The Rockets are 5-0 and first in the West, and two other teams’ slow starts could matter to Houston next June. The Brooklyn Nets are 0-4 and the Phoenix Suns are 1-2, and the Rockets have a claim on both teams’ 2027 first-round picks. That’s true, with one important detail: Houston owns Phoenix’s pick outright, but its Brooklyn asset is a swap right, not a second pick.
What Houston Actually Owns
- Phoenix’s 2027 first-round pick: owned outright and unprotected.
- A 2027 swap with Brooklyn: Houston gets the better of its own first-round pick and the Nets’ pick. Brooklyn gets the other one.
So in 2027 the Rockets will have two first-round picks: Phoenix’s, plus whichever of the Houston and Brooklyn picks lands higher. With Houston at the top of the West, the swap is in play only if Brooklyn finishes with a worse record than the Rockets.
The James Harden Trade
The Brooklyn swap goes back to Jan. 16, 2021, when Houston traded James Harden to the Nets in a four-team deal with Cleveland and Indiana. Houston got Brooklyn’s unprotected first-round picks in 2022, 2024 and 2026, plus swap rights in 2021, 2023, 2025 and 2027, along with Cleveland’s 2022 first, per Pro Sports Transactions. The 2027 swap is the last piece of that trade still out there.
The 2024 Trade That Brought Phoenix’s Pick
The Suns pick came from Brooklyn, not Phoenix. The Nets got it in the February 2023 trade that sent Kevin Durant to Phoenix. On June 25, 2024, Brooklyn wanted its own picks back as it started to rebuild, so it sent Houston the Suns’ unprotected 2027 first, a 2025 swap with Phoenix and the two best of the Dallas, Phoenix and Houston first-round picks in 2029. In return, the Nets got their 2026 first back and wiped out Houston’s 2025 swap, per the NBA and the Houston Chronicle.
The Phoenix pick stayed in Houston after the July 2025 trade that brought Durant to the Rockets. That deal sent Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the No. 10 pick in the 2025 draft and five second-round picks to the Suns. No Phoenix first came back the other way.
Where the Nets and Suns Stand
Brooklyn lost its first three games to Charlotte, Cleveland and Indiana and visits Boston on Tuesday night, per TeamRankings. Phoenix lost at Portland, beat Golden State 131-122 and then lost 125-114 at Oklahoma City, per Basketball-Reference. It’s three games into an 82-game season, so these records say very little about where the picks will land.
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New Lottery Rules for 2027
The 2027 draft is the first under the NBA’s new “3-2-1 Lottery,” approved by the Board of Governors on May 28, 2026, per NBA.com. The lottery grows from 14 to 16 teams and flattens the odds:
- The three worst teams lose a ball and get 2 balls each, with a 5.4% chance at No. 1, 16% at the top three and 28% at the top five. They can’t fall below No. 12.
- Other teams that miss the play-in get 3 balls each: 8.1% at No. 1, 24% at the top three and 39% at the top five.
- The No. 9 and No. 10 play-in seeds get 2 balls, and the losers of the 7-vs.-8 games get 1.
- No team’s own pick can land No. 1 in back-to-back drafts or top five in three straight drafts.
Under the old system, the worst record was the safest bet for a top pick. Now the very bottom of the standings actually costs a team a ball.
Checking the ‘5 Balls, 40% and 67%’ Math
A post going around social media says that if things hold, Houston would have five lottery balls, a 40% chance at a top-three pick and a 67% chance at a top-five pick. Here’s how that works:
- 5 balls: right for the scenario it describes. Brooklyn in the bottom three would get 2 balls, and Phoenix as a non-play-in team would get 3.
- 40% and 67%: these add the two picks’ separate odds (16% + 24% and 28% + 39%). That’s the average number of top picks Houston would get, not the chance of landing at least one, since both picks could hit.
- The odds of at least one: our 400,000-draw simulation of the NBA’s ball counts puts Houston’s chance of at least one top-three pick at about 38%, and at least one top-five pick at about 58%.
It also assumes Phoenix misses the play-in. The Suns are eighth in the West right now. If they land in the No. 9 or No. 10 spot, that pick drops to 2 balls, and if they make the playoffs it falls out of the lottery.
What’s Next
The Rockets visit Milwaukee on Wednesday at 7 p.m. CT. Read the Rockets vs. Bucks Preview: Odds, Props and How to Watch as Houston Goes for 5-0, catch up on Sengun Swipes 6 as Rockets Beat Hawks 120-110 to Stay Unbeaten, and follow all of LFG Houston’s Rockets coverage. New to the team? Read Houston Rockets History: How Clutch City Was Born.
Trade details via NBA.com, the Houston Chronicle and Pro Sports Transactions. Lottery rules via NBA.com. Records via TeamRankings and Basketball-Reference, as of Oct. 27, 2026.
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