I'm with you. Nene may think the Rox would suddenly remind the league of the issue as early as after next season. Nene is all-character. Tremendous man and teammate. Huge loss if he leaves.
Exactly this - the story feels like it's missing something that isn't being reported here because I find it really hard to believe the best GM in basketball AND an agent of an older player would BOTH miss this and sign off on the deal. Either something is missing or something was misreported.
Clearly, the front office made a mistake and Nene has every right to be upset over it. Maybe his agent should have known it wasn't possible too but it is the responsibility of the front office to present an offer they can actually fulfill. It doesn't matter if it was an honest mistake or not, we have wasted his time and misled him. I hope cooler heads can prevail and he stays here, but with our MLE used on Tucker I assume we can't give Nene the money he wants. If he's out of the picture we need to target other backup centers using the non-guaranteed contracts ASAP. Maybe target Kyle O'Quinn out of NY since he seems buried behind Porzingis and Hernangomez?
Its clear what morey tried to do, he probably knew about it but he thought the league would let it slide considering we only missed it by two weeks. His argument was that the season started on July 1 and that makes sense, but they said the NBA season starts on October 1. It Is the first year they instated the rule and he was probably hoping for a grace period of at least one month. He was not trying to pull a fast one on nene. They signed before midnight and it got rejected in the afternoon on the first day of free agency. Nene did not lose any opportunities. If anything the Rockets helped Nene by setting his market value and gave him something to work with. After his injury there should be some concerns and the Rockets Did not care.
When a player is near the end of their career, teams could sign a player for years he clearly wasn't gonna play therefore circumventing the cap. Say you sign a 35 year old knowing he want to play another year or 2. You sign him to a 5 year deal where he makes most of the money in the last 3 years. After he plays the 2 more years, he then retires. You still pay him those last 3 years, but it doesn't count against the cap. So you still give a player the money he wants, but in a much more cap friendly way. I think the bigger intention of the deal was to prevent teams from "taking care" of superstars near the end. Backloading massive deals and then having them retire. In a way, this type of deal is part of what this rule is there to stop. The Rockets don't think he's gonna be a good player in that last year or 2, he may even be retired, but we were looking to give him as high a dollar total as possible. Having said that, this deal is at the far fringe of what the rule was intended to stop, and comes across as a downright petty detail.
He had a great year, but then ultimately his body failed him as it has been doing lately - it is time to move on...he is not reliable anymore. DD
If he doesn't take the 3/$10.9MM offer (most Rockets can give him) then they should let him walk. There are so many bigs they can go after who are younger and produce 85% of the value that Nene brings.
As its done his entire career He will be missed but expecting him duplicate last season is ridiculous Its unfortunate it may end on this note but with so much money tied up in Anderson the Rockets need to be looking at an every day back up big
