Would you trade EGo, CC, Rybo for two first round picks, Lebron?

Damn, Holic, your verbiage-to-interesting-point ratio has reached an all-time low in this thread.

 

I have no idea as to whether CP3 is willing to take a pay cut and if so how much.

 

And how would you? Sure, you could make up some scenario and then badger everyone to explain how it would work, while littering your posts with insults, but that isn't your style (thank goodness!). Nice to see you posting, aelliott, particularly since you are one of our imminent capalogists and have been for years. I would love to see a thread from you giving your takes on how Morey could come up with a major move or two this off-season, given the difficulties involved.

 

Just FYI so it’s clear I’d trade the whole team outside of harden and Paul for Lebron. Obviously it would be great to keep tucker and ariza for chemistry and added help but I’d live with it.

 

I don't know why anyone thinks Morey is willing trade one of Capela, CP3 or Harden to get LeBron. It isn't happening. Rockets can retain those 3 and still have a very good shot going into next season and could even win it all with a few fortuitous bounces.

 

Morey would absolutely, 100%, without a moment's hesitation trade Capela for Lebron.

 

Ok, if you say so but that still doesn't tell me if Paul is willing to take a paycut and if so how much.

Anything is possible but I'm not going to pretend that I know what Chris Paul is thinking or what he's willing to do.

Morey will do whatever he can to improve the team, that I'm confident of.

 

You think a team is going to trade us Lebron and 2 future first rounders? What planet are you from?

 

How do you know? You don't have a clue lol. Rockets were 45-4 with CP3, Harden and Capela in the starting lineup. I seriously doubt Morey would trade Capela, and to say you know 100% he would trade Capela is even more ridiculous.

 

Just for the record I’m high on Capela. Without Capela working hard and improving, the Rockets would not have
advanced as far as they did in 2017/18. I just question if Capela vs the Warriors is efficient enough. Some mobile
PF’s with range may have been enough to get by the Warriors even with the “Iggy the Great.” Players with Capela
type bodies with good shooting touch are coming out of college and have high ceiling potential.

So paying the Max $ on Capela year one (2018/19) may be seen as critical by many here on Clutchfans because
of how close the Rockets achieved this year (2017/18).........the kids coming out of college may quickly make Capela’s
long term deal seem obsolete as they play on rookie deals. Rookie money while shooting for 3-pt range would
have the Rockets offense clearing much further off the charts as a result of efficiency. D’Antoni’s playbook would
or could expand vastly.

I believe Ryan Anderson can be traded.....but there may only be about 5 realistic potential trade partners for Ryno.
Lakers will be trying to trade Deng and Lonzo Ball to get down to near team salary of $10 million. Allows for the
Lakers to obtain LeBron and two other Max deals plus leftover FA’s. This would subtract a potential trade partner
from the Rockets list for trading, say Ryno and Eric Gordon. Lakers still have an amnesty clause to use. Many
the expect the Lakers may use the clause on Loul Deng. Kawhi Leonard has provided a list of 4 teams, with
Lakers being 1 of the 4 teams. Clippers are leverage for Lakers to act and trade for Kawhi. New York as well.
San Antonio would do well trading Deng/Ball for Kawhi. LeBron won’t stand for Lavar Ball criticism of everyone
including LeBron. San Antonio could make Lonzo/Murray work.......Parker/P Mills need the upgrade if you are SA.
Deng may be trash to other teams, but Pops could redefine Deng into being efficient.

Personally I think LeBron ends up as a Laker with Kawhi and Paul George.

IF the Rockets can’t trade Ryan Anderson, yes apply the stretch provision.

Removal of Ryan and Eric Gordon would bring the Rockets team salary close to $51 million. Go after LeBron,
Paul George or poison pill Aaron Gordon.

Then the replacement for Eric Gordon: hopes that a player will take a discount to play with Harden/CP3 & _______.
Free agents (summer 2018)
Avery Bradley coming off injury: 6’2”, 27 y/o, 14 pts/gm, 37% (3P%)
Wayne Ellington: 6’4”, 30 y/o, 11 pts/gm, 39% (3P%)
JJ Redick: 6’4”, 33 y/o, 17 pts/gm, 42% (3P%)
Will Barton: 6’6”, 27 y/o, 16 pts/gm, 37% (3P%).....(SG/SF)
Tyreke Evans: 6’6”, 28 y/o, 19.4 pts/gm, 40% (3P%)


Then re-sign Ariza and GGreen.

Then Max $ to CP3. Rockets will be on tab for about $40 mil in the final year of CP3 at age 37. Not feasible
to have Capela contract increases as well (Along with another super star). I would rather go with player on
a rookie scale contract.

Not sure if the Rockets could get a top pick this year, but I will mention them anyway:
Would probably depend on Capela agreeing to contract for a SnT before draft.
(C) Ayton
(C/PF) Bagley II
(C) Bamba
(C) Jaren Jackson
(SG/SF) Doncic
(C) Wendell Carter
?Michael Porter?

More feasible:
(C) Robert Williams
(PG/SG) Landry Shamet (6’5”)
(C) Mitchell Robinson (7’1”.....would be a gamble.....but could be huge ceiling on this guy.....pending psyche eval)
(C/PF) Moritz Wagner

2nd rd (46th pick).....Rockets own pick
(C) Chimezie Metu (6’10”) or (SG) Rawle Alkins (6’4”).....Rawle would help with the loss of E Gordon as a facilitator.

Depends on the details basketballholic. Give me the details and I would say yea or nea.

 

A few corrections to some technical points:

1) As bbholic has already pointed out, the Amnesty Provision no longer exists in the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

2) The Poison Pill provision which allowed the Rockets to acquire Jeremy Lin and Omar Asik only applied to second round draft picks. Aaron Gordon was a first round pick (4th overall) so the Poison Pill provision wouldn't be applicable to him.

Additionally, the current CBA has changed the rules for Poison Pill contracts and it's removed most of their effectiveness.

Under the old rules, for 2nd round picks coming off of rookie deals, you were allowed to offer deals and the third year didn't have to have a fixed increase amount. Additionally, for the team making the offer, the player counted as the average average salary over the life of the contract but if the players former team matched, then it counted against their cap as the actual salary.

For example, we gave Lin and Asik identical 3 year deals that paid $5M, $5M and $15M. That deal would have counted at $8.3M/season for the Rockets. If the Knicks or Bulls had matched then the actual salaries would have been used. That $15M in the 3rd year of the deal was a problem for teams (remember this was back when the cap was much lower so $15M was close to a max deal). Both teams chose not to match rather than to take that huge cap hit in the 3rd year.

Under the rules of the new CBA, the Knicks or Bulls would have been able to choose how to count the salary (actual or average). If that option had been available for Lin and Asik then it's likely that both NYK and Chicago would have matched the deals and simply counted them at $8.3M/season as the Rockets ended up doing.

3) In your calculations, I believe that you are forgetting to include cap holds.


The projected cap is $101M

If you were able to trade Anderson and Eric Gordon without taking back any salary, then our committed salary would be reduced to $45M ($44,966,064).

Our current free agents would all have cap holds and continue to count against our salary cap.

Paul's cap hold is $35.35M, Ariza's is $12.87M and Capela's is $7M.

So with those cap holds we basically have zero cap space to sign any other free agents.

We could remove those cap holds by renouncing CP3, Ariza and Capela. That would open up $56M in cap space but we would no longer have Bird Rights on CP3, Ariza and Capela. All free agents that you signed would have to fit into that cap space. Maybe you can convince Lebron and CP3 to sign for a combined $56M but there's no way that you get Lebron, CP3 and PG13 for a combined $56M. You would also lose you MLE and you wouldn't have any way to realistically resign Ariza or Capela. Going this route could possible get you Lebron and CP3 but it would be at the cost of Anderson, Gordon, Ariza and Capela.

NOTE: That $56M in cap space figure would actually be less that that since we would have so few players on the roster. When you drop down that far, the CBA forces you to charge the rookie minimum ($800K, I believe ) for each empty roster spot below 12 players. Even without the empty roster spot charges the deal was not doable so I omitted them for simplicity.

Anything is possible if players take a big enough paycut but from a realistic approach, trading for Lebron makes the most sense. That allows you to operate above the cap, retain your exceptions and you can also retain the Bird Rights to your own free agents (i.e. Ariza, Capela).

It will be hard to acquire Lebron without gutting the team. Acquiring both Lebron and PG13 is pretty much impossible. You can attempt to concoct trade scenarios where we trade for both but salary matching rules and sign and trade rules make those difficult.

For example, maybe you decide that we can sign and trade Capela in a deal for PG13. That becomes difficult because you have to match salary within 25%. We don't have much to use for salary matching purposes and even Capela isn't as helpful as you'd think. For Capela to be signed and traded, his new deal would obviously be more than 20% higher than his old contract so he's subject to the old Base Year Compensation (BYC) designation. Under previous CBA's the BYC designation applied to all players traded but in the new CBA it only applies to players signed and traded.

The short explanation is that Capelas contract would count differently in terms of outgoing salary (for the Rockets) and incoming salary (for the other team). Let's say Capela signed for $25M. If the Rockets signed and traded him then for trade purposes, he counts as half that amount ($12.5M) in outgoing salary for the Rockets but he counts at 100% of his new salary for the team that receives him. So, say he went to OKC, then to them he counts as $25M of incoming. That BYC designation makes it much harder to make trades work.

Bottom line, is that it will be difficult to acquire either Lebron or PG13 individually. As I said, anything is doable if players will take big enough paycuts but realistically getting both isn't going to happen.

The Lakers have a similar situation. They can likely open up 2 maximum roster spots if they renoundce Randle, IT, Lopez and all other free agents and can get rid of Deng without taking anything back. Getting a third max player (either with capspace or via a trade) is very unlikely.

 

#OpenYourMind

 

In order for the Lakers to get enough cap space to sign both Lebron and PG13, they would first have to get rid of Deng while taking nothing back.

That means that you cant use Deng's salary in a trade for Leonard.

Wouldn't surprise me one bit if Leonard stays in SA and PG13 stays in OKC.

 

Without LeBron, Cavs will start to rebuilding. They'd try everything to get draft picks. You ask them to send out 2 picks?

 

Do you remember when we didn’t think about Rubio being good? So you thought it through for us.