I agree that Thabeet isn't any good and him being paid as much as he is, to me he's cleary the guy to get amnesty-ed. However unless there's some sort of expiring date for using the amnesty clause I just don't see the Rockets using it on Thabeet before they know with fairly certainty they can get conveted player X and must use the amnesty clause on Thabeet to do so. Even if you'll be able to use the amnesty clause on multiple players, waiving Flynn at the end of the year makes little sense, as he's practically an expiring. The Rockets have until October 31 IIRC to pick-up Flynn's option for next year. Hard to see the Rockets pick up the option and then waive Flynn at the end of the year. I also think that Flynn at least has some value around the league.
It makes sense that they would have an Amnesty clause, but that's bad news for the Rockets since we have a bunch of assets that are good value.
after reading the article it seems like teams who don't need it for their own players can trade for a player with a terrible contract and use it on them. which means we could potentially pull off something awesome like: step 1. steal marc gasol from memphis step 2. package him, patterson, hill, williams, or whoever else (besides lowry and martin) in a trade for dwight howard and hedo or arenas step 3. we can amnesty hedo or arenas step 4. magic can amnesty the other one step 5. enjoy multiple championships with a core of lowry, martin, and howard
While true in theory, the number of teams that will want to get rid of their SECOND worst contract bad enough to give up a star just to do it is pretty limited. It's a situational benefit at best to teams with no bad contracts, while it's a franchise-altering boon to teams that handed out franchise-alteringly bad deals in the last five years.
I say, who cares? Waive him and get the cap space. -It's nonsensical to pay $5.75M to a player that wasn't even a top player for an NBDL squad. -We either use the extra space to make a deal work, or we pocket the cap space. Notice that in the Melo sweepstakes how TE became the new expiring contract. Teams do not want to pay the remaining salary of a $14M corpse when they can get immediate payroll relief. Staying under the cap has actually become a trade asset (and unlike TEs, it can be "packaged" with players to match salary). At worst, Flynn is cheap insurance on an injury to Lowry or even Dragic.
You'd still have to pay the guy. There are different proposal's from what I understand, but the players will get at least half of what their due. As far as cap space goes I agree, it's more valuable than an expiring - and again I don't think Thabeet is any good - but you if you can still use the amnesty clause on Thabeet later on, I don't see the purpose in doing it now. Not if there's no imminent benefit.
According to Bima's old article, if the salary cap was the same as last year and we cut Chuck Hayes and the Battier-TPE, we'd have $8.5m to spend on free agents. If we amnestied Thabeet, it'd be $14.25m, which could be enough to sign a max player under the new rules. Unfortunately, there aren't any unrestricted free agents worth that much. We could overpay for a restricted player, but the amnesty would also make matching easier for the incumbent team. We could instead use all that cap space to trade for someone, I suppose. In that scenario, if the amnesty window is long enough we could wait until the deal is in place before cutting Thabeet. That would also give us the flexibility to trade for and cut an albatross instead of Thabeet.
Reading Simmons' last couple articles and his latest podcast with SVP, it seems the winds are blowing towards league contraction by two teams. He proposed some interesting hypothetical scenarios in which teams such as Charlotte and New Orleans merge and move to Chicago with MJ as the face of the organization. I'm not sure how the merger would affect the team makeup, but you would htink by chopping two teams we are heading towards a redistribution draft of sorts. No clue when we get some hoops back, but I expect madness when it resumes. Personally, can't wait.
Unless cap space is a 7'3" athlete that might develop into a center, then we don't need it. You don't win jack with extra cap space. DD
The Magic's contract situation is so terrible that they would be one to do it, even amnestying Arenas puts them at the limit of any conceivable cap. If you accept that Dwight is going to be a max player anywhere he goes (no **** right?), amnestying arenas puts them at 57m next year (and this is with losing jason richardson), the year after 62m, the following year they'd be at a more workable 46m range, but that's with players like reddick, nelson and anderson who aren't really overpaid or in some cases underpaid coming off the books. Really, if there was any team willing to throw the reset switch and go amnesty trade it's them
morey will probably make a smart cut, one that allows him to dump one contract off the books. a player who by losing their contract allows the rockets some freedom to either acquire a player in trade or free agency.
Correct on New York. Cap space got them Amare and Felton. Melo was a leveraged sign-and-trade. Not on Miami. Lebron and Bosh had already fully committed to Miami before they successfully leveraged a sign-and-trade with their former teams. Don't know what his point was about Boston. Allen and KG were both acquired in straight up regular trades. No cap space or sign-and-trades involved. Just plenty of young assets and expiring contracts. For better or worse, the Rockets are following the Boston model, while still having the flexibility to use cap room if that's a more preferable approach.
I'm all for cutting Thabeet, but if we do, why the heck did we trade away Shane Battier's expiring contract?? For DeMarre Carroll? or The 2013 lottery protected pick we will probably never get?
For a half-season chance to look at Thabeet and see if he is any good. I wonder if the team has made a decision yet. On another note: I think a more fair way to do the amnesty would be to have each team able to get relief for a defined amount of salary rather than just 1 player each.
Morey wanted Chase to be the heartthrob of this team. Shane was taking to many ladies' attention away from him.
