CH - very nice and timely post. Could you analyze the Orlando cap situation? I ask because I don't see why Orlando cares that much about dumping bad contracts. If there's a balance between dumping bad contracts and acquiring picks/young talent, that should be a no brainer for them --- grab as much young talent and picks as they can. They're going to suck for a long, long time. They're not going to land tier 1 FA's, and aren't going to want to land Teir 2 FA's. So, presumably, the bad contracts roll off while they suck and rebuild, and they have to meet the salary floor anyway. So I don't get the heartburn over how many bad contracts we take. Anyways, I'd love to see an analysis of the salary situation on the Orlando side. All of this goes to my theory/agreemnt with Jopatmc, that Orlando's strategy has been to let the brooklyn door close, then goto Dwight with one last plea to stay, with the threat that he'll be dealt to Houston if he doesnt.
Well, technically, in the top 5 picks between 2006-2010, you have 2006 (LaMarcus Aldridge) 2007 Kevin Durant 2008 Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love 2009 Blake Griffin 2010 (John Wall), (DeMarcus Cousins) That are genrally considered worth building around, with the guys in parentheses weaker than the others. Only Durant and Rose are sure fire top 5 superstars (Rose won a MVP and is as valuable as Howard). So depending on how strict you are, a top five pick will generally have a 10-20% chance of generating a superstar, a 40% chance of giving you a solid All-Star or better. If you have top pick, then you have about a 50% chance of landing someone who has superstar potential. (This is all based on the ridiculously small sample size of 5 years, of course).
It's funny how some posters don't consider Dwight top 5 in the league, and shrug him off as being top 10, as if that's no such accomplishment... Here's the top NBA players the way I'D have them ranked: 1. LeBron 2. KD 3. CP3 4. Dwight 5. Rose 6. Wade 7. Rondo 8. Kobe 9. Melo 10. Griffin IMO, the 10th spot could be interchangeable, some people make think Dirk is still top 10 or guys like D-Will, Wesbrook, Pau, or Bynum should be mentioned but I'd take Griffin with his youth and potential in my top 10 over any of those guys. Regardless of my ranking Dwight is the BPA that can fill our weakest position and also provide us with the superstar caliber player that we had lost in Yao Ming. And almost none of you will give credit to Morey for even providing us the opportunity to finally build those "assets", you complain of, into one star player, all of which he's been collecting from late lottery picks and also "lesser" player additions (Kyle Lowry from Memphis) and turning them into above average players that translate into even more lottery picks. All this would be done with no top 10 picks in the draft or all star caliber players on the current roster. But we should definitely "FIRE MOREY" as many have cried for over the past few weeks. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=218699
That's what I was thinking. Taking all the bad contracts is just a wish list for Orlando and helps them with nothing more than saving $$ in the short term. It doesn't seem functionally necessary for the rebuild, b/c like you said, they won't be trying to sign big FA's right away... or at least they shouldn't.
Dwight wants money. Houston will not sign and trade him. Houston will be where he can make most money if they acquire him. The chances of him staying are great enough to take the risk. If his primary motivation was to become the Legion of Doom, he would not have opted in and would be a Brooklyn Net today.
Couldnt they still sign Courtney Lee??? because the Rockets still have his Bird rights, if Howard and him are boys...
CH -- thanks for putting together some accurate math. I have one question that's been bothering me about the Feigen thread, and you actually illustrated what's bothering me more. This "Scola Amnesty Edition" math assumes Asik and Lin are matched. You said that in your opening post. Why are we assuming that the Rockets are considering Amnestying Scola when Asik is matched? When I saw the titled of the Feigen article, I immediately thought we are considering that ONLY IF Asik is UNmatched. You did a lot of work in that OP, but honestly, I'd like to see what everything looks like if Asik is unmatched and Scola is let go...because I think that is the only scenario where we amnesty Scola. I'd like to ask people if they'd like the Howard trade / Scola amnesty in the scenario of getting Asik. Or conversely, the Howard trade while not amnestying Scola.
As of now yes. They'd have to give him up if they do all the other deals they are talking about. I think this might be why they are considering the amnesty clause for Scola, in order to protect Lee's bird rights.
I tweeted this to Bima to see if he could crunch the math on the cap and see if that idea makes sense
I just thought they have to give Howard a little something to WANT to stay here. If they Lamb go to make room, I wouldnt be upset to keep Lee and Howard.
Good idea about looking at Orlando. Here are my thoughts after doing a bit of math: (1) Dumping salaries on HOU (or any other team) makes a difference to Orlando, because it is the only way in which Orlando would have cap room for the upcoming 2012-13 season. (2) Having cap room immediately matters to Orlando not because they are going to sign a big time FA, but because they can use the cap room to absorb unwanted salary from another team in exchange for draft picks. Before the #s, some examples about why ORL would want dump contracts for cap space: When OKC/Seattle (where ORL's new GM came from) was a bad and low salary team, it used its salary space to (a) take the salary of Kurt Thomas in exchange for 2 draft picks, they turned out to be Serge Ibaka (24th pick of 2008 draft) + the 26th pick of the 2010 draft (traded, see later), (b) absorb the salary (mostly insured) of Matt Harping that Utah wanted to dump for tax purposes and got Eric Maynor, (c) absorb the salary of Mo Peterson to trade up from the 26th+27th pick of the 2010 draft to the 11th overall pick (Cole Aldrich-- yeah... you can't win them all). The point is, having cap room and the ability + willingness to take on salary isn't just for $ pinching, but can also translate to extra draft picks and assets. Morey did similar things by absorbing unwanted salaries from NYK landed Royce White and Jordan Hill and LAL (landed the Dallas pick). In other words, getting rid of a Jason Richardson, Duhon or Hedo can very well net ORL one or more future draft picks. Anyhow, here's what Orlando's cap picture looks like if they were to trade Dwight Howard for Kevin Martin plus two of HOU's rookies (I have Lamb and White here, but you can substitute or add others, their contract impacts are relatively small): ORL will have $64M in salaries for 2012-13, which would leave them with basically no cap space (cap =$58.044M) with which to play, they will have a $6M trade exception though from the Howard/KMart exchange if I am not missing anything: Spoiler <style type="text/css"> table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;} .tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;} </style> <table class="tableizer-table"> <tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th> Name </th><th> Notes </th><th> 2012-13 </th><th> 2013-14 </th><th>2014-15</th><th> </th></tr> <tr><td>Dwight Howard</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Hidayet Turkoglu</td><td>2nd Yr Non-Guaranteed</td><td>$11,815,850 </td><td>$12,000,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Jameer Nelson</td><td> </td><td>$6,046,512 </td><td>$6,500,000.000 </td><td>$6,953,488.37 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>J.J. Redick</td><td> </td><td>$6,190,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Glen Davis</td><td> </td><td>$6,400,000 </td><td>$6,400,000 </td><td>$6,600,000 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Jason Richardson</td><td> </td><td>$5,799,625 </td><td>$6,204,250 </td><td>$6,601,125 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Chris Duhon</td><td> </td><td>$3,250,000 </td><td>$3,500,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Quentin Richardson</td><td> </td><td>$2,627,400 </td><td>$2,808,600 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Ryan Anderson</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Earl Clark</td><td> </td><td>$1,240,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Daniel Orton</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Von Wafer</td><td> </td><td>$1,146,337 </td><td>$1,265,977 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Ish Smith</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Larry Hughes**</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Justin Harper</td><td> </td><td>$762,195 </td><td>$1,059,293 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>DeAndre Liggins</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Gustavo Ayon </td><td> </td><td>$1,500,000 </td><td>$1,500,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Kyle O'Quinn</td><td>Minimum</td><td>473604</td><td>762195</td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Andrew Nicholson</td><td>120% Scale</td><td>$1,418,160 </td><td>$1,482,000 </td><td>$1,545,840 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Kevin Martin</td><td>Obtained by Trade</td><td> $12,439,675 </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Jeremy Lamb</td><td>120% Scale</td><td> $2,020,200 </td><td> $2,111,160 </td><td> $2,202,000 </td><td> $3,034,356 </td></tr> <tr><td>Royce White</td><td>120% Scale</td><td> $1,645,440 </td><td> $1,719,480 </td><td> $1,793,520 </td><td> $2,751,260 </td></tr> <tr><td>Total</td><td> </td><td>$64,774,998 </td><td>$47,312,955 </td><td>$25,695,973 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td># of Players</td><td> </td><td>16</td><td>13</td><td>6</td><td></td></tr></table> Now, if they were able to dump Duhon and both of the Richardsons in the same deal, they'd have close to $5M in cap space for 2012-13, which probably means that they'd be better off just having their MLE + a $6M trade exception from the Dwight/Martin exchange if possible. Notably, HOU would have close to $11M in cap space in this exchange. Spoiler <style type="text/css"> table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;} .tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;} </style> <table class="tableizer-table"> <tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th> Name </th><th> Notes </th><th> 2012-13 </th><th> 2013-14 </th><th>2014-15</th><th> </th></tr> <tr><td>Dwight Howard</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Hidayet Turkoglu</td><td>2nd Yr Non-Guaranteed</td><td>$11,815,850 </td><td>$12,000,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Jameer Nelson</td><td> </td><td>$6,046,512 </td><td>$6,500,000.000 </td><td>$6,953,488.37 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>J.J. Redick</td><td> </td><td>$6,190,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Glen Davis</td><td> </td><td>$6,400,000 </td><td>$6,400,000 </td><td>$6,600,000 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Jason Richardson</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Chris Duhon</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Quentin Richardson</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Ryan Anderson</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Earl Clark</td><td> </td><td>$1,240,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Daniel Orton</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Von Wafer</td><td> </td><td>$1,146,337 </td><td>$1,265,977 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Ish Smith</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Larry Hughes**</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Justin Harper</td><td> </td><td>$762,195 </td><td>$1,059,293 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>DeAndre Liggins</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Gustavo Ayon </td><td> </td><td>$1,500,000 </td><td>$1,500,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Kyle O'Quinn</td><td>Minimum</td><td>473604</td><td>762195</td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Andrew Nicholson</td><td>120% Scale</td><td>$1,418,160 </td><td>$1,482,000 </td><td>$1,545,840 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Kevin Martin</td><td>Obtained by Trade</td><td> $12,439,675 </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Jeremy Lamb</td><td>120% Scale</td><td> $2,020,200 </td><td> $2,111,160 </td><td> $2,202,000 </td><td> $3,034,356 </td></tr> <tr><td>Royce White</td><td>120% Scale</td><td> $1,645,440 </td><td> $1,719,480 </td><td> $1,793,520 </td><td> $2,751,260 </td></tr> <tr><td>Total</td><td> </td><td>$53,097,973 </td><td>$34,800,105 </td><td>$19,094,848 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td># of Players</td><td> </td><td>13</td><td>10</td><td>5</td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>$ below $58.044M</td><td> </td><td>$4,946,027 </td><td>$23,243,895 </td><td>$38,949,152 </td><td></td></tr></table> If you sub out J. Rich for Hedo, though, they would have close to $11M in cap space immediately (Houston would have $5M or so in cap space in this case): Spoiler <style type="text/css"> table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;} .tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;} </style> <table class="tableizer-table"> <tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th> Name </th><th> Notes </th><th> 2012-13 </th><th> 2013-14 </th><th>2014-15</th><th> </th></tr> <tr><td>Dwight Howard</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Hidayet Turkoglu</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Jameer Nelson</td><td> </td><td>$6,046,512 </td><td>$6,500,000.000 </td><td>$6,953,488.37 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>J.J. Redick</td><td> </td><td>$6,190,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Glen Davis</td><td> </td><td>$6,400,000 </td><td>$6,400,000 </td><td>$6,600,000 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Jason Richardson</td><td> </td><td>$5,799,625 </td><td>$6,204,250 </td><td>$6,601,125 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Chris Duhon</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Quentin Richardson</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Ryan Anderson</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Earl Clark</td><td> </td><td>$1,240,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Daniel Orton</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Von Wafer</td><td> </td><td>$1,146,337 </td><td>$1,265,977 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Ish Smith</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Larry Hughes**</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Justin Harper</td><td> </td><td>$762,195 </td><td>$1,059,293 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>DeAndre Liggins</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Gustavo Ayon </td><td> </td><td>$1,500,000 </td><td>$1,500,000 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Kyle O'Quinn</td><td>Minimum</td><td>473604</td><td>762195</td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Andrew Nicholson</td><td>120% Scale</td><td>$1,418,160 </td><td>$1,482,000 </td><td>$1,545,840 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Kevin Martin</td><td>Obtained by Trade</td><td> $12,439,675 </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Jeremy Lamb</td><td>120% Scale</td><td> $2,020,200 </td><td> $2,111,160 </td><td> $2,202,000 </td><td> $3,034,356 </td></tr> <tr><td>Royce White</td><td>120% Scale</td><td> $1,645,440 </td><td> $1,719,480 </td><td> $1,793,520 </td><td> $2,751,260 </td></tr> <tr><td>Total</td><td> </td><td>$47,081,748 </td><td>$29,004,355 </td><td>$25,695,973 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td># of Players</td><td> </td><td>13</td><td>10</td><td>6</td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>$ Below $58.044M</td><td> </td><td>$10,962,252 </td><td>$29,039,645 </td><td>$32,348,027 </td><td></td></tr></table> Of course, if ORL were to dump both Hedo and JRich, plus one of the smaller bad deals (say, Duhon), it will have even more capspace-- $13M or so I think. Anyway, it seems that what we are talking about for 2012-13 is that HOU and ORL can, together, have up to $16M in cap space depending on which bad contracts HOU takes back. The question is how to divide the $16M between the two teams. Extra note: There are of course numerous other configurations of the trades, some without Kevin Martin included and with Dwight traded into HOU's cap space (which is huge if it amnesties Scola and Lin/Asik are matched), which generates a $19.5M trade exception for ORL-- which may be just as good as cap room for their purposes. The ones listed are just some examples for demonstration purposes.
I think this is the case. Amnesty Scola threat = Hardballing the Lakers Morey wants Bynum but also wants the Lakers to take on the bad Magic contracts.
