and WITH howard this team, as it stands right now, is a certified lottery team. so why is he worth max money again? a guy who will play half a season, and has no chemistry with our franchise player, why pay him big money to stay? are dwight's stats really out of the reach of capela this year? 13/11/1.6? capela can give us 9/9/1.5 at 1/10th the cost. the center production will see a slight drop, but that 20M will help vastly improve production elsewhere.
Yes there is. The Rockets still own his bird rights which counts against the salary cap more than if he did not opt out. Dwight's salary last season was 22,359,364 dollars. Dwight's cap hold this summer is 150% of that or what ever his max salary would be, whichever is greater. A max salary for Dwight is about ~29.5 million so that is his cap hold until the Rockets renounce his bird rights.
Actually Harden was one of the only positives on the Rockets last year. I wouldn't blame Howard for all the Rockets ills last season, but he declined greatly last season. He attempted to compensate by not switching defensively, by cheating towards the basket... The results helped his raw stats, but also made him a very pedestrian defensive player. If he isn't a plus defensively, he isn't anything special. The Rockets will miss his rebounding but that is about it, as the 2016 Howard is a shell of the 2014-2015 Dwight. No hard feelings, he shouldn't be booed, he attempted to stay positive but he is fairly ordinary now.
I don't think he is expecting more next year. But more guaranteed over the long run. Say he gets a $15 mil for 4 years. Say what you want but that is $60mil guaranteed. If he opted in then got injured or sucked/declined so bad that nobody would sign the difference would be $37mil. Whatever leverage he has now is probably as high as it will ever be. I think it is a smart business decision by Dwight. And at that sort of number he may not be a bad deal.
We've made the playoffs every year we've had Dwight. As awful and horrible as last year was, we still made it. We can only go up from here with a new coach and system and new role players(hopefully high IQ). Dwight Howard is the best rebounding big in modern NBA history. He averages 14rpg over his decade long career. That's exactly how much he's averaged for the Rockets in the playoffs and with over 2 blocks in 28 games. He's had his minutes and attempts reduced greatly during the season. D'Antoni played him 36mpg in LA and that Dwight had a bum shoulder and recovering back. He tried to make Gasol a stretch 4 for Dwight to have space. That says a lot. Kobe for all the chemistry issue talk, had his best passing season of his career. It's no coincidence it was with Dwight. Capela fouls as much as Dwight in half the minutes. No way can he keep up his energy and aggression on the boards for 30+ minutes for a full season with that frail looking body or not staying out of foul trouble. I do love that Capela runs the floor very well though. I mean, if Dwight has to go, i'd be okay signing Joakim Noah because i know Capela could play well in his place if he got hurt as usual, but we'd need to also resign DMO so he could fill in minutes at C. It's the summer and people supposed to be horny for free agents. But, i've got a feeling it's not going to be as sexy as people hope. I'm talking bringing back DMO(can post and can stretch), TJones(can bring the ball up the floor) and trying to get Dwight back too(still one of the best rebounders and shot blockers in the league and can still out jump most C's). All these dudes skills are very hard to replace. Minor changes like trading Corey and trying to bring in a starting caliber PG and some shooters off the bench like Jared Dudley is all i really expect. Perhaps trading Ariza or bringing in someone that can start in front of Ariza to let him come off the bench. Deng? Stuff like that is all i'm really expecting.
You lost me at "We've made the playoffs every year we've had Dwight" We made the playoffs every year we had Jeremy Lin. It actually hurt us that we made the playoffs this year. All the good coaches were gone and we lost a draft pick. All in all, Dwight needs to go. I hope like hell they don't resign him unless it's to trade him.
We had a 6-0 record without Dwight last season yet people think we'll be a lottery team? Not like our defense can get any worse next year.
I hope Micheal Beasley can keep things going they way ended the season, I understand the defensive woes but would have liked to see him play more with Harden.
We had the right idea: at least offer to bring him back on a discounted deal. It would have been the smart play, warts aside. But I think we all knew it would come to this. Both sides need to move on.
People believe what they want to believe. You, for example, have deluded yourself about Dwight Howard. By his own admission, he quit on the team, pouted like a child. I don't hate him but he's hanging from our necks like a millstone. But blame it all on Harden. Go ahead.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Our @<a href="https://twitter.com/calvinwatkins">calvinwatkins</a> reports that Rockets officials tried to talk @<a href="https://twitter.com/DwightHoward">DwightHoward</a> into picking up his player option to STAY for one more season</p>— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/status/745444021716213760" data-datetime="2016-06-22T02:31:19+00:00">June 22, 2016</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
