He's no longer RFA and we don't need to look at teams with most money left. He can simply sign a minimum deal with someone like Warriors to ride out this season and then sign with whoever next summer. He's no longer dependent on Utah/Nets/Denver/Philly since he doesn't have to fear Rockets' match, so he doesn't have to go for the highest number now.
I sure hope this guy makes someone's all star squad with the amount of angst over this situation Geez. Hell Morey tried to trade him and couldn't, tried to sign him and couldn't, so the only thing left was to let him walk. At the end of the day, the guy is as old as Harden and will be at best a nice piece off the bench. At present our squad is balling hard, with a distinct identity given by the coach, a true superstar leading the way, and a bench mob that takes no prisoners.Things are pretty effin good in HTown.
I don't really understand what went wrong. The Rockets must have seen something they didn't like in the physical, but have decided not to make that public as a favor to Donatas? Good luck to him.
DMO "if" healthy would be a very nice fit on the Warriors. I wish him the best and hope he can find a nice spot to further his career.
And why Bullard was a consummate professional. The Rockets realeased him, traded him, and he'd keep coming back. Shoot he's still a part of the Rockets. This is how to do things!
How come so many of you think it's probably something with his back problems and not the fact that Morey took worst contract for a player ever and bullied player to take even worse contract than the worse contract ever? NBA either saw or was shown by union that Morey giving slave contracts was setting a horrible example and had to put a stop to it. Seriously, opting out after every year and even during first season itself, first impression when I heard about that contract was "this can not be legal", how ridiculous it sounded. And it's on Nets too, they gave him that ridiculous offer sheet that let Morey work it to even more ridiculous contract with body scans, car washes, making morning coffee and other ridiculous stuff. It's on agent too, obviously. League couldn't tolerate such DMo abuse by 2 teams and even his agent. so they stepped in. Maybe it's one of those cases where rules in theory allow such contracts to be signed, but are strongly encouraged not to, and BJ being BJ, not knowing things, didn't know about it either, let it happen, when real agents wouldn't have. One thing for sure, it's not about DMo's back, since Rockets had opt out coming July and they weren't risking long term commitment. NBA forcing Rockets to let RFA go to UFA shows that Rockets were in the wrong, since DMo going to UFA is a win for DMo and L for Morey.
I wish him the best - I don't think he is a bad guy at all. I think he's just trying to get what he feels he deserves. I think the Rockets aren't trying to screw anyone over either. I think they genuinely wanted him but not at the risk of the prior contract while matching those incentives.
Why would the league force the Rockets to do that when the Rockets matched and it was Dmo/BJ who were the ones trying to strong-arm the Rockets into a better deal? The league would have had to give the Rockets a choice - if the Rockets did something wrong the league would have announced it.
This reminds me. This should be a good case for whether RFA makes you overpay the market in Offer Sheets, to avoid a match. One would think the true market is found and signed now.
Bro, If you going to sit here and blow smoke up our hineys by telling us that Morey has no culpability here and you're gonna believe that bunk then you really are blind as a bat man. Understand something here. This is a penalty. This is a penalty agreed to between Silver and Morey. Morey values assets. He's not going to let an asset go for nothing. He restricted DMo with the offer and kept DMo chained to this organization until yesterday. He didn't arbitrarily decide he didn't want DMo. Nor did Les. Silver was involved here because multiple parties, including Morey, and to a large extent Morey, violated the spirit of the CBA. Thankfully all that happened here was we had to cut DMo loose. It could have been worse. And you shouldn't need some secret insider info from Morey himself to understand that. Now why do you think DMo is talking to the players association? This case went over the edge of the spirit and intent of the CBA. And your buddy, BJ, exposed it. Remember these two things I already told you that you deny pal: 1. DMo is going to get his money. 2. Restricted free agency is a dirty business.
I didn't manage to get online to comment on this after I saw it last night. I still don't really get this. Even if the league did say "sign the original Nets deal or let him go", I don't see what was wrong with the original Nets deal from the team's perspective. Keep the ball in his court, if he wants to hold out let him hold out. Heck, let him go back into RFA and decide on him again later when he finds an offer. I suppose this is a nod to preserving chemistry which I'm okay with, but I would have kept the ability to match a team-friendly contract even if it was for a player with whom the relationship had grown toxic. That said, the team will be just fine without him, so I'm not too concerned.
What went wrong is Morey and BJ (and others) acted outside the framework of the CBA and Silver stopped it. Don't overlook the obvious here. More facts will come out. And this isn't over. The players association is most likely going to lodge a formal complaint here. And yes, there could very well be one more adjustment made to the pending CBA agreement.
If BJ wasn't such a dumb a@@ then none of this would have happened. Everyone loses when you have a dumb a@@ for your captain. Rocket lose, DMo loses (he won't get more than he as going to get here) and BJ loses (though he's probably too dumb to know it).
If the league stepped in because of some alleged violation of the spirit of the CBA, I'd be shocked. First of all, how was the spirit of the CBA violated? Does the current CBA have "whereas" clauses that provide the spirit of the agreement? If the provisions of the agreement are clear, you don't look into the spirit or the intent of the parties. The provisions are supposed to reflect that intent. If the provisions allowed Morey and all other GM's to keep a player's rights until a certain date, then they should be allowed to do that. Any desired change should be pursued in the negotiations for the next CBA, not in dealings under the current one. I don't even know what to think anymore just because I don't have enough information on this. If I were to guess, I'd say that the relations between the Rockets and Motiejunas had become so strained that it wasn't in anyone's best interest to continue the relationship. If the soap opera continued, then it would attract even more attention to an ugly situation. This ugly situation is probably not possible under the new CBA. The league probably asked that the Rockets just let Motiejunas go to squash the entire thing and spare everybody - the league, the Rockets, DMO - any more bad press. What sucks is that the Rockets don't get anything from this at all. There must have been some sort of compensation for the Rockets allowing Motiejunas to become a UFA.
just in case I missed it in 21 pages of a thread I didn't read other than the "highlights": Bye Felicia
