[ClutchFans] Podcast: Talking Rockets with CSN Houston's Adam Wexler

This would be awesome! Wex seems to have better chemistry with Clutch than Leila

 

repped, thanks again.


Clutchfans loves some Adam Wexler.

 

Prior to this year, Millsap had only taken 113 3s in his entire career. He has taken 111 this season and is hitting them at a 37% clip. Before Horford went out, he was hitting 46% behind the arc. I think he would get plenty of open looks playing with Harden and Howard.

As far as ball movement, Millsap is 4th in the league among all PFs with 3 assists/game.

 

Fair enough, I'm not following Millsap's performance much. The point is that I want to see some consistent play from the Rockets in order to get a better idea of out what our weaknesses are, and after that adjust the personnel. Millsap could very well be an improvement, but I mostly like this roster and want to see them play consistently at whatever their level is before making adjustments. If their play remains inconsistent for the next month and a half, then I'd say that's the ability of this roster, and changes would be needed, Millsap being a nice prospect.

As an optimist, I think we have all the talent that we need. Just need some more practice together and familiarity.

 

About this poison pill, can the rockets just toss in cash to make up the difference? Say asik to trade for $5 mil in players and rockets cough up $10 mil in cash considerations. Technically, rockets only paid $5 mil last and this season so it's just balances out.

 

To add, I think the Rockets already used at least $1.7 million already to get Philly to take White's contract.

 

But they can take on an expensive contract, i think. in lieu of a cash payment. to try to reduce some of the burden of the $15 mill.

 

Rockets could take on a two year deal like Fields or Hayes (if trading with Toronto) to offset costs.

 

Finally got a chance to listen to this. Great stuff as always, thanks Clutch!

 

I'm glad you brought this up. It gives me the opportunity to elaborate on how low Lin's "net cost" could be to a team trading for him.


There's 3 tools we have to help another team offset Lin's $15 million salary next year:

1. $1.48 million left of our $3.2 million cash.
2. The room MLE can be used to sign a player that is bought out by another team. At the deadline it will be worth approximately $1.95 million this year since it pro-rates starting January 10th. This money could be used to help the team Lin is traded to save money by helping them generate a buyout of a player they don't have in their long-term plans. (We should call this the Aaron Brooks provision really.)
3. The ability to take on 50% more salary than Lin's actual $8.37 million and to take on multiple years. Now this would make it very easy to trade Lin by itself if we weren't limited to guys whose contracts expire at the end of the 2014-15 season. However we should pretty much accept this limiting factor because we are going to be players in 2015 free agency if we don't get our guy before then.

With this in mind, here's a sample trade that shows that Lin's net cost to a team that he is traded to could be quite reasonable:

Rockets trade: Lin, Brewer, Greg Smith
Rockets recieve: Ben Gordon, Brendan Haywood, Jeff Adrien

Charlotte then buys out Ramon Sessions, saving themselves at least $1.95 million (and possibly a few dollars more). We then release somebody (Garcia, Adrien, Covington, whomever) and sign Sessions to our Room MLE with a non-guaranteed second season.

At the deadline Lin will be owed around $3.7 million for the remainder of this season plus $14,898,938 for next year, Brewer will owed $840,408, and Smith will be Owed $626,374. On the other side of the ledger, Ben Gordon will be owed $5,500000, Haywood owed $841,766 + $2,213,688 (next year's salary) and Jeff Adrien will be owed $648,903. These numbers are approximates but they should be pretty close.

When you add up the salaries going to Charlotte, you get $20,065,720 in salary obligations Charlotte is taking on. But they are also moving out $9,204,357. This is a net of $10,861,363 of extra salary Charlotte is taking on.

Now subtract an additional $1.95 in salary savings from Ramon Sessions' hypothetical buyout and also subtract $1.48 million in cash we can send Charlotte.

That gets Charlotte's net cost for Lin down to $7.43 million. It would be like signing Lin to a one-year deal for $7.43 million. Now, do you think Lin is worth $7.43 million playing on the floor?



.................

This is just one trade idea. Of course, these numbers would have looked even better if this deal would have been done in December. And there are other teams that could do a trade like this. The Pacers with Granger's contract and C.J. Watson are another possibility for this style trade.

And then what if Morey let it be known to a team like Charlotte that he is willing to pay a couple million dollars to a team in July if they will draft the player he wants in the June draft and trade him in July???? $1.48 cash this year and another couple million next year. Now Lin's net cost gets even lower...

 

BBHOLIC I love how most of your trade ideas have some dodgy part to the trade, in this case the sessions part could be blocked by the league for doing to buy out then expecting the rockets to just sign him. No way sessions takes that risk unless it's in writing and if it is in writing then surly that's in breach as gm's can't get in contact with players in respect to their contract.

Therefore this complete deal wouldn't happen

 

Lebron is going to get beat down, oh wait.. sorry Cleveland.

 

LOL

I called it the Aaron Brooks provision for a reason Aus. Because it already happened once before. Just last year.


And I did use Sessions to simplify the illustration. Same basic thing could be done with McRoberts. He's got a player option for next year. They buy him out. We give him next year's salary in the form of our Room MLE. And then next year he goes after more money. McRoberts probably WOULD do that. Come play for a playoff contender, get minutes in the rotation, and then make more money going forward in 2014 free agency.

 

Patrick Patterson cannot be traded in combination with another player from Toronto per CBA rule ["when a team (Toronto) is over the cap and acquires a player in trade, they cannot re-trade that player in combination with other players for two months"]. You'd have to do a separate trade for Patterson if the league allows for that.

 

Thank you for pointing that out.

 

The restriction ends on February 10.

 

More Wex podcasts. Best Clutchfans podcast yet.

 

At least it's going up 100K per year through 2020-21. As long as Alexander owns the team, any increase has to be seen as a plus for the Rockets. He's willing to spend it, if we've got the option. Another excellent interview, Clutch. The Rockets are lucky to have Adam added to their media team, as are the fans. Besides being a fountain of facts, he actually gives his opinion! ;-)-

 

While I am inclined to believe that there was SOMETHING to the whole Aaron Brooks situation that could tie back to the Thomas Robinson trade (and I have credited you on more than one occasion as being among the first to point that out), I think the league has NOW taken notice, too. I would think that the Aaron Brooks situation last season would make the league MORE on notice of these sort of shenanigans involving the Rockets than for almost any other team.

Also, that trade could be broken up into separate trades that had Patterson going to Houston "by himself" in exchage for some of the Rockets players.