What Bima said was if we were going to clear cap for a signing we wouldn't have signed these guys today. We're staying over the cap and looking for trades.
I suppose Drew could be getting "Bucher'd". Maybe the same person is doing it to Plowman as well. I doubt Clutch would let a 99er troll us (and I doubt a 99er would WANT to waste time doing that). He seemed awful confident in what he'd heard. I do find the part about Dragic signing long term after arriving questionable. I doubt that would already be agreed upon. The main reason I'm holding out hope on this kid is (again), while many here (including The Cat and Bima) felt we were matching Parsons, he stated the day before that players were trying to talk Morey into matching - and then tweeted less than an hour before Feigen's tweet we were not matching that it's "not looking good". So at least there are SOME things going for these guys, as opposed to Roe or Shaun. Those were pretty obvious. Could those of us holding out hope Drew and Plowman are right be wishful thinking and just NEEDING some good news? Sure, probably...lol. But, there ARE a couple of things givings us reason to believe still. Will be hard if tomorrow comes with NOTHING, however.
That was in reference to using cap space, not a trade. Their signings have no impact on a potential trade. Well it seems we have some consensus....if something happens tomorrow, then Drew is likely legit. If not, then we ban his future tweets. Fair or not, it's all we have. Agree?
One thing does concern me about Drew. Not that he doesn't have SOME source of getting info, I do believe he does. But, the fact that he keeps saying Hou wants Bledsoe, but will "settle" or take Dragic... that makes me question how knowledgeable his source is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't currently have the assets to obtain Bledsoe. We CAN trade for Dragic now, but not Bledsoe, I believe.
That changed today when we essentially abandoned the cap room option. Bledsoe is no longer an option for us.
Right, but even before doing that, we couldn't free up "enough" - unless this whole time we were open to taking Bledsoe on a sign and trade for the 4/48, and now that it's obvious he's turned that down and it's not happening, we are moving on to Dragic? I guess that could be possible. A lot of smoke.... some reaching on our part, maybe, but maybe not lol.
Somebody mentioned something to drew about hearing rumblings about a 3 team trade with Phoenix who could be the other team in the trade?
The Dorsey/Adrien/Smith signings only indicated that an imminent move involving CAP ROOM was less likely, since those signings reduced the amount of available cap room and could still have been made after the cap room was used for something else. Things that COULD still happen (yes, as early as tomorrow): --A signing using some/all of the MLE. --A signing using the BAE. --A small trade. --A larger trade (using the Lin TPE). The Rockets declining to use their cap room is NOT any sort of indication that they are "done" improving the roster this offseason. There are plenty of other (more feasible) ways to get better than using cap room at the expense of their MLE, BAE and the Lin TPE. ***EDIT***: Also, the Dorsey/Adrien/Smith signing "only" reduced the Rockets' cap room by about $1.25 million. Hypothetically, if the Rockets felt they didn't need that extra $1.25 million, they could still make a move using cap room. But I doubt it.
We "could" get to $13.5 by unloading everyone but Ariza, Harden and Howard...but that means losing the MLE, BAE, and all of our player at likely below market values. That's still $1.2 million below Bledsoes max offer, but $2.7 above PHX most recent offer. This was probably never a legitimate option. Due to the aggregating problem mentioned earlier, it's unlikely we were ever really in the running for Bledsoe. If it's a PHX PG, it is very likely Dragic, as we have enough eligible salaries to aggregate, or we could use the TPE.
I suppose it just depends what he would sign for. Right now we have: 1.6 - TJones 1.5 - DMo 1.3 - Powell 0.9 - Beverly 0.8 - Canaan 0.8 - Covington About 6.9 total. I believe we're working off the $5 million rule, so the most you could take back is a $12 million player. Bledsoe's 1st offer was 4 years $48.....which I assume was 10.75 with 7.5% increases, rather than a flat $12 per. But he rejected that. Once the offer goes above $12 per (and I'm almost positive it will) we are out of the race. And this all assumes that PHX would want all of the players listed above. Pretty sure we are out for Bledsoe.
We are actually working off the 150% rule. The $5M rule only kicks in with outgoing $ totally $10M+. So, we are talking about $10.5M of incoming money, which is lower than the offer Bledsoe already rejected. There is, however, one way to land Bledsoe. Or even Bledsoe and Dragic both: Offer Harden.
And third of all, he plays at a position of need. Ariza replaced parsons so getting dragic would almost be as if we switched parsons for Ariza plus dragic.
