I am putting on record that I am STOKED about this signing! This gives us the three and D depth behind Ariza that we desperately needed behind Parsons last season. Here are my observations of him: 1. Extremely active off ball player. He moves with purpose both on the perimeter and slashing. This guy knows ball handling is not his strong suit so he purposely creates space by moving around in relation to the ball handler. 2. Great range and pretty quick release. Seems to have a lot of confidence in his shot as well. This is great considering Casspi and Garcia couldn't hit the broadside of a bar when it counted. 3. Very, very active with good anticipation. This will lead to a lot of jumps in the passing lanes, come from behind strips, and light blocks. I envision KoPa becoming a very good help defender.
My last sentence was pure sarcasm. I should have added a smiley. If 2K had any correlation to the real players T-Will would still be in the league.
Ha ha. I was just thinking about how surprised I am at the positivity in the poll. Every time we sign someone, the poll results seem overwhelmingly favorable and the comments are really negative. The silent majority in action I suppose. Really, I have zero expectations for this guy. Anything will be gravy.
It is obviously going to depend on the structure of that second year, but if it is truly a team option + non-guaranteed, the CBA possibilities are quite interesting. Bima touched on this before, but the Rockets are really in a great spot with Papanikolau next year no matter what he ends up being. Flexibility doesn't win you games, but inflexibility can cost you dearly. Here are all the potential ways that this could play out next year. Scenario 1: The Blazers crater, LaMarcus Aldridge decides to come to the Rockets, and they need cap room to sign him. The Rockets pick up his team option prior to free-agency, then cut him to clear the room when Aldridge commits (and not a Bosh commit, but a Howard commit). Scenario 2: Papanikolau plays like the actual T-Mac of Greece, leading the Rockets to a championship. His 2nd-year option is obviously picked up, and he'll still be a restricted free agent after it expires. No worries about the Gilbert Arenas rule; since he'll actually be worth the max salary in the 3rd and 4th years and will obviously be worth matching. The probability of either of these things happening are obviously so small as to likely not figure into expected value, but they are possibilities. Scenario 3: Papanikolau struggles, and is used as a trade salary filler. Right now the Rockets have a dearth of tradable contracts; Ariza/Howard/Harden aren't going anywhere, the Lin TE is probably best saved for next summer, and everyone else makes the minimum. Papanikolau is a walking trade exception that can be aggregated; by his lonesome he can bring in a guy making $7.2M; aggregate him together with Motiejunas and 3 or 4 minimum guys and you can nearly reach the Rookie max (~$15M) for a juicy RFA sign-and trade that wouldn't require the other team to take on lots of dead salary; usually the sticking point of sign and trades. Scenario 4: Papanikolau plays ok, and shows flashes of potential. The Rockets can decline his team option and make him a restricted free-agent. Since he would only have one year with Houston, the Rockets would only have the Non-Bird exception available to sign him. Normally, this would mean that they would have to dip into the MLE to resign him or to match an offer sheet. However, in this case, because his rookie contract salary is so high, they can instead use the Non-Bird exception to start his deal anywhere up to a $6M first year salary, up to the mid-level. While we're all bitter about how Parsons ended up working out, remember that allowing early restricted free agency worked out extremely well in getting Chuck Hayes, Carl Landry, Kyle Lowry and Troy Daniels on value contracts (still a steal, in my opinion; the Rockets basically added on an extra guaranteed year at the near minimum, secured full bird rights and still retained restricted free agency rights, at a cost of around $400k over two years with no player option. You want to talk about sacrificing for the team, that was it.) Doing it this way basically lets the team take a free look at Papanikolau this year, and then resign him to an appropriate amount in a longer term deal next year, while preserving the full MLE in a year where they will look to sign Llull, Gentile, 3 second rounders and further fill out the bench. It will be interesting to see when the guarantee date for Papanikolau's second year is; paradoxically it's likely the Rockets will only pick up the option if he's either amazing or awful. Anything in between and it would make more sense for them to decline the option and use the leverage of restricted free agency to renegotiate a new contract. The odds that Papanikolau is good, or even worth the $4.8M are very low. You'd have to imagine the odds of him never playing a meaningful minute are up around 95%. But it's once again proving that Les Alexander is willing to spend the money to make calculated gambles.
Wow, I thought talks with him were over? 4.8 seems like a lot. But that is mainly because I don't know anything about him at all. Hoping for the best!
The Rockets needed shooting and defense off the bench and got both in K-Pop at a favorable contract for both parties. Plus, I am happy Rockets didn't give up on the signing and offered more then they thought he might be worth a year because they saw a need to fill. Essentially they flipped their 2 year BAE offer into a 1 year MLE offer but they made the right move. This is far from throwing in the towel and points towards at least more depth moves to come.
Been watching this guy play for years. I'll say it again. BEAST. I'm soooo pumped about this. You guys will see soon enough.
Y'all are underestimating the value of a $4.6MM non-guaranteed contract. That is huge for us, especially if Paps is as good as advertised.
And he put up a whopping 6.5ppg and 3.5rpg and he shoots 64% from the line. How did this guy make it to the NBA? Let alone a supposed contending team? Where he is projected to be a contributor? And it sounds like we caved to his former teams requests/demands and I'm sure we promised him a role and a stipulation that says he can't be sent to the Vipers. What am I missing?
Per Jonathan Feigen: http://blog.chron.com/ultimaterockets/2014/08/rockets-sign-kostas-papanikolaou/#25592101=0 This seems to suggest that Jonathan Feigen thinks that the Rockets, for now, look at KP more as PF than SF or at least equally for both positions. Kind of interesting. Feigen is pretty plugged in with how the Rockets view guys.
The ability to look outside the box score stats and outside the context of a perceived terrible off season. Also looking at the move within the context of the team itself.
Man, I miss me some Niko Nikos!!! Whataburger, Taco Cabana, Shipleys, good BBQ, good Mexican food...makes me home sick. Denver's "horrible for your body" food establishments don't measure up.
