...and the flexibility of having potentially having cap space is not worth more than operating over the cap with a great young player locked up and happy.
I agree with you - if I was him, I wouldn't take less than the max. BUT, you do see athletes take little bit less all the time to lock up generational wealth earlier than free agency. Bregman, Altuve, Christian Javiar, and Yordan all did this for the Astros. Jalen Brunson just did this for the Knicks. 5 years x $205 million is about what you could get if you started at $35,000,000 and increased by 8% a year. That is a lot of money. Would be leaving $20 million+ on the table. I wonder if the Rockets would do that deal now and reduce their cap space by $17 million plus next off season - Maybe the deal would be even more team friendly?
I'm good with locking up Sengun. I hope that doesn't mean Jalen gets a fat deal too though, at least not until he proves he has it this year.
Locking up Sengun basically takes $20M in cap space off the table. I think if the Rockets lock him up, it will end the potential cap space in 2025 as it was going to take some tough cuts to get to $40M in cap space without him being extended. Extending Green likely doesn't matter regarding cap space except it would increase potential cap space if the Rockets went that way. I'm not against extending players like Green on a conceptual level. I'm against extending Green to contracts that guys like Green typically want.
Agreed. I'm up for extending him on a contract that doesn't make him a negative asset. What that number is is up for debate. If he duplicates last season, I think that's somewhere around 20m, which he'd probably balk at.
Haha depends how much it is. If it’s a max then ya of course that’s irresponsible and just asinine but if it’s decently below it i’m good with that
If I were Sengun, I wouldn't take anything less than the max. It's totally clear that he is a max player. Maybe a tiny discount (like a million a year) because of getting security vs. risk of catastrophic injury. But that would be it.
Right, given that FO wants to sign I’m assuming it’s a team friendly deal, so I doubt what’s on offer is just slightly below. Frank talk - I’d normally respect this if it’s for keeping the young guys together, but I have a sense that JG (who is his best comp since they are contemporaries) isn’t willing to do this - and the way JG’s shooing off questions on his contract tells me he probably isn’t willing to take a team friendly deal - or isn’t being offered anything serious. I’d feel really dumb next year if I was Sengun and JG somehow gets a better deal just because of RFA offers on similar or even worse production maybe.
Nobody here has played under the scrutiny and pressure that these kids deal with. Every game how you perform contributes to how much or less your contract will be, every game could be your last if there is a significant injury, even something that isn’t career ending can still impact the next contract if you are out for the year. And then factor in, when you have nothing, and you have $175m in front of you vs $220m later, there is no significant difference. For someone who has nothing that’s a lot vs a lot. Both are generational wealth vs you get nothing if something catastrophic happens.
Fair point. And I guess Alpi saw last season how quickly something can go catastrophically wrong. It will just be really weird, as was posted above, if Jalen ends up getting a bigger contract than him in RFA. Will be interesting to watch. As a Rockets fan, I just want to see Alpi locked up long-term with the Rockets. Maybe they can do a deal with a 10 % discount, but a no-trade clause. That would be a great outcome for me as a fan haha.
I think it will be close to the max if it gets done. It might even be the 25% max without the chance of it going to the 30% if Sengun makes an All NBA team. If it gets done, it will defintely be easily within the cost of the biannual exception. I still would lean on it not being done as it should have been done already if it was going to happen.
Jalen will have to improve significantly before the Rockets would be willing to match a max offer, otherwise they would have extended him already. Unlike Alpi’s situation, there’s no real cap benefit in waiting to extend Jalen since his cap hold is similar in value to his max contract. That means the only reason he hasn’t been extended is because however much the Rockets value him is not inline with how much Jalen is asking for. So if Jalen gets a max offer from the Rockets a year from now, it can only mean that something drastic has changed, and that he had a major breakout year (which would be good for all). Otherwise watch for the trade deadline.
The Rockets have no incentive to extend Sengun now when they have every right to get another year’s free look. The only incentive would be if they got a sweetheart deal, if Sengun is desperate enough to lock up his first big contract.
I see your point. Hyper competitive athletes often keep score by the size of the contract. Sengun doesn't seem this way (up to this point). For Jalen, I think what is on offer from the Rockets isn't close to what Jalen wants - and what Jalen will receive in RFA if he improves in 24/25 as much as he improved in 23/24. Jalen is probably betting on himself because the upside in contract terms is much more than for Sengun while Sengun might have downside if he has a catastrophic injury... I expect Jalen would have to sign for a much lower deal to get an extension now than Sengun might sign for now.
Alpi seems to be the kind of person who wouldn’t mind getting paid less to secure his future and focus on basketball. And if he doesn’t get injured he will make more money than one can imagine anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes 20% less than max.
Spoiler: next year’s FA class *Incomplete but mostly complete list •LeBron James (player option) •Kyrie Irving (player option) •Jimmy Butler (player option) •Rudy Gobert (player option) •Fred VanVleet (team option) •Alperen Sengun (RFA) •Brandon Ingram •James Harden (player option) •Khris Middleton (player option) •Aaron Gordon (player option) •Julius Randle (player option) •Trey Murphy (RFA) •Jalen Suggs (RFA) •Myles Turner •Bruce Brown •Jonathan Kuminga (RFA) •Jalen Johnson (RFA) •Naz Reid (player option) •Alex Caruso •Chris Paul •Brook Lopez •Bobby Portis (player option) •Jalen Green (RFA) •Cam Thomas (RFA) •Josh Giddey (RFA) •Kevin Porter Jr. (player option) •Caris Levert •D’Angelo Russell •Malcolm Brogdon •Eric Gordon (player option) •Kelly Oubre (player option) •Duncan Robinson (opt out) •Al Horford •Steven Adams •Bojan Bogdanovic •Pat Connaughton (player option) •Tre Jones •Russell Westbrook (player option) •Luke Kennard •John Collins (player option) •Jevon Carter (player option) •Tim Hardaway Jr. •Gary Payton II •Dennis Schroder •Kevon Looney •Clint Capela •Malik Beasley •Nickeil Alexander-Walker •Dorian Finney-Smith (player option) •Gary Trent Jr. •Jalen McDaniels •Tre Mann (RFA) •Nic Batum (player option) •Precious Achuiwa •Larry Nance Jr. •Jae’Sean Tate •Matisse Thybulle (player option) •Andre Drummond (player option) •Joe Ingles •Chris Boucher •Seth Curry •Kyle Lowry •Devonte Graham •Corey Kispert (RFA) •Moses Moody (RFA) •Tyus Jones •Aaron Holiday (team option) •Jeff Green •Spencer Dinwiddie •Mason Plumlee •Quentin Grimes (RFA) •Dwight Powell (player option) •Trey Lyles •Marvin Bagley III •Lonzo Ball •Ben Simmons •Moritz Wagner (team option) •Dario Saric (player option) •Alec Burks •Josh Richardson •Bones Hyland (RFA) •Taurean Prince •Thomas Bryant •Damion Lee •Dante Exum •Reggie Jackson •Cam Payne •Torrey Craig •Alex Len •Mo Bamba •Daniel Theis •Monte Morris •Delon Wright •Deandre Jordan •James Wiseman (team option) •PJ Tucker •Christian Wood
Most of Sengun’s issues on offense are mental, ft%, pump faking at the 3 point line, willingness to use his one leg shot. It’s confidence, and pressure. I know this because Sengun shot 80% from the ft line in Turkey on league leading attempts. He also just mentioned on the media day interview that he makes his jump shots in practice, that he just has to translate it to real games which is a different kind of pressure. Personally as someone who has worked on performance based compensation for almost the last 20 years, I can tell you the difference it makes to results when that pressure is lifted. For me it was when I started working for myself and there was no more boss to answer to. I’ll be on record to predict another major breakout year for Sengun if this extension gets done, esp for his ft% and outside shooting. The pressure will be lifted once his future is secured.
