agree! Personally, I say screw DHo..... What's gonna make for a better team? DHo at 20M or Asik @ 8M + 12M to a fa pf (Milsap or whoever...). Ta heck with trying to pay DHo 20M - it's all about bang for your buck, is DHo a 12M upgrade over Asik?!? Let's use our space to get a PF, retain Delfino and the rest of our cheaper contracts.... rather than gutting a portion of the team to accommodate a lazy two faced drama queen!
no way plan A is definitely Howard and CP3 ... plan be is howard or CP3 plan C maybe love though lol.
you have to think if we strike out on Howard/CP3 we'll just sign some 1 year guys and wait till next summer for Love et. al
I don`t think that is possible. After the first trade we are over the cap, so we have to have matching salaries for the second trade. I think the only way for this would be: Sign Howard as a FA (with some maneuvering we could have enough capspace) Do a S&T with the Clips for Paul sending out Lin and Asik (I think their combined 17 millions salaray should be enough) But that is extremely unlikely, so don`t hold your breath. Far more possible should either be a player like Josh Smith or a one year rental of a player like Gasol to be in the mix for 2014 FA class.
I would much rather have Paul/Smith with Asik than any combination with Dwight Howard. Hopefully if we maxed out Paul with a sign & trade, Smith would accept less than the max for his deal.
you dont think a sign and trade with cp3 or howard first for lin or asik would make us under the cap? Morey said between 15-20 million. so say 19 mil for their first year minues 8 million for lin or ask salary.... we are still under the cap. We then can do a sign and trade and receive the other player.
Thanks Bima! Great as usual. The best case senario this summer is Morey can clear another $3 million in salary by dumping White with someone else (TJones?) so we can sign Howard to a max contract. Then we will see what kind of elite PF we can get with a package of Asik & TRob. Those two together make about $12 million next year so potential can match the salary of guys like Aldrige and Love.
I would much rather have Paul and Love with Asik and Harden than any other combination. However, it all starts with Dwight. Dwight is the key to having a chance to get Paul. Paul owns the Clippers. Going to take a very powerful sales pitch to get him to move out. That would be Harden, Dwight, and Morey staring him in the face. Without Dwight...don't see any realistic chance of winning Paul. I am actually hoping, hoping, hoping for a 6th place finish and a first round matchup with the Clippers. Don't think we can beat them but I suspect by the playoffs if we stay healthy we will give them absolute hell and the series will likely go the distance. I think we are almost as good as the Clippers once we get a few more games under our belts with DMo and TRob running the 4. And if we could somehow pick up a legit defensive minded backup to Asik or if TRob could actually provide backup paint defense..look out. Once again, look for Morey to recruit Dwight/Paul as a unit.
i thought Josh Smith and Howard wanted to play together since they are best friends. I like CP3 alot, but history has shown that you do not need an elite PG to win a championship. Especially, when you have a player like Harden who dominates the ball at the end of games. this summer is going to be a lot of fun. Can't wait to see how this all plays out. Playoffs + NBA draft + Free agency. going to be an exciting 6 months!!
Thanks, BT. You continue to represent the best of CF. It's great to have a road map for how DM the GM could get 'there' this summer. Since I do not expect a serious consideration from Howard or Paul I am anticipating upgrades thru weighted salary trades and/or signing of Jeff. Yes, he may be too slow for this team and his D is a D compared to Asik but as a combo 4/5 I am bullish on him. (FWIF: I anticipated a Rondo/+ -- Jeff deal last week).
The rockets should not do a trade to get the drama queen Howard, who likely stays LA for more money rather than signing for us a free agent. Ask and Lin has more value than Howard right now. I hope Morey has another plan to use our cap.
Bima, here's a question for your big brain: After watching Morey basically steal Asik and even Lin this past year by using the 'poison pill' strategy to perfection against helpless opponents, what other teams are currently (or will be) in a similar situation as NYK and Chicago last year? In other words, which teams, and by extension, which players, would be legitimate targets using that same poison-pill strategy once again? And I don't mean to ask this as 'which players would be a good FIT here?', as much as just maybe finding a list of players/teams upon which this strategy COULD be used, regardless of position or fit? I do have the basic understanding that it would have to be teams which are either over, or dangerously close to being over, the salary cap, AND having players at certain specific points in their careers/years as to make that final year kick in the way it does to produce maximum pain on the luxury tax.. but just who those specific players are, if anyone, I have no clue who they might be. And apologies if there has already been such a list compiled, and I just missed it.
We don't need or want another poison pill contract right now. We want a couple Chandler Parson's minimum salary deals. The value of that PHX second rounder is out of sight if Morey hits on it big time like he did Parsons.
It will be interesting to see how the lakers season ends. No way Howard stays there if they miss the playoffs. However, a deep playoff run and everyone knows he will be staying in LA.
The Rockets (presumably) don't have to decide on Smith, Honeycutt, Anderson or Beverley until the end of training camp. In fact, to my knowledge, Anderson may be the only guy whose deal becomes fully guaranteed if he makes the regular season roster. Smith and Beverley may continue to have non-guaranteed deals until January. Yes, the Rockets could use their cap room to sign one star as a free agent, then be able to pull off a sign-and-trade for a second player using the salary-matching rules for Non-Taxpaying Teams (see the rules here: http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q82). Any one of (a), (b) or (c) is hypothetically possible (although the odds of getting both Howard and Paul are very, very small). In each case, it would likely require first signing one as a free agent, then trying to acquire the second via sign-and-trade. Presumably, Lin and/or Asik would need to be included to make the salary cap math work. No, only one of those sign-and-trades would hypothetically work. After pulling off the first one, the Rockets would have to use salary-matching rules for the second one, and Lin or Asik alone wouldn't be enough outgoing salary. They'd likely need to sign one of those guys outright, then try to pull off a sign-and-trade for the other one. Again, the odds of all of this happening are nearly infinitesimal. Each of Josh Smith, Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson is eligible for a max salary of up to [$16,402,500, plus ~28.2 cents for every dollar the cap goes up in July]. That is the max salary for players with 7-9 years of experience. They are not eligible for "super-max" deals because their current salaries don't already exceed the max. As for 2014 cap room, it's way too early to tell. The Rockets could have about the same amount of cap room as they plan to have in 2013. Maybe more. Remember, Harden's salary (and all rookie scale salaries) will be increasing year-to-year. It really helps, though, that the peculiar salary cap treatment of Lin's and Asik's contracts causes them to be flat (and NOT increasing) from year to year. No. A multi-year player contract may not increase OR DECREASE by more than 4.5% of the first year salary (or 7.5% in the case of re-signing one's own free agent). Any amount above $550,000 used to "pay a buyout" would count as a signing bonus to the player and be spread across all guaranteed seasons of the contract. These rules dictate that such a multi-year contract cannot be done. There will be plenty of TEAMS in this situation going forward (Lakers, Knicks, Nets, maybe Bulls). However, I see no PLAYERS that stick out to me as "Arenas free agent candidates." Situations like Asik's and Landry Fields's were avoidable by the Bulls and Knicks, respectively; and those situations will likely be cut down on in the future. The Lin situation was a one in a million scenario that I don't think we'll see again for a long time.
Bima, Can Rockets and Garcia renegotiate his contract to add $1 million of salary this season using our cap space and eliminating his guarantee for next season? Can we sign Ohlbrecht after the regular season ends and whatever money we pay him count against the 2012-13 cap without it affecting his status as a rookie going into next season?
Garcia isn't owed anything beyond this season. No, the Rockets cannot sign a player after the regular season ends; and even if they signed a guy like Ohlbrecht on the very last day of the regular season, he'd still be treated as a "one-year veteran" for league minimum salary purposes.
Dumping salary to get the last bit of money may not be so easy as all that. The only teams that can just take salary off our hands are the ones with cap-room, but they'll want to use that space for the big fish too. Trading with teams without cap space can still work, using the matching rules to send out more than we take back, but that means a deal that's much bigger than just Delfino/Jones/White/whatever. Unless, there's some trade exceptions out there burning a hole in someone's pocket. I'm wondering if it's really feasible to go another year if we do strike out on the big free agents this offseason. How do you protect cap space for a whole other year? And, would it make sense to use the cap space to facilitate a trade for your second star if you strike out on free agency? Obviously, it'd be optimal to keep all your talent and add a free agent, but sitting on your hands for a year is costly too.
