Milwaukee’s dramatic Game 7 overtime win at Brooklyn on Saturday night means that longtime Rockets superstar James Harden won’t win the NBA title in the first season after his leveraged trade to the Nets.
But the implications to Houston extend well beyond any personal feelings regarding the tumultuous end to Harden’s long tenure there.
As part of the four-team Harden trade and also a subsequent deal involving PJ Tucker, much of the Rockets’ rebuilding efforts in the coming years are tied to the success or failure of the Nets and Bucks (future draft obligations). Houston has unprotected first-round picks from Brooklyn headed its way in 2022, 2024, and 2026, along with the right to “swap” selections with the Nets in 2023, 2025, and 2027. Meanwhile, Houston owns Milwaukee’s unprotected first-round draft pick in 2023.
The NBA’s 2021 draft order and lottery probabilities were already set at the conclusion of the 2020-21 regular season, so there are no immediate implications from the Bucks’ win. Rather, the biggest storylines to watch involve whether any star players for either team might seek to leave in the coming years and put their current franchise in a weakened state — just as Harden did with the Rockets a few months ago.
Between Harden, LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Kevin Durant, the recent history of NBA superstars leaving a team via a forced trade or free agency shows a clear trend. In most cases, the player hadn’t won an NBA championship in the most recent season, and his team wasn’t viewed as a title favorite for the coming season. One rare exception was Toronto’s Kawhi Leonard in 2019, but that’s a very unique situation — since it was known that Leonard didn’t want to be in Toronto in the first place, and he’s a Southern California native who returned home.
For the most part, top-tier players don’t choose to change teams after winning a title. It typically occurs when they have lost. Moreover, the sense of urgency only increases with players like Harden and Davis, who had yet to win a title in their careers at the time of those deals.
What does that mean for the Rockets, as it pertains to the situations in Brooklyn and Milwaukee? Teams who win NBA championships don’t typically break up in the near future. Thus, the best-case result for the value of Houston’s draft assets likely involves neither team winning big.
With Brooklyn, the path is simple. Harden, Durant, and Kyrie Irving all have player options in their contracts to become free agents in the 2022 offseason. That’s now only one season away! It’s very unlikely that any of that trio would attempt to force their way out of town in 2021, since this was their first year together and the circumstances of their playoff loss involved serious injuries to Harden (hamstring) and Irving (ankle). Harden missed nearly all of the series’ first four games and was clearly limited after his Game 5 return, while Irving sat out the final three games. The probable outcome is for the Nets to “run it back” in 2021-22, with hopes of better health delivering a superior result in the playoffs.
But, what happens if the Nets fall short again in 2022? That’s where it gets interesting, and particularly with Harden — who will turn 33 later that year and, in this hypothetical, would still be without a ring. It seems quite plausible in such a scenario that Harden would at least consider other options as a free agent, given his clear desire to win a title. Harden’s priorities might be slightly different, had he won a championship in 2021, but we now know that’s not the case. If Harden leaves, the expected future value of Brooklyn’s draft assets would rise significantly.
The stakes involving the Bucks aren’t nearly as meaningful to the Rockets as those with the Nets, since Houston owns up to six future draft assets from Brooklyn and only one (2023 first-round pick) from Milwaukee. The Rockets do own Milwaukee’s 2021 selection, as well, but that was already locked at No. 24 overall and cannot be altered, at this stage.
The Bucks have their core (Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, and Jrue Holiday) signed for multiple seasons moving forward, which makes any route to a Milwaukee breakup very different than the potential path in Brooklyn. In contrast to Harden, Durant, and Irving, Milwaukee does not have a star who can become a 2022 free agent.
However, it’s certainly plausible that Antetokounmpo — already a two-time MVP — could attempt to follow the blueprint of Davis in New Orleans and Harden in Houston by forcing a trade, should the Bucks remain without a title or even a Finals appearance by the 2022 offseason. As with Harden, there’s clear pressure to win a ring for his legacy.
As good as Saturday’s win felt for the Bucks, it could be remembered very differently if they fall short against Philadelphia or Atlanta in the upcoming Eastern Conference Finals. After all, consider that the Brooklyn squad that Milwaukee narrowly beat was nowhere near what their reputation would suggest, given the injuries to Harden and Irving. What Milwaukee does in the coming weeks will likely dictate whether the series is remembered for the Bucks winning it, or the Nets losing it.
If the Bucks can’t take advantage of what appears to be a golden opportunity to at least reach the 2021 NBA Finals, it’s fair to wonder what Antetokounmpo’s mindset might be come July 2022 — assuming his team falls short in the 2022 playoffs, as well. In that hypothetical, Giannis would have played four straight prime seasons at an MVP level without any playoff success of significance to show for it. At a bare minimum, he would seem likely to at least consider various options.
Besides movement from star players, it’s certainly possible that injuries, age-related attrition, or a financial crunch from having rosters deep into the luxury tax could also weaken the Nets and/or Bucks in the years ahead. But the timing and precise impact of those factors is very difficult to project. At this early stage, the clearest path to one or more of those draft assets becoming a high pick involves a superstar’s departure.
It might sound unlikely today that either the Bucks or Nets could fall off so quickly, given the epic Game 7 that they just played in the Eastern Conference semifinals. But consider this: Oklahoma City’s 47.9% chance to land the No. 5 overall pick in the 2021 draft from Houston (depending on the result of Tuesday’s draft lottery) was obtained via a trade that took place less than two years ago. When the Chris Paul-Russell Westbrook blockbuster went down in July 2019, the Rockets were one of the NBA’s winningest franchises, and no one expected a top-four-protected pick swap in 2021 to be especially meaningful.
But when Harden chose to force his way out in 2020, Houston’s short-term outlook declined more rapidly than anyone could have imagined. With any luck, the same might happen with Brooklyn or Milwaukee.
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