Thomas Robinson traded to Houston Rockets in 3-team deal

The Rockets drafted Patterson in the first round of the 2010 NBA Draft with the 14th overall pick out of the University of Kentucky. Since coming to Houston, he’s gone from the last man on the bench to an effective role player starter. In the 2012-13 season, he’s started 38 out of 47 games for the Rockets and has averaged 11.6 points and 4.7 rebounds, both career-bests.

A capable scorer, Patterson is also a high-percentage shot-taker, shooting at a 51.9 percent mark this season and averaging 49.5 percent for his career. This season, he’s added the three-pointer to his game and is shooting at 36.5 percent mark with 96 attempts on the year. He had zero over the course of his first two seasons.

One of the biggest ongoing stories in the NBA this year is the Kings’ potential sale to a group of Seattle-based investors. The sale will be up for league approval in April, but according to Adrian Wojnarowski, who broke the news of the trade, the hopeful owners were briefed on the deal before it happened. They didn’t veto the trade, if they had any ability to do so.

Robinson is the only player in the deal signed past 2014, with team options for $3.6 million in 2015 and $4.6 million in 2016. Garcia is the highest-paid and oldest player in the trade. He makes $6.1 million this year with a team option next year for $6.4 million, but it’s hard to imagine the Rockets exercising that option.

Figuring out the motivation for one team here is easy. Figuring it out for the other is trickier. Let’s assess this deal from each team’s perspective.

The motivation here is simple: money. Sacramento is sending out $10.3 million of salary for 2012-12 and taking only $6.6 million back, which was made possible by the Rockets having nearly $7 million in cap space. (Note: these numbers must be pro-rated for the rest of the season, so the Kings won’t save as much as one would think. Still, they will save.)

It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which the Suns play the Morris twins together, other than the occasional small-ball lineup, but there will be identical production (get it?) regardless of which one is on the floor. In Markieff’s time this year, he’s shot poorly from long range. His PER has stayed the same, however, going from 12.1 as a rookie to 12.2 this year in 20 minutes of play per game.

This isn’t even the first time in NBA history twins have played on the same team. Tom and Dick Van Arsdall played together in their last season in the NBA, the 1976-‘77 season. The guards — and you can’t make this stuff up — played for the Phoenix Suns that year.