There is no opening bell, as with the start of Wall Street trading. There will not be a sudden rush of deals, as when the NBA reaches its annual trade deadline, this season on Feb. 9.
Still, Thursday is described as the start of the league’s trade season, with players who signed free-agent contracts last summer becoming eligible to be dealt and talks that grow dormant early in the season customarily picking up leading to that December shopping window.
This season, 74 players become trade eligible on Thursday. But the date when summer free agents become eligible to be dealt rarely leads to immediate trades.
The last time there was a trade on the date free agents became trade eligible, the Rockets were part of a 2010 three-team deal in which they acquired Terrence Williams from the New Jersey Nets for a first-round pick.
In 2014, they made one of the trades in that December window when they acquired Corey Brewer from the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for Troy Daniels.
Yet as rare as those deals are, it has become a tradition, at least among those entertained by possibilities and the new names to plug into the ESPN trade machine, as well as general managers with an eye toward February, to view Thursday as a sort of opening night.
The Rockets, given their commitment to a long, youth-filled rebuild, are in no hurry to deal. But they are among the teams that will inspire the most speculation.
That is largely because they are a team with nine players 21 and younger, including seven taken in the first round of the past two NBA drafts, and feature Eric Gordon, who is less than two weeks from his 34th birthday.
His timetable would not seem to fit with Jalen Green’s and Jabari Smith Jr.’s, but dealing Gordon has proven complicated for reasons unlikely to change.
There have been preliminary talks with roughly a half dozen teams, a person with knowledge of the situation said. Gordon is expected to be among the top targets for contenders (such as the Suns, who played the Rockets on Tuesday) looking for help to get over the top. Gordon’s ability to catch-and-shoot with range, to defend at a variety of positions, and to defer to other stars all make him an easy fit for already well-positioned teams.
Earning $19.6 million this season, however, he is between the mid-level and max contracts, dramatically shrinking the pool of players on contending teams who would work in a trade.
Though many teams can and would treat Gordon’s contract, non-guaranteed in 2023-24, as an expiring contract, the Rockets consider him to be signed for this season and next.
There is no urgency to move his contract to create cap room since next season is not guaranteed anyway, and the Rockets are already likely to have more cap room next summer than they need. If they trade him, they would be careful about bringing back a player or players with longer contracts or veterans who would cut court time of young players, with the Rockets already having trouble finding roles for some of the recent first-round picks.
Mostly, the Rockets’ position on dealing Gordon has not changed from last season, when the deadline passed without a trade of the Rockets’ most accomplished veteran.
The Rockets would primarily want a first-round pick, but since they are likely to be dealing with teams considered contenders, they would seek a pick improved either by having it come in future seasons or via another team. As was the case during last season’s trade talks, the Rockets have two first-round picks in the next draft and are not eager to add a third, especially having chosen many players in the past two drafts.
They are even more hesitant to move forward K.J. Martin, another name in frequent trade speculation. Martin is on a team-friendly contract, worth just $1.9 million at a team option next season. The Rockets could decline that option and extend him, the sort of extension that general manager Rafael Stone has favored in the past two seasons.
After investing two seasons in Martin, the Rockets are now reaping benefits, more regularly winning his playing time, and believe that at 21 he still has room to grow. Amid reports of a three-team deal with the Suns and Bucks, that kind of trade never gained traction past the proposal stage or a second phone call.
The Rockets are also likely to be patient because of their circumstance as a rebuilding team in the final season with control of their own pick before the Thunder have their picks or the option to swap positions in the draft.
If they were further into the rebuild, they could seek the sort of veteran who could fill a void. At their stage, they are trying to develop players, rather than put a veteran on top of prospects in their rotation, the thinking behind their last significant trade, which sent Christian Wood to Dallas.
Still, as trade talks pick up, trade possibilities do, too. And as of Thursday, ’tis the season.