Nets, Rockets complete swap of draft assets

The Nets and Rockets have officially announced their trade involving a series of future draft assets, with each team issuing a press release to confirm the move. We previously covered the deal within our story on the Mikal Bridges trade between the Nets and Knicks, but here are the full terms of the Brooklyn/Houston swap.

Nets acquire:

• Control of their own 2025 first-round pick (negating the Rockets’ right to swap either its own 2025 first-rounder or the Thunder’s 2025 first-rounder for Brooklyn’s pick).
• Their own 2026 first-round pick.

Rockets acquire:

• The right to swap either their own 2025 first-round pick or the Thunder’s 2025 first-round pick for the Suns’ 2025 first-round pick.
• The Suns’ 2027 first-round pick.
• Either the Mavericks’ or the Suns’ 2029 first-round pick (whichever is more favorable).
• The right to swap their own 2029 first-round pick with either the Mavericks’ or the Suns’ 2029 first-round pick (whichever is least favorable).
  • Note: Houston now essentially controls the two most favorable of the Mavericks’, Suns’, and Rockets’ 2029 first-rounders, with the Nets retaining control of the least favorable of the three.

The Nets’ motivation for the deal seems clear — their decision to trade Bridges signals that they’re prepared to take a step back in the short term rather than pushing toward contention. Having control of their own first-round picks for 2025 and 2026 will aid their rebuilding process, reducing the need to accelerate that process.

As cap expert Yossi Gozlan notes, Brooklyn will be in position to create more than $60M in cap room in 2025, so the team will have no shortage of cap flexibility going forward in addition to being flush with future draft assets.

As for the Rockets, a report back early May suggested they had interest in talking to the Nets about returning some of Brooklyn’s draft assets in exchange for some of those future Suns picks. Houston is pushing its collection of draft assets down the road a little and making a bet against Phoenix’s sustainability as a contender for the next several years.

As Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN has reported, the Rockets believe acquiring those future Suns assets puts them in a good position to pursue a star like Kevin Durant or Devin Booker in the event that they submit trade requests, or in the event that Phoenix eventually decides to break up its roster.

As the Nets showed with this deal, if a team pivots to a rebuild, it’s crucial for that team to control its own first-round draft picks — the Rockets now essentially own the Suns’ picks in 2025, 2027 and 2029 and could offer those assets back to Phoenix in any trade between the two teams.

Of course, the Rockets could use those assets in any trade with any team regardless of what Phoenix decides to do.