Early on in the 2015-16 season and the Houston Rockets are struggling with a 7-11 record. Houston has already fired their head coach, Kevin McHale but might not have been the only move they’re looking to make.
Their newly acquired point guard, Ty Lawson, has struggled this season with Houston. Lawson has played spotty minutes with the Rockets lately averaging 13.8 minutes over his last five games. He recently didn’t play one minute against the Knicks over the weekend but he did play 19 against the Pistons yesterday.
So with no clear-cut role yet for Lawson, it appears that the Rockets might be testing the market to unload the guard.
Following from Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders.
The Rockets have been sniffing around the league for deals and there is a belief among other teams that Lawson could be had in trade, and had cheaply. Lawson is owed $12.4 million this season with the final $13.21 million of his deal being fully non-guaranteed.
As the Rockets search for ways to change, there is a belief that Lawson could be the first Rocket player moved. But given how poorly Lawson has played in Houston and his troublesome off-the-court history, it’s hard to imagine that Lawson alone is going to yield much in return. But as teams start to get desperate, Lawson does have a career assist average of more than 6.5 assists per game and averaged 9.6 per game last season for the Nuggets.
Lawson’s best role right now is coming off the bench for Houston. There might be a little resistance from one side or the other to make the pairing of Harden and Lawson work but bottomline is, it doesn’t.
The Rockets are 10.4 points per 100 possessions better this season when Lawson is on the bench rather than starting. Lawson and Harden are both ball dominant players but when they play together, they get outscored by 9.3 points per 100 possession and if you pair Lawson with Dwight Howard, the Rockets are -11.4 per 100. Not great.
