Cavs: A hypothetical 3-team trade involving the Nets and Rockets

The Cavs-Rockets perspective

According to The Athletic’s Jason Lloyd (subscription required), Cleveland and Houston “remained engaged late Tuesday on a deal that would bring Brandon Knight and the Rockets’ first-round pick to Cleveland in exchange for Alec Burks,” so that’s the main reasoning here with Burks.

This season, Burks has averaged a respectable 11.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 28.8 minutes per game with the Cavs.

Along with that need that Burks could fill for Houston, ESPN’s Zach Lowe recently noted that “Houston will peddle a first-round pick” attached to both Chriss and Knight “until the buzzer.”

Why not both, then?

It was recently reported by multiple sources, including Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes, that Chriss’ representation (headed by Chriss’ agent, Aaron Goodwin), wants to “either find the third-year forward an opportunity to play or seek a trade in which Chriss will have a chance to earn rotational minutes.”

Knight has only played in 12 games this season and Chriss has only played in 16 games this year for the Rockets, and Chriss has posted just 1.8 points and 1.8 rebounds in 6.5 minutes per outing, per NBA.com. Chriss does not fit into the Rockets’ style, as he’s not a great roller, such as Clint Capela and the newly-acquired Kenneth Faried, and the tanking Cavs could enable him to get more playing time, potentially.

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Chriss is an explosive athlete that does get up and down the floor well, much like Larry Nance Jr., and the key here for Cleveland is that Chriss’ contract is expiring. So if he doesn’t have much of a role for Cleveland, as he likely won’t anyhow, there’s no harm and really no foul, and the Rockets area freed of a potential locker room issue.

Plus, for Houston, Channing Frye, who is expiring after this season, can provide spacing if he is in in games with his career 38.7 percent three-point shooting. In addition, Ante Zizic, a 21-year-old who is developing nicely for Cleveland this year, can take the place of Houston’s Isaiah Hartenstein (a 20-year-old), who is another developmental player that the Cavs could feature more in the coming years as they progress in their rebuild.

For the Cavs taking the complications of Knight (who’s due to make over $30 million combined the next two seasons, per Spotrac) and Chriss, the Rockets sending over their first-round pick in the upcoming draft seems reasonable to me, and Cavaliers general manager Koby Altman jumps all over that here, and for good reason.

Now to the Cavs-Nets perspective to the potential deal.