Thomas Campbell-US PRESSWIRE

The Houston Rockets have agreed to trade point guard Kyle Lowry to the Toronto Raptors for a future first round pick and Gary Forbes.

Lowry and Rockets head coach Kevin McHale had a falling out and Lowry has been looking to get out ever since.

The Rockets have made an offer sheet to restricted free agent Jeremy Lin for four years, $30 million. The New York Knicks are expected to match the offer for Lin especially after failing to acquire Steve Nash who became a Laker last night.

The earliest Lin can sign it is July 11 then the Knicks will have three days to match it. The Knicks have also emerged as the favorite to sign Raymond Felton.

The Raptors were also hopeful to land Nash so much that they agreed to an offer sheet of three years, $20 million with Landry Fields. The Raptors won’t totally lose out as they settle for Lowry as a decent consolation prize.

The Los Angeles Clippers have effectively taken themselves out of the running for Ray Allen by signing Jamal Crawford to a 3-year, $15.7 million deal. Allen was set to meet with the Clippers on Friday.

The Clippers have also agreed on a 1-year deal for Chauncey Billups.

The Clippers were a tough team last season that gave the Oklahoma City Thunder some trouble in the regular season. They were obviously in the market for a two guard after being forced to start Randy Foye there in the playoffs.

Lob City was swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the second round but have made some nice moves to prepare for next season including trading for Lamar Odom.

As we always forget about the Spurs during this time of the year, the top of the West is looking like OKC, LA, LA right now.

Meanwhile, Allen is meeting with the Heat today and is now expected to sign there even though Boston is offering Allen nearly double in salary that Miami can.

Mike DiNovo-US PRESSWIRE

The first major trade before the 2012 NBA Draft has occurred involving the Houston Rockets and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Rockets traded Chase Budinger to Minnesota in exchange for the 18th pick in the first round as first reporter by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.

The Rockets now have the 14th, 16th and 18th picks in the first round and it is clear that they are trying to pull off a package that could land them Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard.

The Timberwolves are past stockpiling first round draft choices as just about every player on their roster feels like they were selected in the lottery within the past five seasons. Budinger is a nice piece for them to build around Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio.

Shortly after this trade was completed, Houston offered the Sacramento Kings Kyle Lowry, the 14th pick and the 16th pick for Tyreke Evans and the 5th pick in the draft.

The plan here is for Houston to have a package consisting of Evans, Kevin Martin, the 5th pick and the 18th pick to send to Orlando for Howard.

Houston is doing everything possible to get Howard even though it has been reported that Howard is not interested in resigning with Houston after the 2012-13 season.

The Rockets and their savvy GM Daryl Morey are confident in themselves and what they have in Houston that they will be able to convince Howard to stay after a season with the team.

Thomas Campbell-US Presswire

Thunder (1-game winning streak)
106.6 Offensive Efficiency (2nd)
99.4 Defensive Efficiency (12th)
96.0 Pace (5th)
56.9 True Shooting % (1st)
51.3 Rebound Rate (6th)

Rockets (1-game losing streak)
102.6 Offensive Efficiency (10th)
101.7 Defensive Efficiency (17th)
94.5 Pace (11th)
53.2 True Shooting % (7th)
50.4 Rebound Rate (13th)

The Thunder are coming off one of the easier wins of the season beating the Bobcats 122-95 two nights ago. James Harden scored a career-high 33 points in the win.

Harden, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook combined to outscore the entire Bobcats team 55-40 in the first half of Saturday night’s win. That has been the trend of late from the Thunder, their Big Three carrying the scoring load.

The Thunder have played the Rockets three times already this year beating them the first two then losing 96-95 the last time. In that loss Durant had three chances to put the Thunder ahead in the final minute and failed to do so.

The Rockets are an overachieving team by old statistical measures and played the Thunder very tough. Rookie Chandler Parsons did a very nice job on Durant last game.

Kevin Martin had a big game scoring 32 as he torched Daequan Cook early and had the hot hand for most of the night.

The Thunder turned the ball over 21 times in Houston that night and got almost no production from anyone outside of the Big Three.

At home tonight expect better role player production and we’ll see if Harden continues his stellar play. Harden scored 17 points and had five turnovers in the last meeting.

With two days of rest the Thunder should be fresh while the Rockets have been in somewhat of a slump of late dropping six of their last seven. They’re battling injuries and will be without starting point guard Kyle Lowry for tonight’s game.

This is not a game the Thunder should lose. Expect to see them come out on point and play well. The emphasis early should be containing Martin and getting out on the fast break for some easy buckets.

The Thunder are favored by 11.0 as they close out their five-game home stand tonight.