The primary motivations for Wednesday’s trade sending Christian Wood from the Rockets to the Mavericks involved his contract situation, an apparent logjam for frontcourt minutes, and Dallas sending Houston the No. 26 overall pick in the first round of the 2022 NBA draft.
But for salary reasons, the Rockets did receive four players as well. And because it’s the offseason, which is when the NBA allows teams to have up to 20 players on each roster (up from 15 standard contracts during the regular season), Houston has time to decide its next move(s).
Clearly, no one in the group of Sterling Brown, Boban Marjanovic, Trey Burke, and Marquese Chriss is a foundational piece. Yet, each has had a spot in an NBA rotation before. In the case of Chriss (2018-19) and Brown (2020-21), each has played a previous season in Houston, as well.
Like Wood, none of those players has a contract beyond 2022-23. Thus, Houston’s foreseeable salary cap situation — above the cap this 2022 offseason, and potentially well below it in 2023 — is unchanged.
Time will tell as to whether each player is rerouted in a future offseason trade, waived, or kept as part of the 2022-23 roster in Houston. For now, here’s a look at what each player could have to offer.
