{"id":661434,"date":"2026-05-24T01:04:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T01:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/661434\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T01:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T01:04:16","slug":"what-happened-to-the-rockets-2026-first-round-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/661434\/","title":{"rendered":"What happened to the Rockets’ 2026 first-round pick?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Houston Rockets<\/a> are one of the few NBA teams without a first-round selection in the 2026 NBA Draft. But where did that selection go?<\/p>\n

The Rockets gave up their 2026 first-round pick almost seven years ago to the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> in a package deal that sent Russell Westbrook<\/a> to Houston, pairing him up with James Harden<\/a> once again. The Thunder acquired Chris Paul<\/a>, a 2024 first-round pick, a 2026 first-round pick and two first-round pick swaps (2021 and 2025).<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Earlier this season, the Thunder traded Houston’s 2026 first-round pick to the Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> in exchange for former Duke guard Jared McCain<\/a>, who’s played a pivotal role in Oklahoma City<\/a>‘s playoff success this season. This helped Philadelphia<\/a> get back into the first round of a loaded draft class after previously trading their 2026 first-rounder to Oklahoma City to move on from veteran center Al<\/a> Horford.<\/p>\n

Although Houston doesn’t own any first-round picks, they hold two selections in the second round, No. 39 and No. 53.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Rockets Wire: Where did Houston’s 2026 first-round pick end up?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Rockets are one of the few NBA teams without a first-round selection in the 2026 NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[4650,6420,5050,6418,60517,355,12205,6402,2085,2113,6379,14828,99],"class_list":["post-661434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-al","tag-chris-paul","tag-houston-rockets","tag-james-harden","tag-jared-mccain","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-pick","tag-russell-westbrook","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}