Fred's not even an option though, that's the point. All of these "they could trade" scenarios keep missing on the very basic and simple fact that Fred's contract has a player option for the second year which he already renegotiated to get to. Why would he throw away the remaining 25m he'll earn just to do us a favour and leave the team he helped build into a contender? He has a no trade clause, it's not an option. It's just a shame the pundits are too stupid to learn basic facts before they make these clickbait "articles." Let's trade JD Davison for Giannis, that's based in the same level of reality as trading FVV for anybody at all.
How do sign/trade work? Tari getting paid, could get FVV/Tari and picks to match salary and sweeten the deal. But then you’ve done this whole tank rebuild for 2 shots at old KD and flawed Trae Young. I think they’ll probably hold steady and hope for health next season to make their real chip run. I just hope we’re able to keep Amen/Jabari/Alpe when the dust settles because a full scale tank/rebuild again so soon would really suck.
I don't think you could do SnT until next year anyway. And if we did that, we would be hard capped at the 1st Apron again next season, so again bringing back more salary than that allowable amount would be difficult. There has been a bit of work put into the amount we could conceivably sign Durant for and still have enough to extend Tari, and that assumes the rest of the roster is fleshed out with minimum contract guys. In those scenarios, we have $59.9M before the first apron. Therefore any combination of Durant's extension and a Tari contract to SnT must fit under the total amount of $59.9M. I don't see a world where Durant is taking the minimum to allow us to SnT Tari straight up for Trae, so then the question remains of how on earth any of this is possible given the mechanics of the cap....
Tari can't be traded if he gets extended (basically), and FVV has a full no trade this year so he can't be traded period.
I know - but we can also wait until the offseason and SnT him - which is the scenario I was talking to. Can't really work either way!!!
Fred can waive the no trade clause. It’s an obstacle that can be difficult but it’s not necessarily impossible. If we routed him to a 3rd team he preferred, or the Hawks offered a buyout, or perhaps he’d okay going to the Hawks, with it being a team without a PG and Fred being in a contract year when he returns in 2026-27 season. That being said, I personally don’t really like Young as a target.
Just to set this all straight - He doesn't have an actual No trade clause that's written into his contract - it's the fact that he would lose his bird rights as a result of a trade that gives him the right to veto any trade. Thing is, He's not getting another contract anywhere close to his current one. If he gets another contract in the NT-MLE range, I'd be absolutely shocked. Knowing this, his bird rights don't mean a whole lot going forward. He and his agent probably understand this - It's MLE money or lower and it very well could be Vet min or even out of the league at the conclusion of this contract. His bird rights being meaningless, He COULD wave the trade option and try to get himself into a better situation instead of holding the Rockets hostage.
Again though, why would he? He renegotiated to get to this 2 year deal, he could've stayed on the higher contract he was already on and got that money all together instead of spreading it out over the 2 years, now we expect him to just throw half of it away? Why would anybody do that?
He is not throwing away anything if he is traded, except the Bird rights after 26/27. He still has the player option for next year at $25M — he’ll get his whole $50M contract he signed with the Rockets no matter who writes the checks. What he would waive if traded is the option for his team to sign him to a large contract after next year using their Bird rights. But as Corrosion points out, no one is going to do that anyway at his age and coming off an ACL. He’ll be in the range of the various exceptions, which almost the whole league has access to. I’m not saying he would accept a trade, but there really is no ‘loss’ for him by doing so. Given that and the high potential value to the Rockets, it is not as inconceivable as you keep stating.
If you could do FVV and Tari on a new contract, with picks I could get onboard. Beyond that no thank you. Much rather see what we have currently. With health this is a chip contender.
Young falls into a historic NBA category: fool's gold. Gets points and assists numbers, but does not put fear into any playoff team. Also, his turnover rankings for every year: 3, 2, 3, 1, 1, 10, 1. Every year, he's been in the top 10 for turnovers and all but one of those in the top three. That's consistency. Young is 27. Every active player who has more turnovers than him are well into their 30s except for Jokic and Giannis who are both 30. He should catch Mike Conley this year and end up close to Jokic. By the time he's 30, he should surpass Paul George, Derozen, Lillard, and probably Lowry and Jrue. Assuming LeBron, Curry, Harden, KD, Westbrook, and Chris Paul retire in the next five years, Young will easily be the active leader in assists by the time he is 32. His only somewhat close competition will be Devin Booker, another fool's gold kind of player.
FVV will sign a contract greater than the minimum when his current contract is up. As such, his Bird rights will not be meaningless. Most teams are over the cap such that Bird rights for guys better than the minimum are viewed positively by teams. Basically, FVV is in the situation Steve Adams was in. Both FVV and Adams play an end-of-the-spectrum position, which is harder to fill. The Rockets traded for Adams, though, out for the season and obtained his Bird rights. Adams played about a decent month or two of regular-season games and 7 postseason games, and he got a deal around an MLE when his contract ended. This allowed the Rockets to use MLE on DFS. FVV would have to play really badly on his return, such that his bad play actually affects the score negatively (i.e., advanced stats can actually detect he's playing poorly and not just narrative created by short, but really horrible shooting early in a season), not to get above the minimum salary.
I don't really understand why we're talking about trading for Trae now that it appears they've just leaned into Trae and built a roster that works around him. They are expected to be a top 4 team in the East this year, so I doubt they'll make a big move.
Exceptions are resources. Bird rights would mean a team could keep FVV and then use the exception for another player. I get that the second apron has hampered teams' spending, but getting to the max payroll an owner is willing to spend still typically helps a team if done efficiently. Wherever FVV is at the end of the 26-27 season is likely where FVV is in the 27-28 season. Just to the FVV haters, if $25m for FVV is seen as a gross overpay in 26-27, FVV will likely be a Rocket at the end of 26-27 because the Rockets aren't sending draft picks to get rid of him.
No what i mean is, now that he's renegotiated to get all of that salary, why would he then give it up?
We're talking about it because some rando Bleacher Report writer thinks it's a brilliant idea for the Rockets to trade for Young, and then someone associated with that site came up with the clickbait headline: Trae Young is an “ambitious trade target” for the Rockets It was on a website, which makes it official! How could we NOT talk about it?
Not sure Atlanta has leaned into Trae. They would have at least offered him the max extension to see if he would accept it, but they haven't. They acquired some complementary pieces in Porzingis, Kennard, NAW but that isn't a huge commitment to Trae. Neither KP nor Kennard are signed past this season. And they got Porzingis for very little since Boston was just doing a salary dump. Atlanta probably just didn't want to blow it up yet, especially with Boston, Milwaukee, and Indiana suffering major injuries to key players. But they have not shown a commitment to keeping Trae. Phoenix signed Booker to a huge contract that pays him $70M in the last year. That's a commitment to keeping someone around, paying him way more than he's worth.
