As much as his knee injury sucked at the end of the year, it really helps scare teams off ... I'm hoping he'll sign for security with the LLE. But, knowing Morey, I'd expect him to wait for good deals on the MLE, or at least until the prime guys are gone.
Very close to $2 million, exact amount won't be known until next year's salary cap is announced. Evan
The timing has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It's really pretty simple. Landry is a restricted free agent and the Rockets have the right to match any offer. We don't have any type of Bird Rights on Landry which would allow us to exceed the cap to sign him. Since we're over the cap, we'll have to use one of our exceptions (LLE or MLE ) to sign him (assuming that he won't sign for the league minimum). The thing that works in our favor is that other teams can only offer him up to the MLE (due to the Gilbert Arenas Provision http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#37), so that guarentees that the Rockets have the ability to match any offer that he will receive. The Rockets have already said that they will match any offer, so that should discourage teams from making him an offer. It's the same exact scenario as with Amir Johnson last year. Detroit could match any offer, so nobody ended up tendering him an offer. If the Rockets can get Landry to accept the LLE, then they'd have the full MLE to use on other player or players. If they end up paying more than the LLE, then that amount will have to come out of our MLE and reduce the amount that we have to spend on other players. These rules are the same if they sign him on the first day of free agency or just before the season. If the Rockets used all or a portion of their MLE before re-signing Landry, then they'd be making it possible for a team to make him an offer that we'd be unable to match. For instance if we used say $2M of our MLE to sign a player, then if Landry got an offer of more than $3M for the initial year, we'd be unable to match. I don't think that there's any chance that we'd do something that dumb.
Landry was good during the 22 games winning streak. Since then, he is worse than medicore. Considering his health condition, I don't think he is worth the full MLE. Rockets probably could sign him for 2-3m.
So Landry has some leverage here to get a higher paying contract. If he holds out long enough he could force their hand if they are looking at someone else to sign with part of the MLE. I doubt he is looking to sign for LLE $$ but it is possible. It sure would make it simpler.
2005-06 $1.67 million 2006-07 $1.75 million 2007-08 $1.83 million 2008-09 $1.91 million 2009-10 $1.99 million 2010-11 $2.08 million 2011-12 $2.18 million
aelliott, you beat me to it. I have been posting the whole "Gilbert Arenas Rule" language in several of the "re-signing Carl Landry" threads. I agree with many on this board who hope (and pray) that Landry sees the big picture about how the Rockets are building into a contender and accepts the full Bi-annual Exception (or LLE). That would be a two-year deal for just under $4M ($1.91M in Year 1; $2.0628M in Year 2). Daryl Morey should have that contract offer in front of Landry and his agent YESTERDAY. If the Rockets can add another significant piece via trade or via the MLE, and if Landry is an integral part of a winning franchise for the next two years, then he'll be able to rake in the money in the summer of 2010. But Landry has to make up his mind quickly if the Rockets hope to fully utilize their assets this summer. If Landry and his agent play hardball, it could really tie the Rockets' hands and render the franchise unable to make any major moves for fear of either not being able to re-sign Landry (if they use their MLE on another player) or having to pay additional luxury tax (making moves without knowing how much Landry will count against the cap/tax). Carl, that LLE can buy a lot of really nice bridges for those gaping holes in your mouth! Get it done!!!
Does Landry really have that much leverage? Bottom line is that the most teams can offer is the MLE and the Rockets can match, so is he really going to get any actual offers? Most teams won't waste time with it if they think they have no chance to sign a player. If teams truely believe that the Rockets will match any offer, then why bother? Unless they just have some desire to bump Landry's salary, what's the point of going after a guy that you know that you won't get? The LLE money is pretty close to fair value and Landry avoids the appearance of holding his team hostage and preventing them from adding talent just to make a few extra bucks for himself.
I looked up Amir Johnson's contract and he signed a 3-yr 11-mill deal this past offseason. The Spurs reportedly offered him more money, but he took a paycut to stay with Detroit. Ideally Landry woudl take the 2-yr 4-mill LLE contract, but I believe he's worth more than that. His agent probably does too ... this all depends on how Landry & Morey play it. I will be interested in seeing how Morey handles this and if he is able to get the deal done.
I really hope Landry accepts the full LLE as a contract and put his team first in a good position to utilise the full MLE. Landry has already indicated that he loves Houston and its home to him and he'd love to stay. I was wondering, would teams sign him to offer sheets knowing they will get their offers matched just to screw up our MLE? (in that case someone could have signed darius miles and forced portland to keep him for more years...) Is it possbile to like combine the LLE and MLE into one so like we can sign Landry to 3mil and still have 5 mil to spend on another player?
I think DD's point was that if another team wanted to thwart our attempt at signing a free agent that they also coveted they could do that by making an offer to Landry. Example let's say the Rockets wanted to sign Maggete to the full MLE and so did SA. But Maggete was leaning towards Houston provided he could get the full MLE. So SA made an offer for some amount over the LLE to Landry. We would have to use part of our MLE to match that offer and keep Landry. Hence no money for Maggete and no Maggete.
How do you figure that? Let me set up the scenario I was talking about. Say both the Rockets and the Pacers are after Pietrus. Both the Rockets and the Pacers have offered the full MLE........and Pietrus is up in the air about which one to take. Hypothetically, The Pacers could also offer Landry a 3 million a year contract and we would be forced to match, thus eating into our MLE money and stopping us from being able to match the full MLE offer for Pietrus. That is exactly what I was talking about. Teams can manipulate us as long as Landry is out there unsigned. DD
No no no, you are missing the point, if a team is competing with us for Maggette for instance, and they are under the cap, they could offer Landry 3 million a year, which we would match and it would eat into our MLE money thus stopping us from getting Magette.... Yes, but if an offer sheet is signed, we have a fixed amount of time to match it....forcing our hand, which was my point. Yes agreed, the key will be signing Landry soon, but if you were Landry, would you do that, or would you shop around? Landry essentially could stop us from being a player in the Free Agent market by delaying his signing, thus tying up our MLE, LLE and basically everything until his issue is resolved. DD
