You are wrong. The cap hold if the option was picked up was about $1 million. Declining the option increased the cap hold and cost the team cap space. It was purely about gambling on RFA.
lol, Morey lost those players and picks for nothing. and yet there still are someone trying to cover him up.
It's probably because you're wrong. Pelicans pick, with great pro-Rockets protections TPE Cap space and flexibility Not recognizing (i) what he got, and (ii) why he did a deal even if he got "nothing" is dumb.
I think it is only clear that RFA was the wrong route now knowing that we wouldn't get Bosh. Hindsight is 20/20. If we did get Bosh and matched Parsons, we'd have 3 years to build the team chemistry which many are rightly clamoring for. We wouldn't be flipping assets as much anymore because we wouldn't have any room to do so, but the next 3 years would have been incredibly fun. Otherwise, we'd have Parsons for one year and be unable to keep him after that. Swinging for the fences.
I didn't need this article to convince me that Morey knows what he's doing. He's proven himself time after time despite his detractors constantly dumping on him at every opportunity. However, with all these unproven players joining the Rockets this season, my greatest concern is that we dont have adequate coaching to develop them all. One thing I really miss about Adelman's staff is they were above average at taking unknowns and turning them into plus-value assets. Aaron Brooks, Carl Landry, Kyle Lowry, Chase Budinger and many more I'm sure I'm forgetting. Yes, this really helped Morey in his quest to flip paperclips to Porches but our current mission is a bit different. The Rockets need to coach all this talent up, not necessarily to trade them off, rather to bolster the bench for win-now mode. I love Kevin McHale the person but do we really trust him to do this on his own? We still havent replaced Sampson. Are Bickerstaff and Finch up to the task? Besides Chandler Parsons, what is our current regime's record with developing talent? If the Rockets really plan to be better than last year's team by the playoffs we need to see significant improvement from Terrence Jones, DMo, Canaan, Daniels, Covington and Johnson. If our young guys can just step in and replace the production Asik and Lin gave us I'll consider it a huge win. I just don't know if that's asking too much, let alone expecting them to make the team better overall. Too many young players on our squad needing attention, and that's before we're even talking about the overseas guys that want to come over such as Capela, Papanikolaou, Gentile and Dorsey. How are we supposed to coach up and integrate all these players in less than a year? Our coaching staff has a herculean task in front of them. This next assistant head coaching hire (if there even will be one) is of monumental importance in my humble opinion.
Agreed. I want the coaching staff to play Dwight and Harden less minutes and allow the scrub bench to grow and figure out how to play outside of watching the two stars work in isolation. But that's a no brainer that usually never happens in our last ten seasons....
I don't think it is a dumb theory. Zach Lowe has even discussed it, how it has been a common sentiment in NBA circles and is not unheard of in the NBA. The Wizards magically over paid for other clients of John Wall's agent. What could Fegan do? Limit his clients negotiations with the Rockets and bad mouth the Rockets. Do I know that is what happened? No, but am not going to dismiss it... especially when discussing a team that REALLY was desperate to sign Howard.
Let's not get crazy here. This is their lineup. Felton / Harris Ellis / Ledo Parsons / Lewis Dirk / Wright Chandler / Smith That looks a whole lot like an 8th seed to me. Meanwhile, the following still looks like a #4 seed to me. Beverley / Canaan Harden / Daniels Ariza / Papanikolaou TJones / DMo Howard / Dorsey
What makes you think that wasn't a contingency of Dwight coming here? If I had to put money on it, I'd say the two went hand in hand.
Wow. The fact remains that the Rockets wanted another star and Parsons all locked up to long term deals. Get it through your heads. They wanted all four of their "stars" locked up long term. The only way to assure that was to let Parsons become a RFA. Rockets were within an eyelash and a ridicuous Miami contract from getting everything they wanted. It just didnt workout. You guys still bashing Morey need to find something else to do because you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
We could have had Bosh while Parsons was still in his rookie contract. And then we could try to sign Parsons as UFA the next year.
Even if it wasn't part of the Howard deal, Fegan could have used it as a guilt trip tactic afterwards. Favor for a favor and all that. Fegan's job was to get Parsons paid and out of that rookie contract ASAP. It's why he was hired. Fegan could have simply told Morey, "Hey Daryl Elvis, let Parsons test RFA or I'll make sure he walks next year." I'm sure Morey considered holding onto Parsons' 4th year and trading him away after hearing that before opting for the RFA scenario because he either genuinely wanted to keep Chandler or realized how bad the fan reaction would be, especially after he played such a huge role in Howard's recruitment.
Respectfully disagree on some points. I love Asik, but he didn't contribute that much last season. Played 48 games. PER 14.0. Don't know why he would get less pouty with another year coming off the bench. Look at his production as a Rox bench player, not a starter. And Dorsey can hardly be a downgrade offensively. I don't get your Parsons RFA/UFA analysis. You're saying if Parsons were unrestricted, Cuban would not try to pry him away? All teams make offers that are tough to match, whether RFA or UFA: cf. Heat and Bosh. Or you're saying Parsons would have accepted a worse offer from the Rockets rather than go to the Mavs? Logarithmic v. arithmetic pay increase doesn't matter: cap numbers matter. If Fegan really set up this condition with the Rockets, Dwight Howard might be pretty pissed at his agent right now. The Wiz instance does not compare. The Wiz supposedly overpaid--not so bad; the Rox supposedly gave up a guy--and possibly hurt the team/career of Fegan's big client, Dwight Howard.
Wake me up when they become major winners. Nothing is guaranteed. However, we have 2 stars in-hand right now, and that's a fact. I'm also [bleeping] tired of first round losses, but I'm also not a fan of the tanking strategy. History is ripe with examples that it's risky and might never pay off.
The Asik trade was not predicated on the Lin trade. The Lin trade was tragically terrible. Having Lin and the pick is much, much, much better than having the TPE. Plus, he declined Parsons option and got nothing for him. Nothing. Those were two monumental, possibly franchise altering, mistakes. We could easily have retained all those assets, plus Lin (who, although a bad contract value, is still better than our options), and still traded Asik and had the Pelicans pick and Ariza. That is a much (by leaps and bounds) better team for 2014-15 if it stays together and is much more asset rich in the future even if they trade Lin and Parsons. You retain all the same flexibility for 2015/16 free agency, but keep a better team for 2014-15, keep your assets and maybe acquire more. That was his point.
It WAS a loss. Hard to argue it's not when you lose Parson for nothing. Lin trade could be argued both way... but to me, given how things played out, it would be an easy decision to hold onto him, let his expiring help in 15 while keeping your 1st and 2nd 2015 picks. Asik trade was always going to happen given he wanted out and the Rockets netted positive on that trade. How much Rockets improve from here on out is a different story. Don't confuse that with what Morey have done as an overall LOSS to the organization this off season.
Terrible article. Flexibility is only useful if there are free agents who want to sign here or positive trades that are in the hand. Otherwise, losing another year of Dwight's prime for nothing is a terrible result.
Morey runs things like an investing job, the key really is to maximize upside, and minimize downside. There's absolutely no way to win every time in a competitive environment like this, matching Parsons would have just been compounding the mistake.
