[Mannix] If Rox get Melo, Lebron could go to Houston

Well we would have Capelas bird rights so his salary wouldn't affect our cap. However, you're right, LBJ, CP, or Melo would def have to take a paycut. I do see Melo opting out and resigning IF we go far into the playoffs along with CP. Let's say we make the west finals I see Melo signing a 1-1 deal while CP3 signs a 4 year $100 mill. While LBJ will sign another 1-1

 

We have the flexibility to play either James or Anthony at PF. At 6'8, both at Morey's favorite height for the PF position.

 

man if the rox never wasted a pick on trash lawson we could have saved that pick and used the pick we traded for lou williams on melo

yea yeah, butterfly effect

 

I really don't blame him for Lawson. Everyone thought it was a steal with minimal downside and we got the downside. I mean outside of the trade down of the pick we gave up players being cut on NG contracts. We literally got him for free. Keeping Dwert and not getting any picks was the big mistake to me. We lost Parsons, Dwert, DMo without any comp. We got screwed on DMo. I understand how the Parsons deal happened but I think we should have anticipated that one better and especially the collusion with his agent and Cuban was well known. He was never worth the max and we knew he would get a max offer. If Morey had thought that he would have traded him much earlier with Lin. Ultimately, it's almost all a wash because they are not lottery picks but Dwert may have been.

 

Well I hope LeBron lives the Jeff VanGundy life.

 

What part of town does Van Gundy live? I've always heard him talk so well about the schools etc.

 

I don't know but I heard he drives a Toyota Camry with 250k+ miles.

 

Believe what you want. Frankly I hope you're right. But you're probably not. Rox are investigating trades for Gordon right now. Doesn't mean they're gonna trade him but they are listening. He can be moved for a draft pick which cab then be moved with Tucker of necessity. Everybody else is expiring. Retain Capela's cap hold. Drop everybody else. Sign the big boys. Use the room mle. Fill out roster with minimums. Re-sign Capela.

This is the most likely path to LeBron.

 

guess sarcasm is not your strong suit

 

No wonder he loves Kwahi 97 Chevy Tahoe Leonard.

 

u tsew

 

Trade Anderson, Gordon, Tucker and waive/renounce everybody else

Sign Anthony/Paul to 9.5 million each, re-sign Ariza to a vet min (around 2.4 mill) and we'd have enough space.

Harden - 30,421,854
Anthony - 9,500,00
Paul - 9,500,000
Capela(cap hold) - 5,836,320
Nene - 3,651,480
Ariza - 2,400,000

+ open roster cap holds, i'll round up to 900k and put the number at (5,400,00)

='s 66.7 million in salary, out of a 103 million salary cap, that would leave the Rockets with exactly 36.2 million in cap space (Lebron's max). Boom banana boat.

Then in the 2019 free agency, we could give Anthony and Paul their full max's using their bird rights (which would be around a 40 mill per average), and Ariza 15 mill(or whatever they decide is the correct overpay to makeup for the salary loss).

So IT IS possible with Paul and Melo taking huge ONE year pay cuts. It would put the new Rocket owner in luxury tax hell in 2019, but it's entirely possible.

I honestly wouldn't even be surprised if Lebron took a significant pay cut (maybe pull a KD and sign for 25 mill) just so Anthony/Paul could get more, or so we can keep Tucker(who took a large pay cut to play here), or to sign Wade for 5 mill or something else.

 

To do this next summer, we would also have to throw in Tucker to the Cavs to get close enough to LeBron's salary for matching purposes.

Another possibility is a Gordon, Tucker, Ariza and Capella trade to Cleveland in February for LeBron. Probably only happens if LeBron forces Gilbert to trade him, of course. We will be bumping up against the hard cap of the $125.2 million apron to do this; here is my rough estimate of the math:

LeBron $33.3m
Harden $28.3m
Melo $26.2m
CP3 $24.2m
Nene $3.5m
Black $3.3m
Moute $1.5m
Minimum players 6 x .815 = $4.5m
Total: $124.8m

Then next summer we could sign DWade for the tax payer MLE.

Would be great fodder for a Bimathug thread?

 

I don't know, didn't Rockets promise Barkley 12 M then only gave him 8M when time comes?

 

The problem with any trade scenario for Lebron is you have to include in Ariza. Ariza is a different case than Parsons. He's the opposite case. He recruited Paul to be able to stay here and play with these guys, not to become a free agent and skip town on a big payday. Ariza wants to be here and he's willing to sacrifice to stay here and play with the banana boat crew. So he won't be traded unless he wants to be traded.

We are hardcapped until June 30, 2018. $125,266,000.00 is the number I believe. If we send out Anderson plus two ngs for CA that puts us right up against that figure. Therefore any trade for LeBron before June 30 has to be right at $33 million salary going out. Gordon, Tucker, Ariza, and one of Nene/Black gets you within a couple million. But you've got to ask one of Nene/Black to leave since they're on one-year deals or you've got to substitute Capela and another minimum salary deal and you've got to ask Ariza to leave, or at least clear it with Paul and Harden that we are trading for Lebron and we'll bring back Ariza next summer in free agency with whatever exception we have to use if Ariza wants to come back. And that all has to be done prior to the trade deadline because Ariza and the bigs are expiring contracts.

So.......If we trade for Melo, then a trade for Lebron before June 30, 2018, is practically out of the question without Paul and Harden abusing their relationship with Ariza*. It's basically undoable.

So that leaves you with the 2018-19 season to deal with in regards to acquiring Lebron.

Remember Lebron has the option on his contract for the 2018-19 season. And he's going to opt out. At the very least he's going to opt out and sign another 1+1 deal to cover himself an extra season in the event of an injury. That decision has to be made prior to the moratorium.

So from Lebron's perspective how does he get out of Cleveland with the least pr damage and put the blame on Gilbert if he wants to leave? (Yes, pr is extremely important to Lebron.)

Well, he's got two choices. He can either walk. Or he can force a SnT......maybe. Or the third possibility is to opt in and get traded. And there's the problem. How does a player opt in before the moratorium and get his owner to agree to trade him after the moratorium to the team of his choice if he opts in?

Don't you see that's not how things are done?

First of all, for Gilbert to agree to do that he's got to want to do that. He's got to know the deal ahead of time. Gordon, Tucker, and a re-signed (or extended) Ariza or possibly throw in a re-signed Capela (for around $18 million or more starting salary) instead of one of those other three.....those would be the main outgoing salary from us. And we'd have to undercut the Ariza/Harden/Paul relationship to get that done. So if you're Gilbert and Lebron is leaving......do you want to pay the REPEATER luxury tax again for a team without Lebron on it? Of course not! They're choking on that repeater tax right now. They're not going to stay in it without Lebron. You're seeing this with the Knicks right now. They're losing Anthony. They don't want big money contracts coming back. They want their cap space bsck to rebuild with.

Ariza will most likely take a low salary in 2018, along with the rest of the crew to get LeBron in here. Then they'll all get their payday in 2019. That is IF Lebron decides to leave Cleveland after this next season and he wants to come here. We'll have to wait and see on that. Cleveland still has some tricks up their own sleeve.

================================


There is one more possibility here. And it could be triggered if things come to a head quick enough in Cleveland. And that is Lebron could force his way out now. Believe me, these guys are talking. They understand the cap situation. They're already working through all the possibilities. We could actually trade for Lebron now using Gordon/Anderson/youngsters/picks if LeBron told Gilbert he was leaving after this next season. This is what Lebron would prefer to happen without it going public until it went down. And it would be an easier trade because we would have to throw in Gordon which would most definitely help us get Ryno to another team. Then Melo comes through a buyout later in the year.

The advantage to trading for Lebron first would be to have his birds rights. He has the larger salary and if he and Paul took paycuts to get Melo extra money next year it would be easier to get it back to him since we'd have his birds rights. And Melo is the fourth guy in that scenario anyways. So delaying his payoff an additional two seasons until we have his birds rights would make more sense.

Really, the two choices for acquiring Lebron are to either trade for him before we acquire Melo or to sign him outright next summer. Trading for Lebron under any other circumstance just isn't tenable.


* if you don't think Ariza's relationship with Paul and Harden doesn't make a difference here and that they would gladly throw him under the bus to get Lebron then you are sadly mistaken. That's simply not how they roll.

 

No I'm sarcastic AF, you're just not very good at using it.

 

note emoji

 

He's used the rocket emoji often lately. I think it's just Lebron being Lebron. #livelaughlove