I see we have some naysayers around here who aren't embracing the Rockets' creativity in the free agent market.
I'm sure the Rockets will cast a wide net to find replacements for these "fans." We can probably get some disillusioned Magic fans, assistant fans looking to move up in life, as well as disgraced college fans.
This may be a silly question, but your post made me think about it. Can a team make a second offer? For example, if the Rockets offered X and Memphis matched that, could the Rockets then offer X+Y? Or does a player automatically enter the contact when a matching offer is made?
No, the new team cannot make a second offer. Once the player agrees to a contract with the new team, it is binding. But the home team gets a chance to match it to make him honor it for them instead.
This does pose some funny problems though. I mean, we could offer Gasol a daily delivery of brisket from Pappa's brisket house. Matching that would cost Memphis $100 times what it would cost us.
It all comes down to what happens after the lockout. The more drastically the CBA is altered, the harder the cap gets, the less likely it is the Grizzlies will be able to keep Gasol. If Bird rights go away or have major limitations put on them, they won't be able to retain him. If the NBA does repeat the Allan Houston amnesty rule to give teams a chance to readjust for a hard cap, we can drop Thabeet or Miller's dead weight and be in position to offer Gasol a full $10M, not something many other bidders will be able to do. The Thabeet move still burns me up. Overpay a bust for a lottery protected pick in 2013. Garbage.
It was never about the player. Morey extends his expiring contracts every year. Without the Miller signing and the Thabeet trade we would not be in a position to make a blockbuster trade at the next deadline without giving up major salary filler such as Martin or Scola. For instance, suppose Orlando decides to trade Howard and demands Arenas be moved with him. With the 125% rule you would need to move 25 million in salary. We would be forced to include Martin and Scola just to match, which Orland probably wouldn't even want if they were rebuilding anyway. Without them here, why would Howard sign an extension here? Without the expirings of Miller/Thabeet we would not be in a position to make a move without seriously gutting our team. With those two guys, you can offer up one, expirings, picks and some young guys. People always call the trade and signing bad moves by Morey, but they really aren't. They are nesecary ones.
Doubt that's the purpose. If the Rockets want an expiring contract next year, they can probably just sign someone in the offseason to a contract with a 1 year guarantee or even use their cap space or trade exception to eat a contract after they tried to use the space to sign a FA like Gasol first. They didn't need to give up the cap flexibility back in February just to add a lotto-protected 2013 pick just so they will have an "expiring contract" to trade next year. The team was gambling on Thabeet-- they probably thought there is some slim chance he could turn things around. We'll see, but it sure doesn't look good so far.
Simple answer... The Rockets will not be able to outbid Memphis (regardless of cap space) for Marc Gasol. The Grizz will not let him go. If you think their stinginess to give out big contracts will prevent them from matching an offer for Gasol then I think you are dreaming.
If you covet one of these Memphis guys you need to be patient. Your best bet is to wait for Memphis to extend Gasol and simply hope they're peaking right now and start to fall apart next year. That way, they're stuck with an EXTREMELY expensive core where one or more of those guys will likely be deemed expendable (i.e. Rudy Gay). But it's very unlikely Gasol will ever be "that guy". Better to shift your focus elsewhere.
Making an offer ties up our available funds until Memphis matches. We need to spend our efforts on someone we can actually attain. I would hate to find out the Dalembert was willing to sign with us but instead received and signed an offer with someone else because our time, efforts and cash was tied up in a player that would could attain.
