Wealth of prospects to impact draft plans
Finds in 2nd round occasionally work, but fitting them in can be a challenge
The Rockets don’t have to look long to find reason to hope that picking so late in the NBA draft on Thursday could work for them.
For the second consecutive season, the Rockets don’t have a first-round pick, having sent theirs to the Los Angeles Lakers in the deal for Lou Williams to become one of seven teams that do not hold a first-round selection.
Barring a move, the Rockets will have two secondround selections, the 43rd and 45th picks. Though the odds are not great picking so late, those spots have brought a few outstanding players over the years, including two on the Rockets’ roster.
Trevor Ariza, the Rockets’ starting small forward for the past three seasons, was the 43rd player taken in the 2004 draft when he was selected by the New York Knicks. Williams, the top scoring reserve in the NBA last season and a former Sixth Man of the Year
winner, was the 45th pick of the 2005 draft when the Philadelphia 76ers chose him out of high school.
The Rockets could try to strike similar secondround gold, but the endeavor could be considerably more complicated than just taking the players they consider the best available and hoping they pan out.
The Rockets will have as many as five prospects on their roster even before adding two draft choices. They have last season’s second-round pick, center Chinanu Onuaku, under contract and expect to sign their second choice in last season’s second round, center/forward Zhou Qi, next month.
Tapping into Vipers
Isaiah Taylor and Kyle Wiltjer showed outstanding promise with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers and also are under contract. The Rockets intend to re-sign another Vipers standout, Troy Williams, a restricted free agent, according to a person with knowledge of their plans.
For a team that aspires to contend, that is a large portion of the roster devoted to prospects. If the Rockets do not make other related roster moves, that collection and perhaps glut of prospects could impact their thinking in the draft.
Depending on how the draft unfolds, making a player considered worth an earlier pick available in the middle of the second round, the Rockets could seek a player who would agree to one of the new two-way contacts.
In those contracts, part of the collective bargaining agreement to begin next month, two players in addition to the 15 roster spots can be signed to the NBA G League (formerly the NBA Development League) and limited to no more than 45 days with the NBA team.
The draft is considered deep enough with talent that players considered in the last third of the first round could be available
until the middle of the second round.
The Rockets don’t announce players brought in for workouts. But as a team without a firstround pick, many players under consideration wouldn’t grant individual workouts much like last year’s picks, who also did not come in for workouts.
Overseas seasoning
The Rockets also could look to use one of their second-round selections on a player who could stay overseas for an additional year, as Zhou did last season.
The class of international talent is not considered deep, but there are several prospects who are expected to go in the middle of the second round.
“The two-way contract adds some depth to rosters,” Rockets vice president Gersson Rosas said. “More teams have D-League affiliates. How they use the draft, how they use two-ways, how they use free agency, I think will start showing up here on Thursday.”