Les will pay the luxury tax. The beauty of the options we may have is that the Rockets could be serious title contenders the next two years without paying the tax, so even keeping this (below) squad almost completely intact moving past that, you could enter just your 1st year paying the tax, so you won't enter repeater status pre-maturely. Re-sign Parsons and you re-evaluate your whole team 4 years from now with Smith, Howard, and Harden set to come off the books. Could easily get back down under the tax and still have a very good team in 5 years and then gear up again and flirt with the tax and a title with the right moves. 1) Howard 20,513,178 2) J.Smith 15,000,000 3) Harden 13,755,089 (adjusted for 58.5m cap) 4) Jose Calderon 5,150,000 5) Kyle Korver 5,000,000 6) D-Mo 1,422,720 7) Parsons 926,500 8) G.Smith 884,293 9) Beverley 788,872 10) Canaan 490,180 (no contract yet, assume rookie min.) 11) Cap Hold 490,180 12) Cap Hold 490,180
I don't think the Rockets will force Parsons to play 2 more years at minimum salary, and then risk losing him at Year 3 when some crazy team signs him to an offer sheet worth $10M per year. Morey is too smart of a GM to let that happen. If the Rockets secure Dwight & Josh Smith this summer, they will immediately re-do Parson's contract. They'd be foolish not to. They'll scrap the 2-yr $2M non-guaranteed deal he has. They'll replace it with a 4-yr $22M guaranteed contract. It's almost like an extension that adds 2 yrs and $20M to his existing contract. But Parsons gets paid earlier. It will minimize Parson's cap foot print in Years 3 & 4. His cap hit will be $5.5M instead of $10M.
It depends on whether the Rockets are championship contenders at that time. If not, Morey will look to sell, like he is rumored to be doing now with Asik and Lin. Of course if Parsons improves his play to a max-player level like Harden (or better than Harden), that's another story, but I have a hard time believing that he will be able to achieve this, as much as I like him. If the Rockets are championship contenders, the Rockets may "overpay" (according to Morey's philosophy) their non-max players like Parsons to keep the team together and contend.
I believe that Morey said that he would love to extended Parsons now, but under the new CBA he can't. He'll have to wait until he's a RFA. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
We can decline his option after next season and make him a RFA, allowing us to spike his money, or we can run with him for another year on top of that at 900k and make an UFA. The only thing we can do this year is waive him, and he'd be picked up off the waiver wires immediately.
Unless it involves a trade for a highly coveted player, Chandler Parsons ain't gowanns nowheres. Look how much he improved in just 2 seasons. PLUS he's been the lynchpin of it-ain't-tampering recruiting for his friend Dwight Howard. PLUS he shares DH12's agent, whose first choice for Dwight is not Houston, but who'll have to get on board with making nice with Morey if Dwight chooses us. PLUS he puts a lot of women (buying overpriced Toyota Center beers) in the seats. Parsons isn't going the way of the draft, use, trade players. He's here to stay.
Given the fact that we have gotten Parsons on a discount for these many years AND the fact that his agent is Fegan, I don't see him settling for anything less than what the market commands. So, it all comes down to Les really. And what he does will in large part be dependent on how the Rockets generally and Parsons specifically do in the next 2 years. If we have rings and Parsons played his part...he'll get paid by Les. If we don't have rings, or Parson's play plateaus or worsens then he'll either have to take much less than he'll ask for or more likely head for another team in FA.
We know he's done that in the past but if you think about it most of guys we've dealt were pretty much maxed out as far as potential goes and none them panned out the way Parsons will. I say he's a keeper.
