The Trade

McGrady, Landry and Dorsey are gone. In return, the Rockets got Kevin Martin, Jordan Hill, Hilton Armstrong and Jared Jeffries. Reporting the facts is easy. Figuring out why this trade went down is not.

On the surface, it makes sense to get something for McGrady before he becomes a free agent at the end of the season and walks away. But McGrady was a key to this trade in salary cap considerations only. The real trade was Carl Landry for Kevin Martin. Everything else is just making the dollars work. Unfortunately, in making the dollars work, the Rockets have given up their ability to sign a significant free agent after this season. They have locked themselves into almost $19 million in new salaries that extend into next season or beyond. Barring off-season trades, that effectively eliminates them from the James/Wade/Bosh/Stoudemire sweepstakes. In fact, most of the biggest names in the league will either be untrestricted free agents or have early termination options this off-season.

What did the Rockets get in return for losing their flexibility? A one-dimensional guard, a third-tier backup center, an overpriced journeyman forward and a young big with potential. It's hard to find much to love in this trade. So why did it happen? Do the Rockets know something about the available big name free agents? Are they all likely to sign with teams other than the Rockets? Was Landry already at the top of his game with no upside? Does Hill have more potential that the Knicks envisioned? Did Dorsey have more holes in his game than Adelman admitted?

Given his history of smart personnel moves, I can only believe that Daryl Morey knows things that we do not. This is the first move he has made that does not sit well with me at all. Rockets fans were completely understanding of the fact that the team was without its two best players, but still winning with grit and determination. We were perfectly willing to be loyal to the team and wait for the off-season to sign an impact player that would take them to a championship. But now, that hope is lost. The four players the Rockets got will not take them anywhere.