I think no matter what we keep josh smith. Didn't he get paid 26mil straight up from Detroit? I think if we make a deep run josh is going to stay and same with brewer I think with smith becoming something to laugh at he is gonna appreciate the rockets for maybe restarting his career, especially if we get a ring
If the cap goes to $66.5 million and the Rox release Kostas and Pablo and keep both their picks in the upcoming drafts while retaining cap holds on Bev and McDaniel....they will have approximately $7 million of cap space plus the Room MLE (or probably Room MLE minus $525,093 since our habit is to sign our second rounder to a piece of the exception to get 3 years out of them) to bring back both Smith and Brewer. The real question here is how do we bring back both Smith and Brewer but have them on small enough cap holds for 2016 that it doesn't affect or free agent pursuits in 2016. Brewer has Birds rights so we could go ahead and pay him up and have the full MLE to work with for Smith for next season. But personally I suspect that either one or both of Smith/Brewer is going to play for below market value next season...............possibly even the minimum, to allow us the smaller cap hold(s) for 2016 and their payoff being a bigger one or two year deal at that time while we leverage their low cap holds through the free agency period of 2016.
I understand concern about saving the mle...but why are people insisting that resigning kj mcdainiels is a big factor. I see him as a trade asset at this point
That cap room figure (under your scenario) would be closer to $6 million, and that room would also need to be used to re-sign/match on McDaniels for anything over his $1.05 million qualifying offer. Also, the Room Exception is only for two years, so using a rookie minimum-sized portion of it to sign our second round pick is pointless. The Rockets can sign that player to a two-year minimum deal without tapping any other cap exceptions. And hopefully the Rockets wouldn't need to use the Room Exception on Smith, since it will only pay him a negligible amount more than he'd get for simply re-signing using his Non-Bird rights. Staying above the cap seems like the smarter play. At least if the Rockets want to keep most of their talent (including Ariza) together for next season. While I think Smith would be the likeliest player to get the MLE if he demanded it, don't discount the need to use the MLE to re-sign McDaniels. Without the MLE, the Rockets will be helpless to match any meaningful offer McDaniels receives from another team. On Brewer/Smith playing below market value, I sure hope you're right. But I'm not holding my breath.
Another one of BBallholic's "Player X will play for the minimum" theories? Have any of your rumored minimum contracts come through? I guarantee you that neither Josh Smith nor Brewer will play for the minimum, though it is certainly possible that one or both will take a below market contract to stay here. I don't expect it to happen, but it is possible.
I laid out a scenario in a thread called "The Case for Cap Space" that dealt with the bolded statement. You are right regarding cap space.....it all revolves around Ariza. We can't do anything meaningful with cap room unless we trade him. My argument is that if opening up cap room will allow us to keep Smith, Brewer, KJ McDaniels, and add Sergio Llull, then its worth the cost of losing Ariza. That said, I expect a team to give Smith a 3 year $24-30 million contract, and wouldn't be surprised at all if it was Dallas. I do not believe Brewer is going anywhere, despite the McDaniel's addition. His contract situation (bird rights), relationships (Love), and skillset (fastbreak and slasher) are too valuable to this team........even moreso than Smith.
You can't replace Ariza's minuted with a combination of Brewer and KJ though. Those two guys are just not good enough at the 3 point shot to play Ariza's minutes. Ariza had a really bad stretch this year, but he's back to being the best 3 point shooter at the wing that we have. Brewer had a hot stretch when he joined here but has been AWFUL since then, worse than Ariza was.
Josh smiths should nearly take a vets miniuem or a lower deal considering he's still getting payed by Detroit
That's not how the world works though. Smith could have taken a minimum deal this season but instead he wanted the BAE because it made him a few extra hundred thousand dollars. I can't blame him for that. Why "should" someone turn down millions of dollars?
Honestly I'm not that worried, the Rox have a lot of sizable contracts they can move depending on the situation, guys like Terry, Kpap, Dorsey and even Ariza (if they think Mcdaniels is ready to eat Brewer's PT and make Brewer the starter) can be moved to retain vital pieces. We'll see what happens, all the good vibes will definitely disappear if we get booted out of the first round again though so in the worst case scenario maybe DM tears the house down again.
I'm not trying to replace Ariza with Brewer and KJ. I'm trying to show how this team can stay competitive and keep the most talent and flexibility possible to go after a top free agent or make a big trade. Ariza is a great wing defender. Nobody will or can deny that. He is also turning 30 y/o, is shooting below his career averages (which aren't that good), and has 3 years $24 million left on his contract. My willingness to trade Ariza has as much to do with Dwight as it does Ariza. If Dwight can't be Dwight again, then we need to reset the deck. That means trading established "win now" pieces for future assets.
Dwight, James, Ariza, Jones, DMo, Capela, Dorsey, Bev's cap hold, McDaniels' cap hold, Nick Johnson, cap hold for Knicks pick ($525,093) and generously estimating the #12 pick ($1.87 million) plus Pablo's $290k guarantee comes up to $59,655,380.70. That's a difference of $6,844,619.30 at $66.5 million. If that pick turns out to be #14, that's $7 million of cap space. And some are projecting a $68 million cap number for next season. If that's the case that's over $8.3- million in cap space assuming we cut Kostas and Pablo and don't trade our 2 picks. And besides, we should be able to fart away guys like Capela and Dorsey along with cash for some sort of future draft pick if we need more cap space. Maybe throw in Terrence with them and and get a future lottery-protected first? We can match on McDaniels if we need to. He is restricted.....isn't he? Isn't that a possible Gilbert Arenas (Asik/Lin) scenario? (Or are you luring me into the salary cap jaws of death here with something I haven't considered yet?) As far as McDaniels goes I can't imagine him getting a substantial offer early in the free agency, but stranger things have happened. Frankly, I can't imagine him getting a substantial offer period, not much beyond 2/6 if that. And it sure looks like to me that McDaniels is Brewer insurance if Brewer walks. So, if we retain Brewer, I can see the possibility of either signing-and-trading McDaniels or letting him walk or signing him for cheap for another season. I'm convinced Smith is a long-term keeper at this point. And I'm also convinced we want Brewer back for at least next season and possibly beyond. So the key is how do we keep them while still having max cap space open in 2016-17? Brewer opted out so obviously he thinks he's worth (or he's been promised more than) $4.9 million. I just don't see a team out there that is going to be willing to offer Smith big money. He doesn't fit on a young team that's rebuilding. That leaves veteran playoff contending teams. What playoff contender is going to offer more than the full MLE for Smith next season? What team is going to offer more than MLE for Smith and tie up more of their 2016-17 cap than about $5 million I don't see it. So, I'm thinking a possible scenario for keeping Smith here long-term is to offer him MLE dollars for 2 seasons. That establishes his Birds rights and gives us flexibility. Offer him 2/12. But instead of structured as 6 and 6, give him $8 million (or whatever cap space we have) next season and then and then a team option on 2016 for $8 million that we can opt out of and give him $4 million. We could then offer him 2/20 or whatever with the reverse scenario. He plays for $4 million in 2016 and then we have his birds rights and we can give him the remaining $16 million in 2017 as a thank you. Brewer, in my opinion, is the most likely guy to leave this off season. Don't know what Brewer's market value is right now. But I would think a young team wouldn't be interested in him. Only playoff contenders. But we do have McDaniels as the backup plan. And ....perhaps Brewer would be agreeable to signing a lower salary deal this year in exchange for a bigger deal next season. Or perhaps he'd be agreeable to 2/12 and we give him $8-$10 million this year on a 1-year deal and then bring him back on a 1-year deal next year while reserving the MLE for Smith. Or get Smith to play for the $2.4 million 1-year deal that leaves us our Room MLE or full MLE while leaving us with a small cap hold for Smith in 2016. We really need to go into 2016 with Smith signed at a low salary or on a low cap hold, one or the other. And we need to have Brewer either off the books or signed to a low salary or low cap hold as well. Unless we somehow trade for our 3rd superstar before then.
Either you aren't factoring in Beverley's larger "starter criteria" cap hold (which he's already hit) or your numbers are just slightly different than mine. The Rockets only have Non-Bird rights on McDaniels and therefore are limited in what they can offer him to either (a) his $1.05 million qualifying offer, (b) a salary cap exception (i.e., MLE) or (c) cap room. No other way to re-sign him if he has any other suitors willing to sign him to anything above the league minimum. I'll leave your contract ideas to your imagination. You may be right. You may be wrong.
1. Pat Beverley - while his QO is in the $2.7 range and I would expect that to be offered, I don't think Bev will sign it. He'll sign an offer sheet elsewhere and force a Morey decision or Morey will offer him a higher single season amount not to sign his QO, which will then allow Morey to withdraw the QO and use his 190% cap hold if indeed Morey is intent on keeping Bev and wanting to use the cap space route. Bev has devalued himself and played himself into a salary hole this year. I'm not convinced that Morey wants to retain him at all at this point. And I for sure can't see Morey giving him more than 1 year guaranteed. So, my point is, if Morey goes the cap space route, he'll likely be able to leverage Bev down to his 190% cap hold. 2. KJ McDaniels - Correct me if I'm wrong here. But as far as I can tell, McDaniels qualifes for the Gilbert Arenas rule. That means as a restricted non-bird free agent, another team's offer is restricted to having a first year salary of the non-tax payer mid-level exception with the 2nd season being 4.5% above that and then the 3rd and 4th seasons (if offered) could be any amount that when added to the first 2 seasons and averaged out fits into their cap space. So, we don't really have to reserve cap space to sign McDaniels in that scenario. We've just got to negotiate a good deal for us or match an offer sheet, or let him walk. If that is incorrect.....feel free to straighten out what I wrote there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm really not willing to predict what is going to happen at this point for this off season. The way our cap is aligned right now though it looks like it could go either way. I don't think I'll have a better feel for it until after the draft and we see what acquisitions unfold there. My focus is really on 2016-17 cap space. 2016-17 is going to turn out to be a huge free agent bonanza and possibly a huge earthquake type power shift in the league with a large amount of free agents seeking a large amount of money. I'm convinced Morey is not going to do anything at this point to jeopardize our 2016 cap. So with that in mind....you have to consider cap holds or contracts on guys like Smith/Brewer/DMo/Jones, etc. since DMo and Jones will both be sitting on decent sized cap holds at that point. This is one reason why I firmly believe that either or possibly both of DMo/Jones will be off the roster by then. And it is partly why I am looking at trades involving moving up in the draft substantially at the cost of our picks and DMo/Jones. If we could land a KAT or a Russell or possibly even Portzingis (if Morey believes he is that good) then it helps us with our cap space in 2016 instead of having DMo and Jones' cap holds gumming up the works. So when we consider giving out contracts this off season...gotta consider 2016. Does anybody believe we are going to offer Smith the full MLE for 2 seasons guaranteed and be sitting on 2016 free agency with Smith's contract and DMo's and Jones' cap holds on the books while we are chasing a premier free agent? Now throw in Bev on a long-term deal with that too. Does any rational person believe we are going to offer Bev a long-term deal??? Sorry, I don't. So, my though process is how can we get to 2016 free agency with maximum cap space while still retaining the core of this team either under contract or with small cap holds?? The only logical way I see to do it is to get Smith and possibly Brewer to sign staggered deals that allow us to pay them off later. Those are the 2 guys in their prime earnings years. But Smith especially is in a unique situation. No young team is going to want him. Other playoff contenders will want him but they'll want him at appropriate value. I don't think he goes. I think he stays and works with us on salary considerations. Brewer is the guy that I see we could best leverage for salary considerations. We could offer him something like 3/24. If we can get him to agree....then the next move is getting him to agree to stagger his contracts so we can leverage 2016 free agency. So over or under the cap for 2015 is not really as important to me as maximizing 2016 cap space.
The entire purpose of the Arenas Rule is to enable a team (such as the Rockets with McDaniels) to use either its Non-Taxpayer MLE (if only Non-Bird rights are held) or Early Bird rights to match any outside offers to its restricted free agent. That, or to use cap room. But it doesn't create some separate cap exception for the incumbent team.
I love Brewer, but you are correct. Ariza's overall performance is equalled to a super role player. He will make a difference in this year's playoffs. Keep Ariza, and if we have to choose between Smith and Brewer, keep the latter. D-Mo and Jones are maturing to a point where both can man the PF position.
