The taxpayer MLE is $5.685M, and can be for a maximum of two years. You're allowed to use it as long as you don't exceed the second apron for the rest of the league year. Similarly, the non-taxpayer MLE is $14.1M, and can be for a maximum of four years. You're allowed to use it as long as you don't exceed the first apron for the rest of the league year. When you commit to using one of the two forms of the MLE, the respective apron (first or second level) functions as a hard cap with no exceptions. You cannot exceed it under any circumstances, even if your entire team is injured and you can't actually dress 8 healthy players on game day (as might have happened to the Dallas Mavericks last year, who were hard capped due to receiving Klay Thompson in a sign and trade, and didn't have enough room to even sign someone to a 10-day contract). Looking at Bobby Marks's cap table, you can see that he currently projects a 2025 Houston team salary of $185M, and a first apron of $195.9M. So the Rockets could theoretically sign a player to a maximum starting salary of $10.9M and still stay below the first apron (which will function as a hard cap for the year). In actuality, it's virtually guaranteed that they will waive Jock Landale before 6/29, so they will clear an additional $8M in room, allowing them to be able to easily fit the full $14.1M below the hard cap first apron, with a few million cushion to make in-season moves, sign two-ways and 10-days, or pick up a veteran buy-out on a minimum deal.
but thats alright... we got guys to run n gun... but they sometimes get out of control... we need a guy that can slow the tempo as needed and set the half court. plus i bet he's gonna feast on exploiting defensive breakdowns as team's jockey to cover KD.
I think both Fred and Durant are the oldest and are most susceptible to injuries IMHO. If Uncle is not on the court.
It isnt about loving or hating Stone, but ill keep saying it: these moves are great but im not going to rank him above Morey until he gives us 2 WCF teams or a finals appearance. Let it happen!
Agreed here I think they need to try to lock in Bari to a team friendly deal especially after he got benched. He will likely have a solid year now and command much more next summer. Lock him in now as cheap as we can lol
He was overpaid coming in here, all this does is even out his overpaid 4 years. People act like he some allstar or something.
