Evaluating Thunder-Rockets Trade Involving Eight Different Players

On Thursday night, the Oklahoma City Thunder traded Derrick Favors, Theo Maledon, Ty Jerome, newly acquired Maurice Harkless and a 2025 second-round pick that they just acquired from the Atlanta Hawks to the Houston Rockets in exchange for David Nwaba, Sterling Brown, Trey Burke and Marquese Chriss.

It is quite rare to see teams come together to make a trade involving a ton of players once training camp begins, but this is exactly what the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets have done.

Thursday evening, the Thunder and Rockets came together to make a trade involving eight players, highlighted by former 2010 third overall pick Derrick Favors and 2020 second-round pick Theo Maledon.

Oklahoma City agreed to trade Derrick Favors, Theo Maledon, Ty Jerome, Maurice Harkless, who the team recently traded for on Tuesday from the Atlanta Hawks, and Atlanta’s 2025 second-round pick to Houston in exchange for David Nwaba, Sterling Brown, Trey Burke and Marquese Chriss. This deal was first reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

ESPN Sources: The Oklahoma City Thunder are trading Derrick Favors, Ty Jerome, Moe Harkless, Theo Maledon and a 2025 second-round pick via Atlanta to the Houston Rockets for David Nwaba, Sterling Brown, Trey Burke and Marquese Chriss.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 30, 2022

This second-round draft pick Oklahoma City sent to Houston was recently acquired by the Thunder in Tuesday’s trade, a deal in which they sent Vit Krejci to Atlanta in exchange for Maurice Harkless and the Hawks 2025 second-round pick. The draft pick now goes to Houston and is protected 31-40.

It may be hard for some to understand why both sides made this trade, especially since neither team is competing for a playoff spot and since both teams are rebuilding, but this was mainly a financial move for both franchises.

After making this trade, the Thunder are now roughly $10 million under the luxury tax threshold and the Rockets still remain well below this tax line. Both teams have 18 guaranteed contracts on their roster after this deal, meaning that Oklahoma City and Houston will need to find a way to remove three contracts from their roster before the start of the regular season to get to the league maximum roster size of 15 players.

For Houston, Derrick Favors is another veteran big man that this team now has on its roster after acquiring veteran Boban Marjanovic from the Dallas Mavericks earlier this offseason and Favors will be a candidate to possibly be dealt elsewhere at some point during the 2022-23 season.

As for Theo Maledon, he is only 21-years-old and gives Houston some much-needed depth in their backcourt behind Kevin Porter Jr., who is entering the final year of his contract.

Overall, not much changes for both the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets, two young teams looking to find their footing in the Western Conference.