To me, it seems clear that the minimum signings of BevMo and Mr. Anderson are a way for the Rockets to get their ducks in line for next year's free agency. As some crazy superfan has stated in the past, in order to maximize their cap room next summer, the Rockets will have to waive Delfino by June 30th, and renounce their rights to Toney Douglas. That will put the Rockets at 10 players under contract, with roster charges for two second-year minimum salaries and 2 key members of this year's rotation lost. Rather than try and fill those spots with washed-up veterans or undrafted rookies after spending all their cap space, the Rockets have been proactive and filled it with two guys who will have significant experience with Houston by the conclusion of the year, and could possibly be relied upon for rotation minutes next year. It's a small detail, but one that I absolutely admire from this management team. If the two new guys bust, they haven't lost anything except some minimum salaries. If they manage to have Agent Smith levels of impact, they're absolute steals that will allow the Rockets to carry the equivalent of 3 maximum contracts (Harden, Lin+Asik, Savior X), while still being able to easily use the non-Taxpayer MLE in 2014/2015 and retain Smith in restricted free agency.
Agreed on the overall strategy, although I'll just point out that the "roster charges" are only at the rookie minimum salary amount, so from a purely cap space maximization standpoint, having Anderson (or any other player from this year's roster) on the payroll for next year would actually LIMIT the Rockets' total cap space, albeit by a very small amount.
My mistake on that, I assumed they treated the rookie minimum the same as team salary and scaled it up so as to not dissuade teams from signing vets. I have to imagine that one of Morris and Patterson is gonna go during the draft, so overall this may be a moot point anyway. There's just too much overlap between the skills of Delfino/Anderson and Douglas/Beverley to be a coincidence.
Agreed on the additions and their fit. FYI, in determining "team salary" for SALARY CAP purposes, it is the player's actual salary that counts. In other words, a rookie minimum player would only count for the rookie minimum, and a 10-year vet minimum player would count for his full salary (both the two-year vet minimum salary paid by his team plus the extra amount paid by the league). It is in determining "team salary" for LUXURY TAX purposes in which the two-year veteran's minimum salary amount is used for all minimum-salaried players. The more you know . . .
For eligibility for Bi-Annual Exception, Taxpayer Mid-Level Exceptions, Non-Taxpayer Mid Level Exceptions, and Sign and Trade restrictions, the two-year veteran's minimum is used for minimum salaried players, not the actual salary paid.
When people talk about the Cap Hit, or trying to figure out if the team is staying under or going over the salary cap, this is what they're talking about. The 2yr Veteran's minimum, not the actual salary.
Edit/Delete. My bad. I was confused. I know what a "cap hit" is, but you are correct about the two-year vet minimum salary counting for cap purposes. I had been thinking a lot lately about the concept of OFFSET, which DOES use actual salary for its calculations. My brain was still stuck in that mode when this issue came up. This is also why I shouldn't talk salary cap stuff while watching a Texans playoff game!
All that stuff I wrote that you just quoted is true (about the difference between the salary cap and the luxury tax). That stuff is all good for you to know. However, as you can see above, I have deleted that post, because you were actually correct (and I was wrong) about the end result of the two-year veteran's minimum salary being what counts towards team salary for cap purposes. Sorry for the confusion.
Whats to stop the Rockets from tying up players via D-League contracts? IE Machado released and signs deal with RGV for similar numbers.
Bima, I wonder if there is any trade, among those that the Rockets actually are interested in making, that can be done with Cook's contract but not without it. It seems that unless the incoming salaries goes up into the Pau Gasol territory ($19M), trades can still be made to fit under salary cap rules without too much more difficulty than they would be with Cook.
Yes, I was already conversant with the differences between Apron, Salary Cap, and Luxury Tax thresholds after immersing myself in Larry Coon's cap stuff for the past year or two. Glad to see I was right. No worries about the error, I get confused sometimes too when multi-tasking and the error you made was perfectly understandable. I did get confused at first since your assertions didn't seem to accord with what I learned from Larry Coon's writings. I'm glad we got that resolved.
I believe all D-League contracts have an "out" for NBA call-ups. Could be wrong about that, though. Also, no one in the D-League makes anywhere close to the rookie minimum. Plus, there's no five-star hotels and ludicrously large per diems on the road. No one's going to turn down the NBA to stay in the D-League.
D-League contracted players are typically paid less than NBA-Contract players who are on D-League assignment. Further, signing a player to a D-League contract (as opposed to an NBA contracted player who is sent to the D-League on assignment) does not allow the team to retain any rights. That means if a player plays well in the D-League, and he is under a D-League contract and not an NBA-contract that is still in effect, he can sign with any team and the Rockets wouldn't be able to stop him, since the Rockets would not hold his rights.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23Bulls">#Bulls</a> sign free agent guard Daequan Cook (@<a href="https://twitter.com/dc4three">dc4three</a>) <a href="http://t.co/6LVENogW" title="http://bit.ly/138FzlU">bit.ly/138FzlU</a></p>— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) <a href="https://twitter.com/chicagobulls/status/287955274902409216" data-datetime="2013-01-06T16:14:22+00:00">January 6, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
