Why would he get paid when he didn't get paid the last time he was a FA? I don't think his game has improved any. He's still a streaky inefficient chucker like he was in GS and MIL. Ellis and Harden take the same number of FGA per game but Harden scores 6+ more points per game.
Except for the part where Ariza and Brewer combined make less than Parsons lol. I think you also need to take into account that Parsons is playing with 2 other double team worthy players in Dirk and Monta, that really helps his efficiency and scoring abilities because he only has one guy defending him and that dude is like the other team's 3rd best defender. This would be different in H-town because we really only have focal point in Harden, if we had Parsons here he'd still face the 2ndary threat of the opponent and so would probably have a harder time scoring. It's not that bad with Ariza because all Ariza does is shoot open 3's and his value is his defense, but with parsons he's basically useless if he's not taking and hitting his shots. In the past season if the Rox fell behind the game would basically be over because the lousy D would prevent a comeback, this year it doesn't matter if the whole team shoots 30% FG the first 3 quarters, Ariza helps keep the scores down so when Harden catches fire in the 4rth the team can actually make a come back. Personally I don't think we'd have acquired Ariza if we kept Parsons, Parsons already made 15M, Harden makes 15M why pay Ariza 7M to be a backup SF playing 10 mins a game? Since I think Ariza is a better player IMHO Rox made the right choice, no way you keep a roleplayer making the max.
Could have kept Parsons for $1MM and paid Ariza his $7MM. Everyone gets so hung up on the number the Mavs threw at him as if the Rockets didn't have a team option on him going in to that offseason.
You don't say. That has been covered nearly 1 billion times on this BBS. Either you have a severe learning disability or you're a troll. (Could be both.)
Well, the point clearly hasn't gotten across to a lot of people when they continue to talk about Parsons like the only option the Rockets had was to pay him $15MM. Where he is and what he is paid is a product of the Rockets' decision on how to handle the league's most team-friendly contract. Just like you can't simply transplant his stats in Dallas and say he'd have the exact same production here, you can't take his Dallas contract and say that is what the Rockets would have had to pay him. Back on topic, though, dude had a hell of a finish to that OKC game last night. Came up big down the stretch.
But it is what they had to pay him, the Rox let him out of contract already. No matter how much you turn back time this will be the case, because the Rockets were going after a 3rd star and the Rox needed all the cap they can get. So the reality is if the Rox wanted him that is what they had to pay Parsons, not sure why you keep insisting the Rox only pay 1M. Even if they keep around for 1m, after 1 year they will still have to pay him his money, because it is still likely Dallas wouldve chased him anyway.
He's saying what he's saying because everyone is living in a fantasy world of they could have done this or that. If the Rockets wanted him, as you say, then absolutely they could have kept him for $1 million. The fact that they didn't, imo, was not due to the third star chasing, but ABSOLUTELY was do the the player-agent-GM/team dynamic that is the NBA. Parsons changed to Dwight's agent for that very reason. Promises were made. DM and Les really had to abide by said promises. But the point remains, they technically could have kept him for a million. The point also remains that in no world would I ever want Parsons guarding CP3, Tony Parker, Westbrook, Durant, Thomson, etc... whereas Ariza definitely can and can effectively in spurts. I like Parsons game and would have loved to kept him, but as it turns out the Rockets remain perfectly fine at PF and continue to be weakest at the position they have been weakest at for 3 years now, PG.
Then we'll operate under the assumption that Morey thinks he's worth the money, just not if he doesn't believe the team has a chance to win a title. He was going to give Parsons his $15MM if Bosh signed with the Rockets. When Bosh signed with the Heat, Morey took a pass on matching the Mavs' offer, basically conceding that the team wouldn't compete this season, opting to keep a little flexibility for future seasons. Fast forward 75 games and the Rockets are a 2 or 3 seed with Harden having an MVP caliber season. Sure would have been nice if Morey had a little more faith in this group of players. I'm insisting that the Rockets could have paid him $1MM this season because, well, they could have paid him $1MM this season. I do so as evidence that Morey botched the whole situation, which is something that fans don't like to admit, because Morey is supposed to be some sort of demi-god. If you don't like that reasoning, then feel free to go with the other scenario I laid out, where Morey sees it worth signing him for $15MM, but only opted not to because he didn't think the team was good enough to win. For all the praise he gets for not matching Dallas' offer, this fact sure does get glazed over quite a bit.
There's 3 points here: 1)If he paid CP 15M then we wouldn't have money to get Ariza, Jet, Kpap and Brewer. So really if DM had "faith in his group of guys" as you said the Rox would have been screwed because CP is not a good defender and we'd essentially have a worse cast this year than last year since DH would be injured and we lost Lin and Asik. 2) Other people already pointed out the agent angle as to why DM couldn't keep Parsons at 1M, in my eyes though it made sense to make Parsons a RFA and see what the market gave him, I had no idea he would be offered the max at the time and thought the Rox would get him cheaper as a RFA than as an UFA this year. I don't necessarily see it as a mistake rather than a good move that didn't pan out. Just because the result was wrong doesn't mean the decision leading to that result was wrong, sometimes you're just unlucky. For example you pay home insurance every month, and after the year is done and nothing happens to your house do you think you should have not paid your insurance for the year since nothing happened and you just wasted money for 1 year? Of course not, it's the same way here, Parsons was a valuable piece and history shows that it is cheaper to get guys in RFA than UFA, Parsons' situation is an anomaly that wouldn't have happened if Cuban wasn't a jealous SOB. 3) Have you thought maybe DM didn't think Parsons was worth 15M? That's the most obvious reason why Parsons was let go, yet all of your assumptions are centered on DM thinking Parsons was worth 15M. The Rox were set to match on 15M if we got a 3rd star because then the Rox would be capped out, although Parsons would be overpaid this was one way to add talent to a team that didn't have cap space anymore due to already having 3 max players. Without that 3rd max player there was no sense in overpaying for Parsons because then you'd end up with no cap space again, except instead of having Melo or Bosh eating up the cap it would just be Parsons with nobody else to keep around as a 4rth piece over the cap.
The whole under-the-table agreement with the agent thing is either: a) BS perpetuated to make us all feel better about Morey and keep his nuts firmly planted in everyone on this board's mouth or b) a real thing that undermines Morey's "genius" as he had to walk away from the league's most team friendly contract. If it is B, then it takes a lot out of his adorable little "the good GMs are the ones that draft the good players...yadda yadda" (paraphrasing, here). Frankly, I think it is A, but go with whatever suits you. Separate trade exceptions were used to get Terry and Brewer, right? Did they take back more than 125% of the outgoing salary (when counting the trade exception)? I don't believe they did, so they could have still acquired those players (even if the details varied slightly). Parsons would be playing in place of Ariza. KPap is putting up 4/2/3, so if you want to hang this success on him, go ahead, I guess. The only real importance is whether or not Harden + Dwight was considered a core that could win a championship. Funny hearing you talk about it being a good plan, even if it doesn't work out, though.
