The best trade for this roster is no trade at all ..... let Wall & EG expire and come out the other end with $60.3m in cap space.
Its not "just who you can sign" but also who you can trade for .... and being under the cap not having to send out matching salary to do so. The best thing about it all is you have bird rights on your key players and their cap holds are relatively small - About $24.9m in total between Wood , KPJ & Tate ..... so you make your FA / trade moves into cap space , then resign your own FA's and are operating as an over the cap team who still has TPE's & MLE / BAE exceptions at the ready. You'll have $34,934,667 in committed salary Green Theis Nwaba Sengun Garuba Christopher Martin Cap holds of about $24,951,546 Wood KPJ Tate with a salary cap of $121,575,000 And usable cap space of $61,688,787 (minus 4 minimum cap holds)
Our players that find success. Wood, Porter, Martin or Tate. It will actually Stones greatest challenges not to over pay.
one question regarding this, how would signing kpj to an extension next summer affect our usable cap space?
As it stands now , his cap hold is $4,826,447. So dollar for dollar above that amount off of your effective total.
I agree in general, but it all depends on what's available. What's the deal with Gordon's contract? 2023 partially guaranteed? Not sure how that works out?
Something to keep in mind is the new television deal. Possibly in 2025 we’re looking at a completley revamped pay scale and a GSW situation without cap smoothing. If we lock up our core now and are enticing enough to say a Giannis or a Tatum that could be a dream scenario.
It was challenging enough getting All Stars to sign with Houston even when Rockets had MVP on the team. Why would they agree to do that to play with kids and an owner who is notorious, rightly or wrongly, for being cheap?
Fair point. I guess the work starts now by pumping Silas and stability of our FO. Trying to put out puff pieces about culture and TF learning the errors of his ways. Get in tight with Klutch and CAA. And then ultimately hope we hit on the next couple of drafts and sell any potential roaming eyes that weren’t tight with the old guard of harden/Tucker/CP3/ariza (Zion, Tatum, KAT) on that trajectory.
This is not correct. The Mid-Level Exception, Bi-Annual Exception, and any Traded Player Exceptions count against available cap room unless the team renounces their use. Teams that use cap room are allowed to use the "Room Mid-Level Exception" only. The Room MLE is roughly 83% of the taxpayer mid-level exception, and can only be used to sign a contract up to two years in length. For reference, in 2021, this would be a 2-year, $10M deal. A taxpayer MLE maxed out at 3-years, $18M, and a non-taxpayer MLE maxed at 4-years, $41M. SOURCE FYI, if KPJ doesn't get a rookie extension after next summer, he will have a cap hold equal to 300% of his 2022-2023 salary ($3,217,631), since he'd be a 4th year, Bird-eligible player coming off of his rookie contract, and was making less than the average NBA salary. So his cap hold will be $9,652,893 if he gets to RFA in 2023. I personally favor seeing if he'd sign for market rate around Lonzo/FVV/Rozier/Smart/ rates (4 years/$80-$100M), depending on how he progresses next year. SOURCE You also have to include in the likely salary of the Rockets next two first rounders in 2022 and 2023, along with a BKN/MIA pick in 2022 and a MIL pick in 2023. The Rockets first rounders will be not insignificant in cap charge; a top 5 pick for both years would be about ~$7.3M in salary each. You might still have a max slot open, but definitely not two. The other issue is that the 2023 free agent class is pretty poor; you've got Jokic, D'Angelo Russell, Bradley Beal, and Christian Wood as the likely top targets. I'm personally looking instead at both Karl-Anthony Towns and Jaylen Brown: young guys whose contracts expire in 2024. If things turn sour in Boston or Minnesota, and their respective teams become worried about losing them in free agency for nothing, they could potentially be swayed with either a draft pick package (and minimal returning salary), or they could get Christian Wood as a S&T in return. Not extremely likely, but we're projecting out three years so realistically, anything is possible.
Gordon's contract for 2023 becomes guaranteed if the team he's on wins a championship. Other than that , non-guaranteed.
That is exactly what Stone is doing now and clearly wants this to spread around the league. I love my players and the friendship (even after basketball), we take care of our guys (looks at jH and PJ) blah blah blah. …if J Green turns out to be as good as ppl think and we start surprising folks with wins - stars will come. What athlete doesn’t love h-town (besides Barkley)
I'm with you! Like Silas said, you don't want a team full of young players, because they have to be developed. We need some mid-level to high end level players to blend with the rookies. Ben Simmons?
No. Carlos Delfino types are great. Ben Simmons would be the equivalent of what fans wanted for years in Monta Ellis or Kevin Martin. Actually at this point in his career Eric Gordon might be a better fit than we give him credit for. Not from Argentina though.
