we have to maintain the relationship with parsons for what? also, he'd be playing in a contract year, so pissed off or not, he'd be balling out of control. more likely -- letting him out a year early was an agreement with Dan Fegan when we signed Dwight.
We can disagree on Lin, that's a lot of if's and I don't particularly like hypothetical situations. We saw what he was last year. It wasn't pretty. That's not a fact. For one, it's a projection. I will agree that most likely that's how the salary cap will be if all these experts are coming out and saying that. However, Parsons' contract kills our ability to sign other roles players this year. As well as limits our ability to trade him because of the trade kicker. That player option isn't very team friendly either. Factor in that Batum is getting paid 2/3 what Parsons is. For these reasons, his contract is terrible. I disagree once again. I think no matter what, just due to team cohesion (losing Parsons will hurt, but I think most of it will be offset by Ariza) and player development we will be a better team next year. The one thing that matters most above all is Harden's development and the chemistry between him and Dwight Howard.
This kind of reminds me of when Lebron was in Cleveland the first time and they kept bringing in stopgaps that could "help immediately", and he left.
2) "treating players like assets". indications are that morey traded lin to a place that he wanted to play. he didn't have to. morey traded Asik because he was unhappy being a backup. he didn't have to do that either. If your goal is to build a championship team, you have to be able to manage your roster fluidly. even the spurs do, who you all seem to think are so classy. they jettison players all the time when they either get too expensive or when their role can be served in a more cost efficient way. welcome to the salary cap. that morey accomodates players' wishes when he can is about all they can and should expect. they are contract labor just like people on oil rigs or blue collar america. 3) "he didn't have to give parsons rfa one year early". again, if all he wanted to do was treat players like assets then no, he didn't. and parsons would have been pissed. and his agent would have been pissed. and the rockets would have lost him next year for nothing anyway, with zero chance he would come back after the rockets screwed him for a year. it fit into the overall plan of the summer to grant parsons rfa early, but it was also the RIGHT THING to do for the relationship with the player. in retrospect you cant say "dont treat players like assets" out of one side of your mouth and then say "oh, except parsons, feel free to screw him over" out of the other. Agree. I am so tired of people on CF ragging on the rockets for treating there players like assets. This issue is so overblown by a lot of people on CFs.
You bring up reasonable points, and it's entirely possible that Ariza + additional flexibility will be a boon over what Lin/Parsons brought. We can disagree on the margins about the potential and value of Lin, etc..., but honestly it's anybody's guess as to how we'll do next year. Hope you're right! I'll be eagerly watching to see what Morey does next.
Parsons' contract is beyond godawful for the rockets. Cuban knew that when he designed it. He was able to get Parsons from the rockets for the same reason that the rockets were able to get Lin and Asik a year or two earlier. because he built everything that he knew Morey hated into that deal. The thing is that while its a terrible for the rockets since they have to work around Harden and Howard, its not so bad for the Mavs. Dirk gave them a huge hometown discount in his most recent contract so the average salaries of their core players are still reasonable going forward. If the cards fell such that the Rockets would not have a championship caliber team this year, it was absolutely the right thing to do to let Parsons go. also agree on Batum. that should have been the high water mark for Parsons' contract. Paying so much more than that would have been a disaster, unless you're winning titles.
Not sure that's true at all. I think they were perfectly happy keeping him this year if they had nobody ready to sign. If the deal had been on the table for some time as Shelburn reported, why wouldn't they have done the trade before than? We all should be smart enough to know that Morey treats 1st round picks as if they were the golden ticket to get into Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory. Letting Lin play out his final year & paying him 15 mil is preferable over giving up a 1st rounder that weakens your backup plan. They had to realize that if they missed out on a free agent they would need every possible asset to line themselves up for a large trade at a later date. Making that trade an hour too early was the 2nd biggest mistake of Morey's career thus far other than declining Parsons' TO. I never would have thought the Royce White pick would this quickly jump to #3.
I agree with all except #3. Sure, it is doing him a solid, but not if the other end of the stick was he could literally go and do the thing that would screw us over the most. We also don't even know if such an understanding was reached. You can't say keeping him to the CONTRACT HE CHOSE TO SIGN is 'screwing him over'. Think about all the deals that don't work out for the Rockets; deals that were player friendly or we regretted in hindsight. You don't see players going for the first chance to restructure the deal and help the team out... Morey made a mistake not picking up the 4th yr option. A lot of us thought it was dumb when he did it, thought it was dumb as it was happening, and still think it is dumb now. It was a big risk with little upside. Honestly, I think they did it to save money (for Les). I think they thought they could match a deal that would be, at most, $12M, even if it made the cap situation a bit tougher this summer because hey, better than $15M+ next year, amirite? Last time I saw being cheap screwing a team over was...OKC and Harden Karma
there is no restructuring of contracts permitted in the NBA per the CBA. the NBA has guaranteed contracts, its not like the NFL. NBA teams are like small businesses. they work on a relationship basis. unless the rockets wanted to endanger their relationships with the player, his agent, and every other player that agent represents, they did the right thing.
