The first domino of the trade deadline fell Wednesday night when the Sacramento Kings, Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets completed a three team trade that sent Marcus Morris from the Rockets to Suns, Patrick Patterson, Cole Aldrich and Toney Douglas to the Kings and Thomas Robinson, Francisco Garcia and Tyler Honeycutt to the Rockets. Houston also gets a couple of second round picks as part of the deal.
First off, the Rockets win this trade because they got the a guy in Robinson who was the fifth pick in last June's draft who still has three years left on his rookie deal and actually showed signs of life when the Kings gave him regular minutes. Also, America wins because this trade reunites Marcus and Markieff Morris. According to Fox Sports' Chris Tomasson, this is only the second time this has happened in NBA history, the first time coming Dick & Tom Van Arsdale in 1976-77, also with the Suns. Now if only Billy King can convince Dell Demps to trade Robin Lopez to the Nets for Kris Humphries and MarShon Brooks.
The loser of the deal are the fans of the Sacramento Kings. The team may or may not be out the door and they make a trade simply saved the Maloofs some money. Keep in mind they have a deal in place to sell the team for $360 million and got a $30 non-refundable payment from the Seattle group regardless of whether the sale goes through. Still, they opted to save $4 million by trading a guy who should've fit in perfectly with a team full of chuckers. Nothing against Patrick Patterson who is a good player, a former teammate of DeMarcus Cousins and is better than Robinson right now. Still, he doesn't have the upside of Robinson and he comes off his rookie contract next year. Robinson has three years left on his deal.
Additionally, they got Toney Douglas to go along with their trio of shoot-only undersized point guard trio of Isaiah Thomas, Jimmer Fredette and Aaron Brooks (that's probably a little unfair to IT). Someone is going to kill the other. I'm putting money on Aaron Brooks, just a gut feeling.
Photo: Bleacher Report
