[Slam] Interview with Daryl Morey

Great read... thanks for posting!

 

Well at least we have a plan. And DM is not a heartless GM, making life changing situations for players, like trading them is a tough decision. Being a GM is no cake walk. Lot's of stress this job does carry.

 

Thanks for the find, been wanting to hear something out of Morey esp as we get closer to this deadline.

 

Sorry no plan! Just the roll of the dice!!

 

"DM: Yeah, the money that’s coming off with McGrady, if we don’t trade him, is money we’re authorized to spend by Mr. [Les] Alexander. The salary cap will make it hard to spend directly so a trade or a sign-and-trade will probably be the best way for it to happen."

I think this is the most likely option for a major roster move. The Rockets let McGrady expire and get $7M or so under the cap and then use that extra cap space to trade for a higher priced player.

For example (purely hypothetical ) if you were to do a sign and trade with Scola. Let's say you sign Scola to a contract starting off at $7M/season and traded him for a player making $14M. That's allowable from the Rockets perspective because they could cover the additional salary with available cap space. It's also legal from the other team's perspective because you are always allowed to take back less salary.

You can do that same type deal in pretty much any trade scenario. The amount you could take back in salary would be the sum of the outgoing salary and the amount of cap space we had. That would seem to make it much easier to acquire a high priced player rather than doing a straight FA signing.

 

That makes it seem like Les is prepared to pay luxury tax next season, which would greatly open our options this summer for a sign-and-trade.

That makes me think a trade with the Knicks (and maybe a third team) is the only real possibility. They are the only team putting any value on Mcgrady- we take some of their expiring contracts and hopefully get a pick out of it, or find another Kyle Lowry buried on someone's bench that we can include as a third team. Then go after a sign-and-trade hard this summer.