Why? It doesn't make sense. Why you say this guys? He has no reason to wait AT ALL. And the teams whatever they offer they will offer first thing they can on 10 july they won't delay.
Maybe there's hesitancy from his end to resign on a team that would then have 3 solid rotation PFs. Maybe there's a lack of urgency on our end because resigning smoove NOW would decrease TJs trade value
without ariza guarding the premier perimeter players in this league, houston would have suffered a lot more without him than smith. don't think smith is houston's 3rd most important player at all. he became a significant piece but is not as high of a priority as you make it seem.
Honestly, I can't tell what Smith's value is to this team. It's rare to see a player look utterly dominant in one game, and then become such a non factor in the next.
The fact that we have a player that can dominate a game is more reason why we should sign him. Dwight and harden can do it, nobody else can probably dmo.
McDaniels will 100% get an offer that forces us to use a part of the MLE. Unless we use the MLE, we can only offer McDaniels $1.05M. The question is how much of the MLE they will offer. If we want both Smith and KJ back, the only options are Smith taking his raise to $2.5M and using whatever is needed of the MLE on KJ, KJ getting an offer sheet at less than $3M per, or KJ not signing any offer sheets to take his qualifying offer and becoming a UFA next year. The latter is highly unlikely when he could be blocked for playing time in Houston this season.
No, it is not. We can't S&T him with a salary higher than his raise to $2.5M. JJ Reddick makes $7M+. Sure, if they trade Jamal Crawford and filler for Haywood and cut Haywood for space, they could even offer Josh Smith $4.2M. They won't do that because it would be idiotic. Like, on par with one of the dumbest moves a team has ever made. AND Smith would barely make anymore money. Let's run the numbers. First, his Piston's share would be cut by 1/2 the difference, so 1/2 of $1.7M is $850,000, thus their offer is only $850k higher. Slightly off, but 1/2 of his games would be in LA vs. 1/2 games in Houston. So, if he joins the Clippers for the $4.2M He "earns" $2.1M in LA. That gets taxed at a higher personal income tax of 13.3% in LA vs. 0% in Houston. That is only on income over $1M, so $1.1M taxed at 13.3% means extra taxes of $146K. However, if he lived in LA, he would also get taxed for that income from the Pistons. So, the Pistons at this point would be on the hook for about $3.75M after offsets and (because I already applied the $1M for taxes) all of it would be subject to the 13.3% tax. 13.3% of the $3.75M would be $500K. So, with a Clippers offer of $4.2M (if they did that Haywood trade and cut him to open up cap space) he would earn $850,000 more, but after taxes he should only make about $205,000 more. Factor in cost of living and things get even tighter, but even if the Clippers make an idiotic trade to lose Jamaal Crawford, just to sign Josh Smith, they can only offer him after tax earnings of about $205K more than the Rockets can without touching the MLE. So, the Clippers can make a terrible trade to make their team worse and offer Josh Smith (at most) ~$205K more than the Rockets or offer him $500K less (obviously without calculating exact tax and offset differences on that, which would bring it down to ~$315K) than the Rockets by not making the trade. Obviously there are also cost of living, PT, comfort, playoff chances & shares, etc to add to the equation, but I am just focusing on dollars. Essentially, Josh Smith would have to take a paycut to sign with the Clippers instead of the Rockets. That is a team, which is much worse than the Clippers the Rockets beat in the playoffs last year and has a superstar at the same position as Smoove. AND there is always the chance the Rockets have the ability to dip into the MLE and offer him slightly more than the $2.5M
Posted this in the Cyber thread but thought it'd be relevant here and for the discussion on KJ: Latest cap space from Bobby Marks early this morning: Rough estimates with cap space: DET (3.8), IND (10.1), MIL (3.7), ORL (8), PHI (15.2), PHX (6.9), POR (24.3) , UTH (8). https://mobile.twitter.com/BobbyMark...48895837978624
POR has a TON of cap space, I wonder if they just offer Smith a large 1 year deal just because they have the space and a hole at PF now.
A pure speculation, they do not have more cap than the rockets. I do not think they want Smith anymore if Jordan returns, but now the problem is that the Mavs may want to have Smith badly.
They don't have the cap space to sign him now, but it would even eliminate the pie in the sky invented Haywood "option" to offer him $4.2M. They would be left with only $2M of the MLE to offer him.
They won't be taxpayers if they don't have Jordan, so they would then have the remaining amount (~$2M) of the non-taxpayer MLE.
Nevermind, you were right. I wasn't following my own response that IF they get Jordan back, they would thus have given Pierce the taxpayer MLE and not just a portion of the non-taxpayer MLE. Sorry.
Hearing unconfirmed reports on 610 that the Clippers contingent showed up at the airport otw to talk with DJ with a Smoove Clips jersey..
Maybe so, but just to spite Rockets. Because Smith is not a center, which is the position they must fill. I wonder if Cubes will start throwing $$$ at Larry Sanders now.
