I dont think Morey would have said it if it wasn't already worked out. Although, he could have gotten cute with what "max" is, because that can be anywhere from 13m - 25+m. I am certain Asik can be given away without substantial cost, in fact my bet is we can get an asset back. Not sure what it takes to move Lin, but my guess is our first round pick and likely Dmo. However those two pieces would need to be dumped anyway to make the required Melo cap space.
Only reason to SnT would be to open up the option to use the MLE for ourselves. There is no chance Smith and Felton are signed here using those exceptions.
great article! the biggest issue is parsons. i think morey will let him become a RFA. not his style to leave things out of his control and such would be the case if he picks up parsons' option and makes him an URFA next summer. he's gonna earn around 8-10M on the market this summer, rockets match, move on. with so many teams having cap space this summer, i don't think we will get any bargains for the MLE or BAE. it will be a sellers market with the players likely to create bidding wars. the rockets will probably stay out. i could see them trading a few non-guaranteed contracts for a guy who can improve their bench though. small under the radar type of move. maybe dunleavy, the bulls will try to create cap space for melo. one big thing i'd look for is lin and pick(s) being traded in a S&T for lowry or nelson. or just being traded with pick(s) to a team that will need help getting to the salary cap minimum such as the bucks or jazz. and then using that cap space to go after either lowry or a combo of patty mills + extra bench help. realistically we could return a team of: dwight-asik jones-dmo parsons-dunleavy harden-daniels lowry-bev add a top assistant coach who can actually, you know, coach? we'd be really dangerous.
***UPDATE*** I finally got an answer from Larry Coon regarding the salary advance issue: Q: David Larry, we have heard a lot recently about the $14.9 million balloon payments owed to each of Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik seriously impacting their trade value this summer, despite their only having a $8.4 million cap hit. Please clarify whether the Rockets can employ a SALARY ADVANCE to pay Lin and/or Asik 25-50% of their salaries this offseason prior to completing a hypothetical trade. And if this were possible, what figure would the maximum advance be capped at: the actual salary or the cap hit? Thanks in advance for the response! A: Larry Coon If a player is traded before the season his new team is responsible for his entire salary. If his old team advanced part of that salary (or loaned him money against it), the new team is responsible for reimbursing the old team. Otherwise it’d be a way of circumventing the “cash in trade” limit. http://www.basketballinsiders.com/chat/nba-chat-with-larry-coon-51614/#comment-5692 As I suspected/feared, it looks like the salary advance approach is not one the Rockets can implement in order to mitigate the impact of those balloon payments to Lin and Asik.
I love it when members get melodramatic! You can never have too much melodrama!... ....... ....... .......
Thanks Bima & Good ole Mr. Coon for the update and tall drink of knowledge. The salary advancement in nature really did seem like a way to circumvent the CBA in the sheer nature of what you are doing. If you could do that I'm sure alot of GM's would have been taking of advantage of that with expiring contracts of players that want to be or don't care about being traded. You'd hear reports at the deadline from guys like Stein & Woj making it known the NBA that X player is available, oh and a good chunk of his salary has been paid for so make us an offer at the trade deadline.
Yep. That's why my inclination has always been to lean AGAINST it being a viable option unless I expressly heard otherwise. Still, it was an interesting possibility. Credit basketballholic. Although I was also thinking about this as a potential option, he was the first (to my knowledge) to trumpet it as an option on this BBS.
Yeah you can definitely say that about BHollic. He certainly doesn't lack in the creativity spectrum when it comes to trades & roster moves. However 2 years ago if you told me Morey was going to poison pill the Asik & Lin contracts I probably would have told you that you need to get out and get some fresh air & step away from the keyboard as well.
Considering that the Rockets have already taken the cap hit for the marginal increase in 2014-15 salary (during the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons), I think it is safe to say that a stretched cap hit for Lin would be $2.79 million over each of the next three seasons. (Presumably, Lin would get paid $4.97 million over each of the next three seasons under that scenario, though.) That said, I have strong doubts that the Rockets will use the Stretch provision on Lin's contract. If they acquire a third star this summer, it will either be via a trade (in which Lin's contract probably does not need to be cleared) or via free agency (in which Lin's entire salary would probably need to be cleared). Plus, if/when the Rockets go into luxury tax territory in 2015-16 and 2016-17, a "stretched" Lin's total cap impact could cost the Rockets substantially more, when you factor in the marginal luxury tax bills.
I was trying to figure out how much cap room the Rockets had to use in a KLove trade if Minny sought to dump a large & longer term contract in the process.
We wouldn't use cap room for such a deal. We'd give Minny expiring deals and rookie deals and take back contracts using the trade rules, the $5 million rule, the 150% rule, and the 125% rule.
With cap room more salary can be absorbed by the Rockets in a deal and it's a greater sweetener than the owed salaries of expiring contracts.
We can probably acquire about $20 million in cap room. That would allow us to take back Love and possibly Chase. But to do that we've got to unload players all over the place for nothing, find takers for all of them and hopefully scramble together a few picks to give Minny. Not only that but then we would be operating under the cap and lose the flexibility of the full MLE. So........if we could find landing spots for all these guys and give Minny cap room in the form of around $10 million which they won't be able to attract a free agent with anyways (besides possibly Pau)...........then why not make those trades simultaneously with the Love acquistion and stay over the cap? Gotta understand how deals work. It makes no sense for us to go under the cap to acquire Love who is on a contract. The only reason we would go under the cap is to sign someone outright (Melo). And here's the final factor: All teams have to pay out 90% of the salary cap. So, Minny will have to take on some sort of expiring salary anyways. 90% of $63.2 million is $56.8 million. Minnesota has 2 directions it can go if it moves out Love: 1. It can attempt to move out Martin, Budinger, and Brewer for essentially expiring deals and picks and go for a total rebuild, spending next season in the lottery basement. or 2. It can attempt to get whatever veteran talent it can muster to go around Rubio and make a run for the playoffs again. I can see the possibility of them going either way. Perhaps they can cobble together enough cap to sign Pau and go for it. But either way, Minny is going to have to carry 90% of the cap. They've got to pay it out anyways if they don't actually get there.
We have a player who kept his man off the scoreboard for the first 11:59.1 of the 4th quarter of a must-win playoff game. Then gets benched because he "cannot be trusted" guarding the ball for the final 0.9. .... I think the whole problem with this Lin thing was this abject fear of losing because of him, our coaching staff ended up making losing even more likely without him.
Wow............just saw this. And all I can say is "Hmmmmmm........". I've asked Coon this question multiple times over the last 8-10 months with no response. I think he knows this response just opens a can-o-worms though and he probably didn't want to deal with it. The next logical question is what happens on Nov. 1st and afterward during the season? (He only gave an answer for before the season.) And what happens at the trade deadline as well? And then to what degree does circumvention go to in trades? Was it circumvention for Philly to trade for Earl Clark and Granger at the trade deadline and cut them to meet the 90% rule without actually paying out 90% of the salary cap on the season? This issue is not clearly defined in the CBA, or at least I couldn't find it after reading the whole durn document. So I suspect Coon probably used a league office connection to get the answer. And I suspect it's about half the answer. And I really suspect the league office made this one up on the fly. Unless someone can prove it to me differently in the CBA. But that's neither here nor there at this point. Apparently they have decided they are going to disallow it. Because 2 different sources told me this was in the works for at least Asik's contract to be able to move him and attach Lin's contract to his even if Lin didn't agree to be advanced in hopes of preventing a trade. Circumvention is nothing more than a hodge-podge grab bag of legal-ease that basically gives the league office unbridled authority to level the playing field and protect dumb front offices from screwing themselves over all the time and to keep smart offices from running away and creating dynasties. The circumvention section of the CBA is very poorly and broadly written. It's a joke. It basically gives the league office authority to say no to any acquisition they decide they don't want. And I can't believe the owners and players ratified it that way. But whatever. I rant. I rant.
Rondo is the dude for me. Melo and lovewould only highlight the problems we already have. Late game,situational basketball kills the rockets. It was the same with francis/mobley,yao trio. Why? Late game or tight games,the guy handling the ball the most is to prone. That was true in 2003 and that's true tooday. The team got a lot better because tracy was a great decision maker with the ball. Rondo,in the same sense is a great decision maker with the ball. That alone gives the rockets morehigh quality possessions. Love as much as I like him and to a lesser degree melo are very similar to harden. Melo for his faults do make shots,but in the playoffs,dude shoots like 38%. We don't need that.
Problem with Rondo is you have to give up Parsons. I prefer Lowry or Melo because they probably dont cost you Chandler.
Melo will cost you parson. Every trade made is gonna cost parson because he's a very good player at a position and he's cheap. He can be combined with another teams toxic contract to get a better player. That's why he's so valuable. Now if you want to keep the band together and upgrade the team, sign and trade for lowry using Lin contract and a young guy. That would allow the team to keep parson and sign lowry.
