7:28pm: Both teams have officially announced the trade, the Rockets via a press release and Thunder with a separate news release. The Thunder also announced they have waived Porter.
Houston made a related move, waiving Matthew Mayer in order to open a roster spot to complete the two-for-one deal. Mayer, who signed a camp deal in early August, went undrafted in June out of Illinois and caught on with the Rockets’ Summer League team. He’ll likely wind up with their G League squad, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.
11:42am: The Thunder and Rockets have agreed to a trade, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, who reports (via Twitter) that Oklahoma City will receive guard Kevin Porter Jr. and a pair of future second-round picks in the deal, while Houston will get guard Victor Oladipo and forward/center Jeremiah Robinson-Earl.
The Thunder, who will immediately waive Porter, are acquiring the Timberwolves’ 2027 second-round pick and the Bucks’ 2028 second-rounder from Houston, Wojnarowski adds (via Twitter).
Porter was arrested in September on charges of assault and strangulation after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend, former WNBA player Kysre Gondrezick. The Rockets began trying to trade the 23-year-old shortly after his arrest and confirmed on media day that he wouldn’t be rejoining the team.
According to Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle (subscription required), prosecutors dropped a second-degree assault charge against Porter this week due to “insufficient evidence.”
However, Porter still faces charges of second-degree strangulation and third-degree assault, so the dropped charge doesn’t materially affect his NBA outlook. No team is likely to consider picking him up at least until the legal process has played out and the league has completed its own investigation and potentially handed out a suspension.
The Rockets’ goal in shopping Porter was to replace him with a player who could actually contribute on the court this season. It’s unclear what the team’s plans are for Oladipo, who is still recovering from a torn patellar tendon in his left knee, but Robinson-Earl should provide some depth in Houston’s frontcourt.
Once the deal is complete, the Rockets will have 16 players on standard contracts — 14 with fully guaranteed salaries, plus Aaron Holiday and Boban Marjanovic on partially guaranteed deals. The team will have to waive or trade one of those 16 players by Monday to get down to the regular season roster limit.
It’s possible Oladipo will be the odd man out, especially if his injury recovery is expected to extend well into the season. His expiring $9.5MM salary could be useful for salary-matching purposes in a subsequent deal, so the Rockets may try to find a way to hang onto him, but most of their roster consists of promising young players or recent additions, so there aren’t any other obvious candidates to be let go.
The Thunder were facing a roster crunch of their own this fall, with 18 players on standard contracts for 15 regular season roster spots. In trading Oladipo and Robinson-Earl for a player whom they’ll waive immediately, they’ll reduce their roster count to 16 players, meaning only one more cut (or trade) will be necessary before opening night.
Acquiring Porter doesn’t look great from a PR perspective for Oklahoma City, given what he has been accused of, but the team will drop him right away and acquires two more future draft picks in the deal. The Thunder also received two future second-round selections when they took on Oladipo in a salary-dump deal with the Heat earlier this offseason, so they’ve essentially added four second-rounders by taking him on from Miami and then flipping him to Houston.
In waiving Porter, the Thunder will eat $15.86MM in dead money this season, plus a $1MM partial guarantee for 2024/25. The rest of Porter’s four-year, $63MM+ contract was non-guaranteed, so Oklahoma City won’t be on the hook for additional money beyond that $16.86MM. OKC also generates a $1.9MM trade exception in the move, tweets Bobby Marks of ESPN.
As for the Rockets, they’ll save a little money in the deal and create a new $4.5MM trade exception of their own. It’s also worth noting that Robinson-Earl, who is owed $1.9MM this season, has a $1.99MM team option for 2024/25, so Houston could hang onto him at a near-minimum cost for two seasons.
Robinson-Earl, who will turn 23 next month, appeared in 43 games for the Thunder last season, starting 20. He posted respectable averages of 6.8 points and 4.2 rebounds in a part-time role (18.9 MPG) and has shown an ability to make an outside shot (.344 career 3PT%), but was buried on OKC’s frontcourt depth chart with Chet Holmgren returning to action.
The Thunder and Rockets have been frequent trade partners in recent years, dating back to their Chris Paul/Russell Westbrook swap in July 2019. They also came together for trades during the 2021 and 2022 offseasons, and they were both involved in the five-team deal sending Dillon Brooks to Houston earlier this year.
Sneaky good for the rockets getting JRE.
Kevin Porter, Jr. $16.9 million guaranteed money.
Welp … Tax man cuts that down to $8.5 million right off the top. Agent gets his 2%, so another $600k gone. Attorneys for current legal case will get their chunk.
I don’t believe he has kids, or that would be another 20% gone to child support.
No more money coming in.
@veryberry curious to see what his career will look like now that his ex is saying he ‘never abused her’ and that any reporting on the contrary is a lie.
His NBA career is over!
His past behavior issues in the locker room is why he didn’t get fully guaranteed money.
Bad locker room guy + Women abuser = No upside to take you on any team.
Yeah, it’ll be next to impossible to come back. Nobody in the NBA will respect him either way. Hard to build winning teams with that going on in the locker room.
As a Thunder fan JRE sucks
Sucks is a bit far….he just needs more time to develop and more playing time at that. With the thunder roster nearing completion for a long term run at playoffs and more, he just wouldn’t see that in okc. I’m glad presti got something for him.
He could end up being a solid off the bench player for any team and possibly starter in time.
EDIT : I now see why they are waiving him.
Why would they keep him? They just wanted the picks.
I wasn’t aware of the legal issues. So I thought to myself why would they waive a young player coming off a season where he averaged 19 ppg. Seems like a fair question?
Dont apologize here in America its known that youre supposed to assume somebody is dumb rather than have a conversation about it
Well that’s dumb …….
What? The knicks? Thats what i was thinkin too
That’s your problem … UTHINK
What America UFROM
OKC has major roster issues. They have way too many dudes. They were going to cut both Oladipo and Jeremiah. They now have a couple of future second round picks rather than nothing.
Sam Presti pulling rabbits out of his hat yet again.
Seems right
I am among those waiting for Miles Bridges to hit the waiver wire like Kevin Porter, Jr. is about to. I am pretty sure I will be waiting a while for the Hornets to do that.
Yeahhhh thats not happening lol
He’ll be waived, just got to wait for the process to play out.
Nah, he’s too much of a talent for the hornets to waive him. No matter what happens legally. Unless he murders someone he’s still a hornet
He’s already serving three years probation and has been suspended once, with the new allegations he could end up in jail for a long time then face further suspension. It doesn’t matter how much talent he has, it’s not worth the PR hit to keep him when he’s rotting in a cell and is only on a one year deal anyway.
I think you have too much faith in the Hornets here.
Given what he has done there might be riots if he doesn’t serve jail time… The Hornets are probably just waiting until their hands are tied…
But he has the money to buy his way out… And it’s a capitalist system after all…
Someone called this a month ago. I’ll look. Porter will be waived but someone will sign him. SMH. Bridges should be the next to go. Time to wake up silver. Also bring back the hand check rule
Waiving him is just the first step, he now needs to remain out of the league permanently. Not just take a 1 year unpaid vacation (like a certain individual).
He’s making 15 mill, he’s still getting paid.
Both Bridges and Porter deserve to have their contracts dissolved by the league…
The disciple options the league has don’t go far enough…
The Union might be hard to convince but the owners will just all over it with the violence ruining their marketing campaigns… Too much violence these past few years…
BRING OUT YOUR BUSTS
BRING OUT YOUR BUSTS
Wasted talent ….. Porter better pray they allow him to play over seas. Cause he’ll never play here again ……..
$16.9 million worth of guaranteed money owed to him will keep him out of Europe. He is gonna lose $60+ million because of his prior behavior issues. Rest of his money was not guaranteed.
Lawyers are gonna get a bit of cash defending him. His bigger concern is trying to reconcile with his victim. She can hit his pockets with a civil lawsuit.
Post reported …… she is claiming. He didn’t do all the things reported. He did assault her though. Seems we have to wait for more. Looks like he will fight this. Excuse my language !!!!
I still don’t see an NBA future …….
link to nypost.com
OLADEPOT
What’s the upside to paying $16.86mil for some 2nd round picks and a $1.9mil trade exception?
If they’d waived Oladipo (extremely likely) and Robinson-Earl (possible), they would’ve owed them $11.4MM, so they’re only really paying about $5.5MM for the second-rounders. Depending on where those picks land, that could be a major bargain by 2027/2028.
Isn’t the league going to suspend Porter without pay?
Eventually, probably, but a team would only save money from that if he’s still on the roster when he serves the suspension.
The NBA typically doesn’t make a ruling until the legal process plays out, which could take months, and more of his future money would become guaranteed during that time (his next guarantee date is opening night), so it’s not worth keeping him around in the hopes of saving a bit of money based on a suspension down the road.
Say Luke !!!!!
Have you guys done a story on John Drew.
His story needs to be told. Great player man. RIP John …..
I love John Drew. I’m surprised you brought him up. First banned forever by the NBA because of drugs
Thanks… I knew there had to be something to it than doing a favor amongst gm’s.
Makes sense. Thanks
Seems like something you could have added to the article :)
The logical odd man out for Houston would be Marjanovic as he is non-guaranteed? He could always come back at a later point.
Boban is the only other one that would make sense. I’m just skeptical they’d cut a popular locker room guy like that in order to carry someone who is essentially just a trade chip right now, and not even that valuable a trade chip (especially since Jeff Green or Jock Landale could ultimately serve the same purposes). We’ll see though.
Off course they will wait until the last minute and try to trade Oladipo.
But my guess: they cut Boban just before opening night, bring him back on two ten-day-contracts and hope to have traded Oladipo by then.
They already cut Boban and brought him back last year. Why not again?
It buys them some time to decide without much impact to Boban. Keeping their options open.
I actually messed up Boban’s contract details — I was thinking his salary was non-guaranteed, but he actually has a $1.3MM partial guarantee, which is another (big) reason I’d be surprised if they cut him.
This means Oladipo can now re sign with the Heat …. just sayin lol
Good move by the Thunder, roster crunch move and got draft comp instead of just cutting guys. Said they’d find someone to take KPJ.
I am still wondering why the Spurs didnt do this move… they actually did cut more than his salary in Payne and Bullock, and I criticized them for it, rightfully so.
This is a business move, pure and simple. Get something for something you were getting rid of anyway.
Honestly, if you take his name out of this, it’s normal practice. It’s happened several times over the years where a guy is on an expiring deal, traded and waived shortly thereafter for the team to get a draft pick.
2015 JaVale Mcgee was traded to the Sixers (11.25M and 12M) along w a FRP (now Korkmaz) and was waived. So they ate more money than the Thunder did.
Them getting a 1st is why they ate more $. These 2nds are far away and even if good picks are still 2nd rounders.
They still got picks for 2 dudes they were going to cut anyway. It cost them 5M or so for said picks in reality. They could sell picks at some point too.