There is no rush on OKC's part to rush the buyout. They are going to pay him anyway. They might as well wait until all their options run out before doing the buyout. Edit: I just checked that the deadline for the stretch provision for this season is August 31. We have another 6 weeks on the 1 yard line.
I don’t know what you are debating. My point is presti doesn’t just want to release him so he’s going through his options. If you disagree with that then I disagree with you.
They can trade him to the Rockets for Ryan Anderson. Then we can waive and stretch Melo and get only a $9 million salary hit instead of the $13 million hit it'd take to waive and stretch Ryno.
Why would OKC do this? Ryno still has 2 years left on his deal. Adding Ryno would defeat the purpose of buying out Melo.
But, it would serve my twin purposes of getting rid of Anderson and not having Melo on the roster. Besides, maybe Anderson would be a useful player with a change of scenery.
Yeah, our offense was so predictably ranked higher than the almighty Golden State offense with unstoppable scorers Durant, Curry, and Klay. Man, we REALLY need a high volume shooter like Melo to beat the Warriors.
It’s a fact... Trevor played more than anyone on our team last year. We should be fine for the regular season but we have to add a good wing before the playoffs and we just don’t have many assets to do so.
Ariza shot .371 in 2017 playoffs and .281 in 2018 playoffs. Combine those two years you get .322. Melo shot .214 this year in the playoffs as the third option. BTW, he actually became pretty good at shooting 3 since his 4th year in Denver. But his playoffs shooting was much worse than his regular season.
OKC would've to trade Ferguson and a 1st at this point, i think at least...that's basically all the assets they have left, and Presti desperately need to hold those cheap players going forward.
I am not against signing Melo to the vet min. If he works out, great. If not, no harm done. But using the MLE is another story. Then you risk not using that money to get a quality wing.
Who is the quality wing that's out there for the MLE though? Every option that we thought would be available for MLE money has signed one year deals at a higher salary. Also, signing Melo to the minimum puts you in a worse spot long-term if the pairing works out. You don't want Melo becoming an UFA next season. A multi-year deal with the MLE is the only way to counteract that.
No you don’t. You fight fire with water. But if still take Melo for the min on MLE (preferably the former so we can save the MLE for February when someone gets bought out).
Your reasoning is based on a high probability that Melo will work out well here. But are you sure? Melo is not young, neither is Chris Paul. Even if Melo works out for us this year (which I think is a big IF) there is no guarantee that he will continue to be good next season. What if he doesn't work out or worse becomes disgruntled and you are tied down with a long and subtantial contract with him? And if that MLE money pushes us to the lux tax territory, we may have to give up some useful player just to avoid the tax or save some tax money for Tilman. My prediction is, if Morey is indeed going to use the MLE on Melo, it will be a one year deal simply because there are no better options out there left this summer. I don't think he will want to take the risk on a long term contract with Melo -- unless of course if Chris Paul is pulling the string behind the scene.
I tend to agree. You can't sign him with Bird rights after a single year, so if you want him back it would require the MLE next year anyway. And I'm not sure you want him any longer than three years anyway. Give him a portion of it, and use the rest to sign Melton to a three-year deal. If there were a better target out there for the MLE, you could take the other approach, but as you said it just hasn't worked out that way this year unfortunately. Best to save next year's MLE, when a lot of the second- and third-tier guys who signed off on one-year deals this season or can't get a longer contract (because teams are spooked by the hangover from 2016--read: Ryan Anderson--are wary of overpaying on longer deals). Between Harden, Gordon, Green, Ennis, Melton, Melo, and Tucker, we have plenty of guys we can throw in at the 2-4 spots, and odds are pretty good we sign another on a minimum. Odds even better, IMO, that we put together a package for another wing before the trade deadline.
