With DMo possibly out for extended period of time, he may not see the Vipers for awhile, or maybe at all if he plays well.
Given that the roster is pretty much locked in for the year anyways I don't mind the hard cap. Locked and loaded.
I think Morey wanted Harrell on a 2 yr contract, and he backed out on the verbal agreement with Hayes to avoid the hard cap, but he was forced to concede to Harrell's demands. I feel Harrell will be a good addition to the team, I wish Chuck was here too.
Isn't it funny a deal is finalizing right after he saves a life I'm happy about his addition, but the hard capping part.. Agent: Come on man, just accept our deal, I mean he's not just a great player, he's a high character guy. HE JUST SAVED A LIFE! Morey: hummfffppgrrhh Agent: Hey, at least you won't hear about him stomping unless it's on the court and homeless only together with feeding. Morey: Owwwwkkkaaayyy, fair enough. You have a deal!
This was before Harrell's deal. Assuming somewhere around a $500K year one hit, should have about $2MM under the hard cap. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Rockets now have $2.56M of wiggle room under potential hard cap to sign Harrell and to add any other g'teed salary between now & 6/30/16</p>— David Weiner (@BimaThug) <a href="https://twitter.com/BimaThug/status/640936198580506624">September 7, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
My guess is the decision came down to weighing the importance of avoiding the "in-season" hard cap vs. additional flexibility in 2016 FA, and the latter won out. After thinking it over, I think it's the right call, too. First off, it's not like the Rockets are RIGHT on the hard cap line. That's a big part of why they backed off on guys like Hayes and Wood. They still have SOME wiggle room if someone they like shakes free during the season, a la Josh Smith. The bottom line is that if Durant or anyone major shows interest in Houston next summer, the cap holds for D-Mo and TJ could be prohibitive. If you believe Harrell is capable of giving you legit PF minutes, then the opportunity to have him locked in on a cheap contract for three years is huge because of the flexibility it gives you when filling out the rest of the roster around the stars.
Can someone explain the hard cap to me? I have no idea about any of this stuff. What is the hard cap, why is it bad, what is the Rockets' situation, what were the options, etc.
Click on the link in my sig and read my tweets from this morning for a quick synopsis of what the Rockets are in for and what they can/can't do going forward.
We have a ton of raw youth and athleticism on this team, gets my blood flowing in all the right areas
Reading Bima's tweets, it doesn't sound like that big of a deal. I mean, it affects who the Rockets can sign for their 15th roster spot, or pcking up a veteran mid-season. With their roster seemingly set, it doesn't seem like it should affect much.
I'm interested to see what the 1st year salary starts out at. If it's the rookie min, then it likely means we guaranteed the 2nd and 3rd years and also didn't require a team option 4th year (see Nick Johnson). That could allow us to sign up to 2 vets to 1 year contracts. Also, it would leave us about $1.9 million left of the MLE.
