Honeycutt is in the D-League but the roster is full at 15 right now. I suspect they'll waive Anderson
He's in the same mode as James Anderson: promising stats pre-NBA and solid performance in the NBA. He's a plus defender with reliable 3pt shot and young athletic good size 3 - the kind of player Morey prefers to find on cheap instead of using picks on. Being so young also means he maybe under-utilized elsewhere and still have upside. His production on court is equivalent to what a middle first rounder would give you on average(very solid and capable rotational player). Being a restricted free agent this summer but played few minutes this season, he's probably not expecting big money coming his way. So Morey would likely convince him to take a cheap or frontloaded contract(with team options later) after the buyout. Good move and it fits what Morey prefers adding(Grantland article recently mentioned Morey wants to add a wing stopper and a backup center).
Bima, My scatterbrain has been wondering about something ever since Morey mentioned in the R-Rob trade presser about possibly bringing in a front loaded contract to a player from Europe this season. -I want to get your thoughts on whether the Rockets actually might be looking to actually put a contract(with a player of course too) on their books with a team option for next year to help their trade flexibility in acquiring a max contract this Summer? I know the Rockets have a decent package to offer a team an intriguing offer of young talent, picks, and cap space to acquire salary, but they seem to lack the expiring contract type of salary filler to bridge the gap enough to get a max contract play in trade to stay within the percentage rules that might or might not apply to a certain trade. If they add a player like Casspi this year on a contract where he's set to make something like lets say....2.5 million next year(but with a full team option), doesn't that actually help the Rockets make more high dollar deals on a draft night trade by the benefit of having another contract like this to offer.... AND might this actually be a way of keeping Delfino out of any potential trades by having another contract to supplant his in a deal?? I've been wondering about this for awhile, and would appreciate your thoughts.
To be eligible for a draft day trade, the contract would need to have 2013-14 set up as NON-GUARANTEED SALARY, not a team option. I'll assume that's what you were talking about. With the Rockets still about $5 million or so under the cap, they could trade Delfino ($3 million) for up to ~$8.1 million in incoming salary in a draft day trade. That figure goes up a little if you include other non-guaranteed deals like Anderson, Beverley, Smith or Honeycutt ($100k guaranteed). Adding a $2.5 million non-guaranteed contract will not help the Rockets appreciably with a draft day draft. Their available cap room is large enough to more than make up the difference that salary matching with $2.5 million more in contracts would do. It would take a $4-5 million non-guaranteed contract to really impact salary matching in the way you envision. But that would involve ACTUALLY paying $4-5 million to a guy like Casspi for just a few weeks' work. Too rich. Most likely, if they sign Casspi, it will be to a league minimum deal. Maybe a little more if they REALLY like him.
Haven't seen Casspi play since SAC traded him. Has he really regressed that much? There is a certain symmetry to it if we sign him: Jew-Only-Fans for Cas to balance out the Christian-Only-Fans of Lin.
I can see the value of having the $5 million deal on the books with the non-guaranteed $5.25 million for next season in trades. If Morey takes up all that cap and then signs another minimum salary contract, he gets slightly over the cap for 2013. This means the MLE comes available on top of having $11.4 million of non-guaranteed money that he could conceivable trade for up to $16 mill of contract back. Having those contracts would possibly help in the event that we actually attracted both Dwight and Chris Paul or Dwight and a Kevin Love trade, etc. It could possibly be handy given that scenario. If we are not going to sign a guy or guys to take up the rest of the cap and put us in a position to be over the cap next year and have our MLE, then I see no point in keeping Garcia around. Might as well cut him and get somebody in here that may be of help. Don't see what Garcia can give us that Anderson doesn't give us. The only benefit to Garcia is in the salary cap scenario I described where his contract and another 2013/14 non-guaranteed contract take up our cap space so we can use MLE next year of the opportunity presents itself with multiple trades.
Only the league minimum and salary cap exceptions prorate as the season wears on. Cap room is actual dollars available to use on player signings. Cap room does not prorate. Therefore, if the Rockets offer someone a contract starting at $5 million for this season, they'd have to pay that player $5 million total for his services these next few weeks. (1) See above. (2) Carlos Delfino's guarantee kicks in on July 1 if not waived by June 30, so his "non-guaranteed salary" won't help past draft night (essentially).
Anderson has shown signs of being useful, Honeycutt is the definition of a scrub. He'd be the one to get honey-cut.
If Houston can sign a Jewish player .... Maybe David Stern will stop the hate against the Rockets, and stop sabotaging our playoff hopes.
Guys, it doesn't matter because McHale won't play him either. He'll be sitting on the bench next to T. Jones, Garcia, and the rest of them.
I think you understand where I'm coming from here. In my opinion, it would be a lot easier to trade for Pau (or somebody else on a max salary) if we had $11 million or so in non-guaranteed salary to send out (Garcia and RIP or some other player we claim off the waiver wire or sign). It would be a lot easier to put together $14 million in salary and use the +$5 million trade rule to acquire Pau than to hollow out $19 million of cap space or close to $17 million of cap space to trade for him sending out one or two youngsters using the under the cap limits. If we can use the 50% rule or the +$5 million rule to trade for a superstar and we are using non-guaranteed contracts, we don't have to worry about cutting or trading guys that we may want to keep and we get to preserve assets like Asik and Lin for other possible moves. That's why my instincts keep telling me that Morey is going to try to fill up that remaining cap space with a non-guaranteed deal....even if it means handing a player like Casspi a chunk of change. And that's why I brought up the idea of claiming RIP off waivers. You made the statement that the league wouldn't allow such an exchange because it would be circumventing the CBA. Possibly. But I'm not so sure. Perhaps they talked trade and Chicago didn't want to give up a pick or the rights to Mirotic and they agreed that they would wait and see. And perhaps the deal is that Chicago is going to attempt to waive RIP and see if somebody else is willing to pick him up....for nothing (highly unlikely). And perhaps Morey agreed to pick up RIP and get them under the lux tax line if they would agree verbally to a future trade, something like a second rounder from Houston for Mirotic or possibly some sort of first/second round pick exchange. And with that, they went to the league office and made sure they would be accused of circumvention under those circumstances? I'm not saying it happened. I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me if it did happen and if we did pick up Hamilton in the next couple days since it's now or never for our opportunity to improve our playoff roster. If there is some sort of agreement in place with Chicago, it's gonna surface in the next couple days because Morey has to make his moves to get guys eligible for the playoff roster....and we really need a backup center...badly. With all that in mind, my instincts tell me that Morey wants to use up that remaining cap space somehow, some way, and acquire a contract or contracts with non-guaranteed team options for next season that give him more trade flexibility going into the offseason.
Casspi was really impressive his rookie year in Sacramento.... I think if we sign him we can incorporate him pretty seamlessly....our tempo and style match his skillset kindly... this guy is a defender with the passion that only Euro's have....im beginning to prefer foreign players moreso than American players....foreign players have a better sense of meaning and respect to their profession....
He is a solid defender. Would not call him a stopper. He still needs to get stronger. But he has better upside (and production) than Honeycutt. But it is not Casspi's game I am worried about, it is his mentality. He had a rep as a me-guy, not very team oriented. But his strengths fit exactly how the Rockets currently play; he can run, shoot the trey and drive to the hoop.
