So knowing morey is always planning a couple moves/years ahead, was the plan with the poison pill contract to pay for the two cheap years, and then trade him before the balloon payment. Even though the cap hit was the same no matter what, seems like an easy sell to make with les. Morey knew we had Max room to get a replacement starting center, either before this yr (obviously we got our #1 choice in dwight, but could've also gone after al Jefferson) or after this season.
Very unlikely. They were planning to go through a full rebuild when they signed him and Lin. Without their salaries and just a bunch of rookie contracts they would have struggled to hit the salary cap minimum. I think they were drawn to the fact that they could get them for only 3 years so if it didn't work out it, by the time it mattered, they would be close to if not expiring years. If Morey knows that both Harden and Howard would be on the rockets within 18 months I think there is no way he signs these guys to that contract.
From Morey's interviews, it seems clear that before Dwight, he wanted to keep Asik for the long term. He always joked about worrying Asik's "next contract" being too high. If th Rockets just wanted to keep asik, the poison pill irrelevant. Even after signing Dwight, many fans here including myself had no problems keeping Asik til the end of his contract simply as a backup. Our perimeter defense is so spotty even a backup defensive stud is important. Make no mistake. The Rockets were definitely okay with keeping Asik.
There is no balloon payment. The 25 mil is divided evenly over the 3 years. Only the original team that signed him get the 5/5/15 poison pill. http://www.truthaboutit.net/2012/07...ter-to-be-a-second-round-pick.html#more-22110
There is a balloon payment. The difference is whoever gets Asik or if the Rockets keep him, they would pay 5/5/15. But averaged 8.3 over the years on the cap. If Chi decided to match, they would pay 5/5/15 but it would count as 5/5/15 on the cap.
I still can't believe we are still teaching people about the way this contract works a year and half later!
What I mean is that there is still a lot of people that fail to understand the payment is 5/5/15 and the cap hit is 8.3/8.3/8.3.
If Asik stayed with the Rockets, due to the discounted value of CF (not that we have high interest rates here) he'd be paid less than he would be if he got evenly spaced $8.3m payment a year. It's more than fair contract for him.
