The Denver Nuggets announced that they have traded the talented but problematic star guard Ty Lawson to the Houston Rockets.
The Nuggets will receive Nick Johnson, Kostas Papanikolaou, Pablo Prigioni and Joey Dorsey along a lottery protected first-round pick in 2016 and cash considerations. Houston will also receive a 2017 second-round pick in the deal.
Lawson was a first-round pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2009 before being traded to Denver on draft day. He has averaged 14.2 points and 6.6 assists in his six-year career. However his trade stock plummeted after being arrested for DUI for the third time, bringing along a high-risk/high-reward factor to his new team.
Rockets GM Daryl Morey believes Lawson’s upside is worth the risk, and he will help as a secondary scorer to take some of the load off James Harden, who led the team in scoring and assists last season.
“He’s one of the best playmakers in the league,” Morey said of Lawson. “We struggled against teams that would really load up on James and we feel like that will be a lot more difficult for teams to do that now.”