Original Danny Leroux: Rockets’ Repeater Tax fear more excuse than reality article

I agree. I think Tilman might have told Morey: If you think you can go into the LT and win it all this year, even with the Warriors at full strength, then go for it. Otherwise, let's postpone the first LT year until 2019-2020 and push the possibility of a repeater tax down the road a year.

We had a shot at beating GS this year, but it was a slim one. Even if we'd added a strong 3&D guy, the odds would still have been stacked against us. Now we get to go over the LT this summer, when the Warriors will be losing Durant (and possibly Boogie and/or Klay). Our odds will be better next year, especially if Morey finds a way to bring in another key piece. Of course, a lot of that depends on how CP3 looks next year and whether Capela will bounce back from the psychological impact of his Round 2 showing.

 

That's far from the idea.


Its that windows of opportunity in the NBA are fleeting …. Right now you have the best offensive player in the league. You have to maximize your opportunity to win while he's great. Dicking around and ducking the repeater tax which is 4 years away aint maximizing your chances.

You can always shed salary - Someone will take talented players. Someone will take big expiring contracts. They'll be there like vultures waiting to take any useful player they can get. Teams do it every year.

The concern over the repeater tax is a non issue …. they'd never pay it.

 

Still, from what I've seen so far, I think we can hopefully count on Tilman to pay the Luxury Tax for a competitive team for the next three years, but unless we win a title, it's hard to imagine him not telling Morey to do whatever it takes to unload salary and get under the LT that fourth year.

I don't see him being willing to pay the LT and a Repeater Tax unless we've given him the extra revenue a title brings in. And even then, I'm not so sure he'd be willing.

 

Good points

 

I'd like to believe he will be willing to pay the tax for a competitive team ….

My problem is he's done everything he can to avoid paying Any Tax and diminished his options to improve in the short term as a result while he's telling us something totally different.

You look at that 65 win team from last year …. Letting Ariza walk was just plain silly - $15m one year deal or not. You had his bird rights and threw away an asset - Its an expiring ….

What did Phx turn that into ?! Kelly Oubre Jr. and Austin Rivers. Despite the fact that they waived Rivers and ate his $12m salary , He's a quality piece on a contender.

 

It was all a Fluke.

 

Morey screwed us with the Ryan, Capela, and Cp3 contracts for the long run.

 

Everything you wrote is literally the same thing the other poster said "Don't worry about the future, spend stupidly today".

The reality is Morey made the correct bet, even if they went into Lux tax this year it wouldn't have prevented Dumbtoni from forgetting to coach. Cp3 forgetting he is making the max and Harden forgetting to play hard. And then Rox would have to dismantlle the team in 3 years due to the repeater tax and I'm sure you'll be first in line talking about how cheap Tillman and is how dumb Morey is for not dodging the repeater tax.

How many people right now are still bashing Morey for the CP3 move? These are the same people who would have bashed Morey for letting CP3 go if he didn't sign him last summer. If he let him go I'm sure you'd be on the board talking about how the windows of opportunity in the NBA are fleeting and you have to maximize your chances of winning, Cp3's max contract is a non-issue you can always shed salary blah blah blah. Your speech now applies entirely to CP3 signing yet I've never read you defending the signing at all.

As long as the team didn't win no matter what Morey had done it will always be the wrong move if I was him I wouldn't read the board anymore.

 

Exactly. All these interpretations of motive will be totally revised if the Rockets land a big fish who puts them into the tax for multiple years.

 

Lets not forget that we finally got away from Anderson's contract in the form of moving Knight which hurt us in the short term.

Yea, in hindsight we should have used Ariza as an expiring but we were really in a position to gamble on that in the offseason? I don't think so. And that completely ignores if Ariza wanted to come back, seems like he wanted to move on.

 

So much this. Hindsight is always 20/20.

 

Why do you keep ignoring the trades we tried to make that would have put us over the tax?

Why do you act like we can just trade for any player we want?

Your whole theory is based on the premise we never tried to add talent or salary and from reports it's just not true.

Do you think we never tried to trade for any other players?

 

You need me to give you Corrosion's speech about how the contention windows in the NBA are fleeting and you need to maximize your chances of winning every year?

Cp3 playoff Stats 2018: 21 pts 5.9 assts 5.8 rebs 38% 3 pt
Capela Playoff Stats 2018: 12.7 pts 11.6 rebs 66% FG

I can never take anybody who acts like they knew all along CC and Cp3 would be trash this season seriously. How tf would any sane person predict a massive a dropoff in Cp3 and especially Clint? Oh yeah, you just knew all along giving 24 yr old Clint Capela a 16M deal would be horrible in the long run. Yeah right Everybody knew Cp3 deal would be toxic but that was only in the last year of his deal not his first, nobody predicted he would be this bad the first year alone. Morey made the correct gamble on Cp3 the Rox were a hamstring away from a championship and lost game 7 by single digits after missing like 20 straight 3 pointers that's as close as you can get without actually winning. To walk away from all that and not pay Cp3 the max and trade away a freaking 24 yr old stud who already proved himself is the height of lunacy. Were you applauding Cuban when he broke up his championship team? Cuz that's literally what you are acting Morey should have done, blow everything up for no rhyme or reason other than if he was omniscient and can foresee exactly what would happen.

Spare me the monday quarterbacking, I'd rather have a GM a like Morey who would do the logical and correct decision all the time given the information available to him.

 

Let's say we get Butler. Wouldn't this just delay the repeater tax by 1 year?

 

Wouldn't we want a third superstar to pair with Harden and Butler once Paul is off the books? I assume Morey would be trying the same strategy

 

If you listen to their podcasts and that's what you glean from it, then we just have to disagree. The criticisms are more of Harden the defensive lapses, and occasional fatigue induced laziness, but on offense makes the right play.

 

Faired would've given us a different look but not guaranteed game changer. I still wished we had a chance to see him play more

3nD might've been okay for switch rotations (less chance to expose old man Nene?), but we needed someone with balls to take the three and not have PTSD from last year's debacle

 

Holding 9 spots for eventual trade fillers is a bit unrealistic and risky, as you already outlined, but I do hope we use some of these exceptions, as they could provide us:

1. Salary filler in a September trade
2. Potential picks for taking on unsavory salary from other teams looking to cut costs or open up cap space for free agency

The Love rumors are particularly interesting for me here. A Capela-Love swap makes sense from a value perspective, but we need salary filler to make the trade legal. Using a few of our exceptions could get us the contracts needed to complete this deal.

 

Several issues with your theory ….

First TPE's are only used in TRADES , not as FA type exceptions like the MLE / BAE. So he cant just go sign a 9 FA's over the cap using those exceptions. TPE's allow you to send out less salary than would otherwise be required to make salaries match in a trade. They cant be combined ….


Second its 90 days or December 15th , whichever is later before FA's can be aggregable. #96 in the Larry Coon CBA list.


He could make multiple trades where he uses each of those TPE's and takes back increasing salary using each exception …. but it aint likely.