Jarrett Allen is the reason why the Nets had no interest in Clint this summer, Powell is trash, not even a center. The dream scenario (outside of the real dream scenario for Leonard lol) for a sign & trade i think would be the Kings, after all they were just fine in throwing an 80M deal to LaVine...if we would be able to trade them Capela for Cauley-Stein and something else i would be ok if we just can't reach a deal with Clint.
Take Tucker and Gordon out and you're there. Either way, they are positive assets that could be flipped. Again...the idea isn't that you will use cap space...it's that you could. The same was true of the CP3 trade.
Thanks for this. Nice to see the implications as it relates to NEXT season. If Luc had faith the team would invest in him next summer perhaps he would be fine signing the non-bird this year. Also good point on why the MLE makes sense for Melo moving forward.
Is he? Lazy i mean. Anyway, it would still be worth to test him since no other good center is available for us, at least Cauley is somehow similar to Capela and still in rookie scale. I take back the "dream" from that quote though lol.
Fair enough. I'm just not too concerned with Capela signing the QO. Like you I would prefer a long term deal, but there's also positives from him taking the QO, i.e. another year of Capela on the cheap, retained bird rights (though not tradeable), the ability to duck the tax and be a player in free agency next year. @BimaThug can you confirm what Capela's cap hold would be next offseason if he takes the qualifying offer? From looking at Coon's NBA CBA FAQ, I can't tell if taking the QO qualifies as coming off a rookie scale contract. If not, the difference in cap hold seems to be 190% vs 300%.
Agree with all of your conclusions. If we carve out $800k of the taxpayer MLE to sign Melton, i believe that would leave us with about $4.5 million of the taxpayer MLE to sign Melo. We could then offer Melo a deal starting a $5.4 million next year...that gives us a chance, whereas only offering the minimum would make it very difficult to retain him next year.
The more up to date CBA guys in here can give you more detail, but ANY sign and trade involving Capela hard-caps the Rockets. DM will not hard cap the Rockets ABSENT a clear and obvious upgrade. Personally, I think the S&T route is one that DM should be open too, but only in that aforementioned scenario. For WCS would be laughable. But at this point, I firmly believe the leverage is in Clint's court. Which DOESN'T mean he'll be better off taking the QO. But DOES mean that he has more leverage to flaunt that position. Because ultimately he might just say "screw it, it's not 100% about the money, if they're not offering me what I want I'll take the QO and if I get less next year, I get less next year" That's a nightmarish situation for DM precisely because the Rockets have NO other ways to upgrade the roster. To me, DM's two moves are: (i) offer Capela much closer to what he wants. I mean we're not talking $35 million a year here. Does Clint deserve $20-$25 million a year?? Probably not in this market, this league, with his strengths and limitations. But even if you sign him to that, there's no way you screw yourself. This isn't a Ryan Anderson contract. This is a 23 year old that has gotten better and better every year and can anchor a defense on the inside, can switch on PnR defenses, and has the athleticism and game speed to give you 10/10. Now he MIGHT not be as good on another squad on another team, but he'll give you that plus more on the Rockets on a team that is really good which "positions" him as their 3rd guy or 4th guy at worst. That's ABSOLUTELY trade-able... whether or not you can improve by trading him, that'd obviously be tbd. (ii) explore some S&T options that net back a true 3rd guy. The obvious ones have been floated around. Jimmy Butler. Kawhi Leonard. Those seem like REALLY long stretches. Not sure there's lots of obvious choices here either. Too bad Dwight is going to the Wizards, as you could maybe see something like Capela swapped for Otto Porter Jr... not that I "love" Porter, and he's DEFINITELY way overpaid, but hes an incredibly efficient offensive player (just not on huge volume, but I could see him in high teens scoring on this squad) that can defend and basically way way more than replace Ariza for the next 5 years (and hopefully not suck in the playoffs).... and for a team that has all eyes on GSW, an opponent that marginalizes Clint, maybe that's the preferred overpay. I'd trade him for Tobias Harris, but don't see Clippers doing that at all. I'd do it for Khris Middleton (@malakas) but don't see the Bucks doing that. Otherwise, there's not really a lot of guys you'd be willing to do a S&T for and hard cap. Which means... in essence, the THREAT of the QO gives Clint more leverage to me.
In that scenario, I believe Capela's cap hold in 2019 would be 190% of his qualifying offer amount, which is just over $9 million. He would not be coming off a rookie scale contract at that point. However, unless the core of this team (Harden, CP3, Capela, Gordon, Tucker) is getting broken up, there is no scenario in which that smaller cap hold will open up any cap room whatsoever, even if they could dump Anderson's salary for nothing in return. Not correct. The hard cap only applies to the team RECEIVING a signed-and-traded player, not the team trading that player away.
Another year on the cheap doesn't really do anything though? It doesn't give the Rockets more cap room this year. Maybe it eases the burden on the owners' pocket - which is relevant to the owner but not really to me as a fan! Regarding next year, I'm not Bima, but I'm not sure it matters much anyway. As someone already posted in this thread, Harden+CP3+Gordon+Tucker already gets you to $98.6 million towards a projected $108 million cap... which excludes the cap holds to fill out the roster, AND takes away Anderson getting $0 back. So whether Clint is at 190% or 300% you're not really a FA player.
Aside from LT pain threshold (which we don't know), I feel Morey would be fine paying Capela a hefty contract. It is not so much the amount of the deal, but if it is a "market rate" that is "tradable." Morey wants to maintain flexibility. We saw this come into play with the Parsons Dallas contract.
Tilman needs to send some offers to Tony brothers and Scott foster. Pay them before anyone else and have them on our side all season.
Well damn.. thank Bima. I thought I was finally 100% clear on it per our convo last week. I guess since that was relevant to potentially getting Jabari back in a S&T of him as well, I got confused or it wasn't clear... i definitely tried to ask to clarify in multiplel posts, lol!! So... to me, that makes a potential S&T even more of an option. Because if the Rockets can do that and receive back a player and not be hard capped, then I'd be willing to take even "less" of a player... although still there's not a ton of obvious options out there. How many players could the Rockets receive back in a S&T? And I assume they'd only be able to send Capela out? For example, in the Bucks scenario, would Capela for Middleton and Henson be something that at least technically could work (though again not that I see the Bucks doing that)?
Once they decided to resign CP3 to that deal, which true wasn't as bad as it could have been, but still, HUGE numbers, this became clear. DM can't with a straight face even bluff "well Harden is still relatively young and we can replace you and get back a championship team and have to worry about our cap position yada yada". They're screwed cap wise, they are in clear win now mode, and Clint is a requirement to get there. DM's only positioning leverage is "Tilman is our owner and he has a hard line on how much total salary he's willing to shell out and here's out max offer because of that". To which Clint can respond "ok, I'll take the QO"... at which point we can see if DM/Tilman is bluffing
