Defender clearly a guy that you said earlier right is miscast in his current role but but is a phenomenal kind of like third banana on a on a true Contender as as Illustrated previously when the Suns made their finals run right with Devin Booker and Chris Paul and then male Bridges kind of playing that third or even at times fourth banana depending on you know what kind of mood DeAndre Aton was in that season um um you all the narratives we forget about you know just a moment ago things were so different across the NBA landscape dude for real no I mean things can change at the drop of a hat and that that’s the other important thing here to note is just that we we’re having this conversation right now and maybe status quo doesn’t change right maybe the Rockets don’t do anything maybe the Nets don’t do anything and we revisit this conversation at the next trade deadline right Midway through next season and maybe things change drastically to where the Rockets feel very differently where they’re like oh no now we we really need to go back and get male Bridges at all costs or maybe this next season starts and it’s a disaster for the Nets right maybe they have you know a bad injury from the jump or they just they’re they’re not playing as well as they thought they could have they’re not able to make any you know any major roster additions this offseason and suddenly they’re looking at things like oh man we’re looking at like we’re going to be one of the worst five teams in the association and we’re about to convey a potential top five pick to the Rockets how do we get our hands back on that pick so I I think as it stands right now it feels like a trade would benefit both sides but I think it’s everything that I’ve come to understand about this is that the Rockets have attempted and reattempted multiple times to engage the Nets in these discussions and they’re the ones who have basically said no like we’re not feeling it right like it it takes two to make a trade happen and the rockets are are trying to make something come to light with this net situation but it feels like they are hellbent on the the path that they have chosen right now the the irony that male bridg is on the Houston Rockets it’s the same thing the Nets have a problem right now with Mel Bridges on the Brooklyn Nets you just need the better player ahead of them like you need the elite Talent established Talent ahead of him and not that Houston doesn’t have far more established even young talent in that regard to your point by all accounts Houston is calling they’re stirring the pot they’re dialing it up they’re sending out the signals and the Brooklyn Nets have been staunch and saying melbridge is Untouchable we’re not having these conversations about this I find the picks interesting like I find if the Brooklyn Nets gets a draft night and they think maybe there is a player at the top there the third overall pick and they can get Houston to put 25 back in the mix swapping X number of Phoenix picks to get back your own control that’s a pivot that I think Brooklyn should very much be open to even if it doesn’t include Mel Bridges just have the straight conversation and maybe Dorian finy Smith does become a sweetener for Houston or otherwise right so I somewhere it feels like something needs to happen here mostly for the Brooklyn Nets I I think the other reality for Nets fans here is that Houston would like to do something but they don’t need to do something you mentioned if it doesn’t go well for Brooklyn Houston goes great now we have another top five pick potentially in next year’s draft class that we can draft or we can use trade get a star Etc it keeps coming back to the Brooklyn Nets are beholden to a lot of other outside forces whereas Houston and a lot of other teams get to say yeah we’re we’re we’re competing we’re playing hard we have our core now we’re just waiting to see if we get opportunities through some other teams poor play to be more successful to have better benefits going forward so it’s one of those really bad spots for us I envy as as most Nets fans should I envy the situation that we currently see Houston and because they’re in a really good spot to compete now and then still be able to build for later the only maybe silver lining it’s the Western Conference and you can be a really good team and then still not make the playoffs so you know Brooklyn is only a 37 win season away from being in the playing tourament and what’s funny is the Rockets were kind of use the Rockets as like the blueprint because the Rockets were very much in this position a few years ago in the in the aftermath of the Russell Westbrook Chris Paul trade where they mortgaged their future and the rockets are still going to have to deal with the ramifications of that trade for the next few years as the uh as those picks are still owed to the OKC Thunder but they had a brief window where like all right cool we’re going to be bad for a few years and we’re going to get back to a place where we’re competitive to reduce the value of those picks that are owed to the not necessarily like that wasn’t their only reason for wanting to do it but they had a blueprint right they lost their draft Capital due to a bad trade very similar to what happened with the Brooklyn Nets in what is now we can call a bad trade or however you want to look at the hindsight 2020 whatever of the aftermath of the James Harden trade I think at the time it was the right move right you go all in you give yourself a big three the right move at the time it just didn’t play out the way anybody would have thought it would or you know the the the the best possible outcome I should say so now what do you do right you make that pivot like you were talking about earlier you can make that pivot and then the Nets very realistically if they were to make this trade get back their draft assets they could in two to three years time be in the exact same position the Rockets are in right now and possibly having these exact conversations with the Suns about trying to get their picks back right it’s just it’s first round picks all the way down Adam come on baby Jackson Gatlin from from his words to the Brooklyn Nets fan base baby we’re just a couple of years away from making it all happen listen I’m sure that we’re going to have these kind of conversations getting towards the draft as well Jackson Gatlin who was in attendance last year I don’t know if we’ll be meeting up again this time around but it’s it’s interesting man and guess what when you’re not in the playoffs these are the discussions you have how do we get this team better how do we improve ourselves how do we make it so that next year this time we’re talking about competing and trying to go to Conference Finals and trying to get a championship for either one of these fan bases the prospects a little bit dimmer for Brooklyn right now but we shall see man always a pleasure to connect with you uh I we’ll say we’re GNA clean up on the back end but you know where to find us him there me there we’re all over the place it’s locked on man we’re having a good time and that my friends a great conversation with Jackson Gatlin from locked on Rockets as we said at the top it it it’s a reminder that just because even in our version of things on locked on Nets where we think the rebuild is what Brooklyn should want to do okay how many picks would Houston give for Mel Bridges in a trade like that how many young players maybe none would they be willing to put in the mix for that and ultimately when we look at the NBA draft later this month it does seem like as we’ve talked about whether or not we think you’re always going to be able to find NBA talent in there and there’s going to be players that surprise in the 2024 draft you certainly have to look at it and realize that a lot of teams Houston included looks at this opportunity to maybe leverage a little bit of extra value with a third overall pick and mitigate some of the risk that they had in trying to get the most out of some of these controlled Nets access that being the case we be back again next weekend we’ll keep talking about the NBA Finals what’s going on there how some of these players in the draft could appeal to the Brooklyn Nets if they’re able to make a trade that gets them back into the 2024 NBA draft and for all those things get over to YouTube Turn on the Subscribe the alert buttons by the way we hit that 7K mark thank you to all of you you now get to be a part of the journey towards 8K and obviously you follow us on X arre at dougy and locked on Nets and as always when there is no Doug Nory there is no quote short of saying that I miss my friend and I can’t wait until he’s back so we can keep talking all things Brooklyn Nets basketball

Adam Armbrecht is joined by Jackson Gatlin from Locked On Rockets for. a sobering perspective on Houston and their offseason. Yes, the Rockets want to improve their roster and Mikal Bridges is on the target board but Jackson paints a clear picture of a team that wants to improve, but is by no means desperate.

With a weak 2024 NBA Draft class, Houston does find themselves in a tight. spot, holding the third overall pick while preferring to land veteran talent. Even in the Nets for Phoenix pick-swap scenario, there is some indication 2025 would. be a sticking point.

Most of the chatter is coming out of Houston to this point, but it will be a fascinating lead up to the Draft, where once again Sean Marks will be in the drivers seat of the Brooklyn Nets future.

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