Future Houston Rockets draft pick assets, protections through 2029
With the 2022 NBA draft officially in the books, there’s a new set of draft picks that are now officially available to the Houston Rockets and other teams across the league for consideration in potential trades.
The NBA allows teams to trade draft picks for up to seven years in advance. Thus, when each draft passes, another year is added to the list. In this case, the passing of the 2022 draft puts 2029 picks on the market.
In the case of the Rockets, whose rebuild is led by a duo of elite draft prospects in Jalen Green (2021) and Jabari Smith (2022), there will soon come a point at which Houston considers more aggressive moves to upgrade its roster — perhaps by using future draft assets as incentive.
That aggressive window could open as soon as the league’s 2023-24 fiscal year, which is now less than a calendar year away, since that season is when Houston’s future draft obligations to Oklahoma City (from the Chris Paul-Russell Westbrook trade in 2019) come back into play. After all, there’s no incentive to lose at a high level if the primary benefit of the resulting high draft pick would likely be headed to the Thunder.
On the other hand, the good news is that Houston has more draft assets headed its way from an increasingly unstable situation in Brooklyn. The Rockets also added to their stockpile of future second-round draft assets by trading back from No. 26 to No. 29 in the 2022 first round.
Through 2029, here’s an updated year-by-year list of the Rockets’ draft picks, as of July 2022. Scroll on for further details.
2023
Houston OR Brooklyn first-round pick, whichever is higher
Milwaukee first-round selection
2024
Brooklyn first-round pick
Houston second-round selection
Brooklyn second-round selection
Golden State second-round pick, protected for selections 56-60 (anything higher and it conveys)
2025
First-round pick from Houston, Oklahoma City, OR Brooklyn (Oklahoma City can swap its 2025 first for Houston’s first-round pick, top-10 protected; after that is decided, Houston can swap whatever pick it has for Brooklyn’s selection, if desired)
Houston second-round selection
Minnesota second-round selection
2026
Brooklyn first-round pick
Houston second-round selection
2027
Houston OR Brooklyn first-round pick, whichever is higher
Minnesota second-round selection
2028
Houston first-round pick
Houston second-round selection
2029
Houston first-round pick
Houston second-round selection
Any of the above picks that does not contain a reference to protections or pick-swap rights is fully owned by the Rockets for that year.
When considering hypothetical trades, remember the NBA’s Stepien rule, which prevents teams from being without a first-round pick (either their own or from another team) in consecutive future drafts. However, Houston is set up fairly well to avoid that conundrum, since they currently own at least one first-round pick in each of the next seven years.
It’s also possible to work around that rule by executing a trade shortly after a pick is made — i.e. the Rockets could theoretically trade both their 2023 and 2024 first-round picks by waiting to execute a deal until after the 2023 selection is made (with Houston choosing on behalf of another team). That’s why the June 2022 trade sending Christian Wood from Houston to Dallas wasn’t finalized until after the draft, as the Mavericks could not technically be without a 2022 first-round pick due to already being without one in 2023. However, they worked around that limitation and were still able to functionally use that 2022 pick as a trade asset.
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