Rockets at NBA trade deadline and their future projection: Hollinger and Iko

With the Feb. 9 trade deadline inching closer, the Houston Rockets are in an interesting position. They are 12-38, last in the Western Conference, but still have intrigue with a veteran capable of helping a playoff team in Eric Gordon, a bunch of young players and solid draft capital at their disposal.

The season hasn’t gone according to plan but that doesn’t mean all is lost. It’s about figuring out the next steps and righting the ship.

But what is that direction? What needs to be done between now and the end of the regular season? To answer this and other Rockets-related inquiries, beat writer Kelly Iko sat down with senior writer John Hollinger — former Memphis Grizzlies vice president of basketball operations — to get valuable insight.

Iko: John, you’ve seen both sides of the coin as it pertains to front office tenure — there were some really good and bad Grizzlies teams between 2012 and 2019.

Put yourself in Houston’s shoes for a second. What’s your primary objective for the second half of the season? Do lean more towards strengthening your potential lottery position given the team’s standing, or do you make an effort to get these young players to play smart, efficient basketball? Is there a world where Houston can do a bit of both?

Hollinger: We won 20 games in 2017-18, and did some work to get there (we went 4-29 in our last 33 games). The good news is that Houston’s “work” on this front is already done. The Rockets are 12-38, seven games behind the Orlando Magic for the fifth-best lottery odds. There is no reasonable scenario in which they will not have at least a 12.5 percent chance of getting the top pick in the draft.

There is still “work” to be done in terms of securing the best possible positioning — the league’s worst record guarantees them no worse than the fifth pick, and a bottom three record guarantees 14.0 percent odds of the top pick. Nonetheless, at this point the Rockets can safely go forward without being overly worried about the standings. They might need to resort to some shenanigans in the second-to-last game against Charlotte, but they might already have the league’s worst record locked up by that point.

Iko: You’re right. Conventional thinking says the Rockets will get the opportunity to add another top prospect in the coming months.

But what can you say about the current core? Alperen Şengün has been trending up with his strong offensive showings and has been getting noticed by folks around the league, but what about Jalen Green and Jabari Smith Jr.? Where do you stand on them?

Hollinger: All three are long-term keepers, but I also think each has some player development challenges that could prevent them from being elite players.

In Şengün’s case, it’s probably obvious — he has to figure out the cat-and-mouse game of defending the pick-and-roll, and he needs to figure it out better than most because he doesn’t have overwhelming size or shot-blocking ability to make…