[NYPost] Rockets could make push for Carmelo (UPDATE: Blog post)

Well, that I don't know if Melo would be willing to give up 8million to play with Parsons or T-Jones.

Your point is valid but should be centered around wether the Rockets would be willing to give up Parsons for Melo because the knicks would want Parsons for the S&T I suspect.

If it was me, no contest. Melo > Parsons but I'm sure others gonna disagree.

 

He'd already be giving up ~$30mil guaranteed by leaving the Knicks. If what you say is true, then Melo isn't leaving the Knicks in the first place.

 

If NY takes only Asik and Lin in a sign and trade then it benefits the Rockets as they get to keep their full MLE but if they send off Asik and Lin to a different team to open up cap space then sign Melo, they'll only have the room exception to help fill up the team. Not only that but Melo would get less money and we'd have to waive/release some minimum contract players that we'd certainly like to keep.

 

Hmmm. You're right and I haven't got the time at the moment to check the numbers, but even with trading Lin and Asik away, we wouldn't have the cap room to sign Melo outright. I think we would have to at least clear Lin, Asik, T-Jones, D-Mo, and a couple of others. Melo is around $22million? and we are about 5million about cap at the moment? so have to clear about 27 in salaries to make it work your way.

 

Melo could care less what another team needs. With Omer Asik in place, I wouldn't have put the Rockets as the single greatest team in "need" of Dwight and his defense last summer.

It's Carmelo's decision and it probably comes down to which team is going to give Carmelo his greatest chance to win a ring (i.e. exposure). I'd take Harden and Dwight over a broken-down Derrick Rose that hasn't shown "superstar" form in over two years (remember his PER of 9 when he played this year?).

 

Put Melo as the 4 with Bev, Harden, Dwight, and Parsons. That's a matchup nightmare.

 

You're right that moving Lin/Asik wouldn't quite be enough to offer Carmelo the full max, but it wouldn't be very complicated to shed the remaining small salary. In fact, you might could even do it in the Lin trade, because I presume the type of team that would trade for Lin in late June would be doing it not because they really want Lin, but because they want assets along with him (i.e. Jones, D-Mo, etc.).

The only way you'd have to move Parsons is if the Lin contract is just viewed around the league as completely toxic. But given the GS/Utah deal last summer, it seems unlikely.

 

Unless a star player truly wants to be here, I would rather us use our cap for our bench and role players. So unless a Carmelo, Rondo, Love, etc. publicly says, "I want to go to Houston and only Houston, and I will be willing to take less money too.", then I would forgo the idea of getting a third star with Howard and Harden.

As amazing this team would be to have three star players, we just don't have the space to sign another max player without having to make up the rest of the roster with league minimum players i.e. second round rookies, veterans chasing titles and the scrubs of the scrubs. We just cannot fit good role players with the cap we have now if we do sign a third star. The Heat could because LeBron, Bosh and even Wade took slightly less than max money, but with Harden and Howard at the max, there isn't much cap room to work with to add pieces, especially adding a third max player. No knock on Howard or Harden because Harden is pretty much underpaid as of now and Howard deserves his paycheck and neither knew it would be possible to get a third star when they signed anyway, but that's the way it is..

Can you win with three max paid players and a team of rookies, old veterans, and scrubs? Yes, but you run the risk that if one of the three stars get injured, your season and championship hopes fade as well. Picture this team without our good secondary players like Beverley, Parsons, Asik and Lin and relying more on Garcia, Casspi, D-Mo and Canaan. Pretty scary, huh? Well that would be our team, with even more rooks, scrubs and old veterans, if we had three max players.

I'm in favor of using the 16-20 million that could go to a third max player and use it to 2 to 3 really good secondary players. With 16-20 million, we can lock up Parsons (~8 million), Beverley (~5 million), Jones (~4 million) to new deals and even have some cap left over to redo our bench. We build a more balanced roster that isn't so heavily reliant on three players but a group of star players and good secondary players. I think that is the way to go in order to build a championship roster, built to compete year after year.

 

You hit the nail on the head. IF Melo wants to win a championship, Houston gives him the best shot... and I believe he does want to win and would love to team up with Dwight and James.

Given that Morey wants him which I think he does.

How is it going to happen?

1) Clearing our roster for cap space to sign him outright (clearing about 27million.)

2) Sign and Trade with NY (150% matching rule)

I believe option 2 is easier and that Jackson has expressed an interest in Parsons over several interviews I've seen. Will Morey pull this trigger... YES.

 

The only player the Heat were able to sign due to LeBron/Wade/Bosh taking slightly under max money was Mike Miller. Everyone else (Allen, Lewis, etc.) was signed with the MLE or LLE, which the Rockets would still have in future years even if Carmelo signs.

Similarly, even with Carmelo in Houston, the Rockets would still be able to offer Parsons/Beverley/Jones the exact contracts you described due to Bird rights. It's not an either/or scenario.

If you want to build a more "balanced" roster with the cap numbers presently allocated to Asik/Lin, that's fine, but do it with 2014 and 2015 free agents. Whether Carmelo comes here or not, the Rockets will have every opportunity to retain Parsons/Beverley/Jones. It's additions to the roster that are at issue.

 

Just checked.

According to hoopshype Melo is due $23.6 million in 2014/15

http://hoopshype.com/salaries/new_york.htm

 

I think your $27 million figure is not accurate. With a projected cap of roughly $62.5 million, the Rockets are basically right on or under that number already.

http://data.shamsports.com/content/pages/data/salaries/rockets.jsp

So the bottom line is that you need to get close to Carmelo's starting figure, which would not be $27 million for a non-New York team. It would be closer to $20-to-$22, from what I've seen, and you'd already be at nearly $17 million just by moving Lin and Asik. So you're talking about an additional $3 million or so, which you could accomplish simply by moving Jones, D-Mo, and/or someone else small.

Would Morey lose Parsons for Carmelo? Sure, if he had to. But he has no incentive to do it just because Phil Jackson likes Parsons, or because it's "easier". If the Rockets can pull off moves that allow them to sign Carmelo and retain Parsons, they will, and it doesn't seem that much of a long shot.

 

Under NBA rules, no matter where Anthony signs, he is able to start his next contract at 105 percent of his previous year’s salary. He will have made $21.39 million this year, which means his salary next year will be $22.46 million.

http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/sto...ulls-lakers-nba-free-agency-2014-phil-jackson

 

No, we don't need him since there's only one ball on the court, but we cannot let all of the three guys involved in the offense side. Maybe Harden becomes the 6th man would work.

 

I guess you didn't watch the Olympics.

 

who remembers this bad boy from years ago?!

 

FWIW, if the Rockets keep Jones, Howard, Harden, Parsons, Beverley, Cannan only, they can offer ~$19mil starting salary to Melo. That number rises to ~$20mil if they let Jones go. Over 4 years, Melo would be giving up ~$13mil and ~$9mil respectively compared to a S&T. With some small allowances in numbers should there be a change in projected cap and the fact that I'm not using exact numbers.

Of course, it's expected that any deal Melo signs with Houston would involve a handshake agreement where the Rockets overpay him in 3 years, after he opts out in a standard 3yr+1yr player option structured contract.

Howard
Melo/Jones
Parsons
Harden
Beverley/Cannan

2nd round picks/minimum FAs for one year. And MLE to spend in the future. All for the price of ~$13mil that probably gets recouped in Melo's next deal with us.

 

OK. Lets do the numbers just for fun.

Melo is due 23.6m in 2014/15 so that's a good start as a salary he is expecting next season if he opts out.

Clearing everyone but Parsons and Beverley...

Asik 8.3m
Lin 8.3m
T-Jones 1.6m
D.Mo 1.5m
Garcia 1.3 (player option)
Daniels 0.8m
Canaan 0.8
Covington 0.8

Total = 23.4

That's right on what we need to clear accepting that the salary cap rises to 62.5m otherwise we'd have to clear 3m more. Doing it for Dwight was a herculean task, doing it for Melo is much more difficult

With the salary matching rule in S&T the task would be much much easier. But as I said Phil would want Parsons.

 

i doubt phil even knows who parsons is

 

I dunno..a hunch says Melo joins the Bulls