They are not resigned so they haven't used anything yet. They wont dot the I's and cross the T's until after Aldridge plays out
Bima - Could KJ be S&T to another team to create a trade exemption (TE)? If so, how big could it be potentially? Say if a team with tons of money & desperate to sign ANYBODY (I am looking at you Kingzzz) were to sign him to a 2 year, $14M deal. Would the Rox be able to S&T him for a 2022 2nd round pick (I think they have that left) and have a TE of $7M? Thanks in advance from one JD to another!
Corey Brewer will be re-signed using Early Bird rights. Patrick Beverley will be re-signed using full Bird rights. Rockets don't need to use cap room and will still have their MLE. Nope. They were re-signed to play on the Rockets. Both allegedly left a little money on the table to do so. No. Teams cannot sign-and-trade players using the MLE, which is the Rockets' only way to give McDaniels more than his $1.045 million qualifying offer amount.
No, they paid Brew what CBA permitted, a contract starting at $8.2/Early Bird and Bird for Bev. MLE remains.
Sorry if this has been answered previously but - how much cap room is left? Understanding we have the MLE to use, is our remaining cap room negligible? Thanks for all you do Bima.
Not Bima, but the two are mutually exclusive. You can't have the MLE if you're using cap space. The rockets have been operating above the cap this entire time resigning Bev and brew using bird rights and not cap space. In order to use cap space we'd have to renounce all the rights to Bev, brew, Terry etc to make room. So basically we have no cap space and never did. Just the MLE
Sorry if this has been asked before but is the max salary we can offer a Smith and the MLE two separate exception buckets we can pay smith from. Meaning if we gave him a contract for $5m would that all come out of the MLE or would $2.5m come out of the max he'd be eligible from us and the. $2.5m from the MLE. I'm pretty sure you can't combine or mix the two but just wanted to be sure.
So the Rockets could use the exceptions before hand or maybe sign Aldridge. Would they forfeit the MLE if they exceed the cap signing Aldridge or when Bev/Brewers contracts are signed?
This sign-and-trade JET stuff......you're basically talking about paying the man around $5 million to be a trade chip. And then you're gonna have to pay somebody else (Philly) to swallow that $5 million. Now typically, trading a $5 million expiring salary to a team with cap space would cost you a second rounder and that's it. Because the team (Philly or whoever) can then typically flip that expiring contract back out later in the season for either another second rounder or possibly a first depending on what salary they take back. But in this case, we would be simply asking Philly to swallow JET down, pay the $5 million, and release him. That's also $5 million dead on their cap that prevents them from making bigger deals later on. That's kinda tough. Unless Hinkie owes Morey some favors from previous deals that we can call in...I would think doing something like this would cost us more than a second rounder. And secondly, it's unrealistic as well. There's a difference between feasible and doable and realistic. A sign-and-trade will most likely landlock us because it will cost us too much assets (youngsters and picks) in addition to cramming up our cap space. Morey won't do it. If Morey can get a sign-and-trade done using salaries only and keep most of our youngsters and our first rounders....he'd do it. But to throw away even one first rounder over the next 3 years in addition to youngsters and other salaries to execute an Aldridge sign-and-trade.....nope. Morey isn't going to landlock this team.
If Smith wants even a penny more than the approximately $2.49 million the Rockets can provide him via Non-Bird rights, then the entire amount would come out of the MLE. No combining allowed. To get his third (super)star, Morey would be willing to part with multiple future first round picks in S&T scenarios. He's shown that before with the Harden trade (dealing recent #12 pick Jeremy Lamb, a likely lottery pick from Toronto, plus another first rounder with lottery potential from Dallas). To get an ESTABLISHED superstar? Pretty sure he'd "landlock" himself for that opportunity. I hadn't been preaching the Terry possibility before because I, too, thought it was unlikely, especially with Brewer and Beverley being S&T options. But once they were re-signed, it occurred to me: LaMarcus wants to come to as good a roster as possible. If he's going to pick the Rockets, they HAD to bring these guys back. If that would secure LaMarcus choosing Houston, then Morey will gladly part with the marginal extra assets to include Terry instead of Ariza or Brewer. Feel free to disagree. Your viewpoint is completely rational. But we'll just have to agree to disagree about this.
Now what do we do? Please nobody reply this team went to WCF without 2 starters. I need to hear something else.
Well the original plan before all this LMA drama was to retain our FA's trade to upgrade the PG spot with a playmaker. That's still the plan and now that the first domino has fallen teams we want to trade with can now deal.
I mean, that was the plan going in. Maybe a marginally better point guard than Bev would be picked up as well, but Morey has made it clear many times. This is the core we are happy with and if any deals are made they are going to be small or medium sized transactions.
What's interesting is the scenario Bima laid out to obtain LMA is still available to make a trade for say Ty Lawson. At some point Morey is going to have to cash in on Prigs, Papa, and Jones. Does he do it now or wait closer to the deadline.
