Can you explain to me why a team under the cap would even consider taking Yao? Wouldn't they have to pay part of Yao's salary? Why do that when you could keep the cap room and pay nothing at all?
Congrats to jopatmc for the creative thinking. Thanks Clutch and Bima for this, I really hope we do something significant with it.
Good stuff, Bima. This is definitely not my preference but you know how the old adage goes: live to fight another day. If nothing substantial materializes before February's deadline it's MUCH better for us to make a play for a large trade exception rather than simply keeping him, letting him expire and retaining his Bird Rights. The former positions us much better to make a significant future trade -- especially if the Rockets really do feel they have an inside trade to resigning Yao to a bargain contract, regardless.
We could absorb one or more of their contracts with our existing exceptions. They would do it as a salary dump.
Don't see why the new CBA would disallow TPE's. Trades don't increase league salary; they just shuffle it around. The Traded Player Exception is written to cover both simultaneous and non-simultaneous trade. The ability to receive 125% incoming vs outgoing salary is the Traded Player Exception for simultaneous trades; i.e. it's an exception to allow team salary to go up when making trades. That's not going away, because you can't expect teams to actually match salaries perfectly. There must be a little give, and note the last CBA raised it from 115% to 125%. What they might do is disallow non-simultaneous trades. But again, all this does is make trades more difficult, less incentive. What is the interest by the owners to make trades more difficult? Is it the union that would benefit from making trades more difficult?
Read the section called "How It Would Work" in the article. Assuming the insurance savings number being reported is correct and it would go to the receiving team (and the Rockets throw in cash), they would have Yao's remaining salary covered and possibly make $$ for doing the deal.
The impatient side of me keeps hearing things like this (which is probably real close to how the actual brass inside the Rockets is thinking), and I can't help but feel as though this waiting game to start landing big fish is going to take forever. I'm so ready for the Rockets to return to an elite or almost-elite status and start doing some damage in the playoffs. Excellent article Bima. You're very skilled in explaining the complicated rules of the NBA into terms that most of us can understand. +1 win.
So we would take on a bad contract in order to get a trade exception? That is a really risky proposition. I wouldn't do it. There is no guarantee that you can get anything valuable from a trade exception. But having a bad contract on the books will hurt next year when we'll have some cap room.
Interesting idea -- i'm sure every possibility is bouncing around right now, but I just don't see the Rockets pulling the trigger on any deal like this. The Rockets have to take into consideration political issues and moving a prodigal son for 'nothing' isn't going to sit well.
You know it is nice to have a lot of asset's, young talent, and picks available if a team is willing to trade their superstar to us.. But I don't see it happening anytime soon... Especially if the star is in the drivers seat (meaning will he sign an extension).. I'm talking Tier 1 level not 2-3... Maybe I'm not as optimistic or just a realist but I can't see a scenario where we can scoop up a level 1 talent in the near term (1-3 years).. It's almost as it seems that we have to suck really bad in order to get a talent at that level in the draft..
I see. I think Yao's remaining salary after the trade deadline is about 2.3 million, which falls under the 3 million cash limit the Rockets can send in a trade. It's a no risk deal if nothing else materializes. Paying 700k for a huge trade exception could pay off.
I think they probably increase salaries. By allowing teams to shuffle contracts more efficiently, they can fill up the soft caps of all teams better and allow the big-spenders to stack up contracts better. If teams were less efficient in trading, they'd have a harder time exceeding the cap, and under the cap teams would have less incentive to fill up their cap. And, teams would probably have to be more cautious about signing deals because the chance of getting rid of an albatross contract is lower. I don't know if teams would be interested in getting rid of it, because it does help them a bit to avoid getting killed by a bad contract, but I'd think it inflates payroll.
