I covered this at the beginning of the thread. In two years, the Rockets will have 41 million committed to 4 players. (17 TMac, 14 Yao, 10 Sura+Howard). Yao Ming hits the cap under current rules at 250% of his last year (5.6-->14 million); a max contract is 25% of the cap (in my assumed scenario of 60 million, this would be 15 mill, so sure, we would gain 1 mill in flexibility). Foremost, if the cap goes up and the rules stay the same, a max contract is no longer 9 mill. That's the minimum max. We're assuming a 60 million dollar cap here, which is definitely a high side estimate. Let's even assume we only use the MLE on a one year contract or not at all, Mike James opts out of his final year. If you sign one more 9 million dollar player, that's 50 million in salary for 5 players, leaving you 10 million for the last 10 spots on your roster, an injury prone Sura to be your starter at PG, and an even older Juwan Howard at PF. If you want a bench made up exclusively of Ryan Bowens and Scott Padgetts, go for it. You can't afford even Mutombos or Jon Barrys or Mike James if that is your model. Seeing what JVG has done to fill out the team, I can't believe that would be his model. We probably could make it work to acquire a 6 million dollar player or so, but that's not going to be your all-star, or make us a "major player". The contracts will have excellent value this summer and next trade deadline, based on what we see in teams dumping superstars and solid players with question marks for financial flexibility. The most important part of the Taylor trade was flexibility. Most everyone agrees PF is a weakness, and expects us to do something to go get one this offseason. It was not a viable option to outright sign a PF this offseason, with over 22 million committed in salaries to PFs next year alone, and 16 mill the following year. Those numbers have now been reduced to 16 and 6. Commend CD for that, not for your dreams of pairing Ben Wallace and Yao. ---- I have no idea where your Payton's deal which expires at the end of the season comes into play in a discussion about the 2006/2007 salary cap.
I have a question. Would it be possible to trade our expiring contracts for cap space this summer? If, by chance, teams with cap room like Atlanta, New Orleans, or Milwaukee strike out in the free agent market this summer (which is likely to happen), maybe the Rockets could pull off another Rice/Utah type of deal. Send them our expiring contracts, plus a 1st rounder or 2, in exchange for their cap room. Then use the cap room to sign Swift or Chandler. The key is trying to capitalize on these expiring contracts THIS summer, rather then the summer after when Yao signs his max deal. Because once Yao gets his max contract, we're not going to be players in the free agent market for a long time.
so, Instead of overestimating the cap, can we base this on a reasonable estimate of the cap based on current rules? That way we know the bottom line?
Not really. The CBA expires this summer, so the current rules aren't really valid. The probable overestimate only extends my point. Anywhere from 50-60 mill is where it could land. New Jack- We're going to be over the cap, question is how much. We'd have to be able to move probably 3 out of the Wesley/Weatherspoon/Baker/Norris contracts to make significant room. It's an interesting thought, but my guess is to get far enough under the cap to make it worth our while, it'll be out of reach.
Thanks, NIKEstrad. You answered all my questions. I didn't realize Yao's max contract would be so high. Very well explained. That changes how I understand we'll have to build around Yao/TMac. I guess we'll be looking for more good deals like we have been this last year, and hope some guys sign to be with a championship contender, somebody needs to unload someone good for expiring contracts, someone want's late draft picks or we find a steal, and some guys slip through at the MLE. Maybe the 2 Euros will pan out. But, I can see from what you say, we won't be able to sign FAs over the MLE. The reference to Gary Payton was that if we signed him to a multi-year contract, that would further reduce the salary cap room. Good stuff, dude.
All this analysis is great, but pretty much moot given that they're going to significantly change the CBA. Supposedly the NBA is agreeing to a larger salary cap, and changing the minimum player salary, but also altering the allowable escalator clauses for new contracts. And they're trying to impose a harsher luxury tax, but as to where that threshhold will be, who knows. Plus, you have to figure the Rockets will again significantly alter their roster in the next year. Some guys may retire, some might switch teams. The Rockets may very well use their MLE and sign a guy to a multi-year deal this offseason. They have a draft pick who will draw a rookie salary. There are only 2 players on this team who were Rockets last year! A year of absolute stability would be shocking. The only givens are McGrady's contract, Sura's contract, Howard's contract (if we don't get a better PF and trade him) and Yao's contract (assuming we sign him). That's just not enough data to say for certain whether we could sign an impact free agent or not.
After the complete overhaul this season, we are in great need for some stability. I don't think it's a good idea to trim everyone but Yao and TMac again. Most of our players are old, but we need to keep them while productive. Keep changing teammates won't help our chemistry on the court.
we need like a sticky at the top of this forum that says that a contract that expires does not give you that much caproom. people seem to think if you have a 5 million dollar expiring contract, that you now have 5 million in capspace, and if you have 20 million expire, that's 20 million to sign people with. there is a cap number. take all our salaries, then subtract the expiring ones, then compare it to the cap. that's how much cap space we will have in a given offseason. hoopshype will let you see exactly what we have committed each year and then you can compare that to the cap. furthermore, even though signing a star to a big contract during the 06/07 offseason has always been a dream of mine b/c of all the salaries that do go away, it's just not feasible. as NIKE points out, we'd have almost no money left over to sign anybody else for the whole rest of the roster. secondly, the cap room itself would be damn hard to even maintain. everyone who replaces barry, deke, etc after this year would have to be signed to a one year deal, we couldn't trade for anyone with more than one year remaining, nor sign a draft pick or anyone to a long term mle contract, and then your back to having 4 players on your team and almost no money to fill out the 12 man roster after you sign the hypothetical big name. for a team in our situation of 2 max players, trading expiring contracts for talent is the way to go and yesterday's trades put us in perfect position to have a huge amount of expiring contracts to use as trade bait and thus to build our team for the future which is why the mo trade was so good imo.
Using Hoopshype's numbers. 1) 04-05: our team sal is at 57 mil. 2) 05-06: Deke, James and Barry's contracts expire. With other sal increase, our team sal will be at $50 mil. Assume we can resign these 3 with same contracts or maybe a bit more, it will bring us to $59-60 mil. 3) 06-07: Spoon, Wesley, Mooch, Baker's contract expire. Our team salary will be around $36 mil including the 7 mil qualifying offer to Yao. Why can't we compete for FA that year? I understand you have to sign your own player first to determine your cap before you bid for FAs but would a qualifying offer good enough for that purpose? If that is true, we can sign a good FA or 2, resign Wesley and round out the roster with 1 yr contracts and then resign Yao to the max. If it is not true and we have to sign Yao to ~13 mil first, our salary will be just $42 mil. We should still have plenty for a good FA. The rest of the team will have to be minimum contracts. Am I wrong here?
The Qualifying offer is the mininimum amount that the Rockets must offer Yao in order to make him a restricted free agent (which means that we have the right to match any offer). That number isn't the same as the amount that he counts against our cap. I didn't go back and look at the actual number, but I'm sure that Nike's 250% ($14M is correct).
Under current rules, Yao hits at 250% of his last contract year. The QO does not serve that purpose, that's how much we'd pay Yao if he wants to become a UFA (in that case, we WOULD have room to sign a big name). IMO, It's all moot, as I fully expect Yao to sign his max extension before we get to that point. A team salary of 42 mill with only 4 players under contract. If you sign a big money player, you're up over 50 mill for your starting 5, and have no bench to speak of. Like I said, you can do it if you want a few rookies and Ryan Bowen/Padgett types filling out your entire bench, you can do it.
I thought the qualifying offer was only something like 7.5million? Quick question for NIKE (or another vaunted capologist) Does a team receive the MLE if they are under the salary cap? It was my understanding that you didn't get the exception if you started off under the cap?? Also (2for1 in question time) - if we have the cap space, can we sign other FA's first and then max Ming once we've hit the cap? (exceeding the cap to re-sign your own player is legal isn't it!)
I went to http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#28 and indeed Nike's number is correct. So our team salary in 06-07 counting Yao's $14 will be ~$43 mil. We still should be able to bid for a good FA, right?
If you only count 4: TMac, JH, Sura and Yao, our salary will be only $34 mil in 06-07. I assumed we signed Deke, Barry, James in 05-06 at the same salary, that would add $9 mil. (Maybe Deke will take less so we can pay James a little more) That's 7 player for $43 mil. Plus a big name FA and some scrubs. It's not bad.
Thats why the best thing to do is try and trade the expiring contracts BEFORE they expire. We try to get players we like who already have long contracts. Of course, this all depends on whether we can get what we need via trade and Les doesn't mind going over the cap quite a bit once we sign Yao. I don't know much bout CBA and what not, but based on my understanding after reading this thread, I think this is the best way to get this team loaded with good players.
I agree, the trick is to trade the contract before they expire. Expiring in 2006: Spoon 6.35 Wesley 4.95 Moochie 4.2 Baker 3.88 Plus any contracts we add a year to (Mutumbo/Barry) We probably would rather keep Wesley and any of the contracts we add, but the other three can go. Spoon/Moochie/Baker = 14.43 mil in contracts that can be split up to match with other contracts. If Boston or the Clippers (or some other crappy team looking to to sign Ben Wallace in after the 06/06 season) are looking for cap space at that point, we might get a Brand or Pierce for for expiring contracts and draft picks. Or, a team may part with a Odom type of player without getting draft picks(or someone like the Baron Davis deal).
Did you think I was making it up? I have the CBA .pdf file on my desktop... ??? Off the top of my head, TMac at 17, Juwan at 6, Sura at 4, and Yao at 14. That's 41. For 4 players. Now you're up to 50 mill, for 7 players... ok. How high the cap is can't really be projected to precisely right now. If it's similar to what it is now, you're probably already at or over the cap. Throw in a couple rookie contracts, and "place holder" minimum contracts (not to get into specifics, but teams with less than 11 players on their roster have minimum level contracts "against" the cap.) and you're not going to have significantly more than a MLE. (Which leads to DrN's questions...). DrN- The answer is no. Teams under the cap by more than the amount of their exceptions do not receive exceptions. Exceptions count against the cap, but can be renounced- cap space is better. If we end up 2 mill under the cap, and the exception is 5 mill, we get the exception, but not the capspace. If we're 8 mill under the cap, and the exception is 5 mill, we get the capspace. Your last question goes with what we're talking about. Yao hits the cap at 250% of the last year of his contract, so you don't gain much, if any, flexibility. The difference would be if we hypothetically had Carlos Boozer (and had his Bird Rights which Cleveland didn't) blow up while making the league minimum. If we were then going to be under the cap, waiting to resign Boozer would only cause a small cap hit, without looking at exact numbers, somewhere under 3 mill. That <3 mill would hit the cap, but you could then use your capspace, and then exceed the cap and sign Boozer starting to a 9 mill deal or whatever. This is why the Cavs have to deal with Ilgauskas (and to a much lesser extent, McInnis) first this offseason. He hits at over 15 mill before being resigned, which doesn't leave room to sign a Michael Redd.
