That probably won't work with Yao, either. In order to be signed-and-traded, a player must sign a three-year deal. However, only the first year needs to be guaranteed. The problem with this scenario is that there is NO FREAKIN' WAY that Yao agrees to commit to a three-year deal where only the first year is guaranteed. It is essentially an invitation to be traded at least twice and/or waived after one year. Why would he put himself through that? Sure, he may get some money on the front end; but he'd knowingly be making the next 12 months of his life pretty miserable. Money aside, go ask Erick Dampier how much he enjoyed his summer last year while waiting to see where he may be traded and then immediately waived, all the while being unable to explore options available to FREE agents.
There's always a possibility that if we lowball Yao with just a minimum salary offer, he could opt to take the minimum salary from a contender instead and chase a championship ring... I'm sure someone like Miami or Chicago would love to have him if the price is just the minimum salary...
The biggest difference is, those other teams couldn't then give Yao up to the max salary in 2012. The Rockets could, at least under the current CBA rules. Morey would be stupid not to at least approach Yao with this idea, framing it in the context of it being the best way to build a championship roster. Yao is not so sensitive that he'd shut down talks on the spot if that were raised. He'd most likely respectfully decline to take the minimum and continue negotiating for a higher salary.
Why are we still dreaming the Yao Ming dream? I think we're way overdue to move on. Yao is a nice guy & all, but since Adelman wasn't retained it looks like we're committed to rebuilding and Yao doesn't fit anymore.
I understand that. I'm talking about in the event he decided to retire and not play. Could we use him like Dallas used Van Horn a couple years back to acquire Butler or Marion, one of them they got by signing Van Horn and then Van Horn agreed to a buyout after he was traded. The reason I'm asking is for us to be able to trade for Chris Paul or Dwight Howard, we're going to have to be able to take on contracts, either Okafor with Paul, or one of those monster deals in Orlando. We need large expirings to do this without totally depleting our rosters and having essentially a bunch of minimum salary guys around whoever we bring in. Yao's contract, as an expiring this past season, was valuable in that way, but we didn't move him. He either comes back and is productive or he retires. If he retires, I'm wondering if we could still use him to help in a trade by signing him to, say, the three year minimum deal, with him agreeing to a buyout ahead of time.
You know, there's always the alternative that he comes back and isn't all that productive. To disregard that possibility is pretty foolish. (But I get what you're saying.) First of all, what you are specifically referring to is illegal. Yao can't agree to a buyout before he even signs his contract. That is a sham. When the Mavs signed-and-traded Keith Van Horn (to get Jason Kidd), the league actually watched closely to make sure that Van Horn's involvement was not a complete sham (the key word being "complete", since everyone knew it was MOSTLY a sham). Van Horn had to show up to the Nets, take a physical and actually be a part of the team. More importantly, as I stated before, Yao is not willingly going to be a part of this charade. He's earnestly trying to come back from another major injury, and he's going to want to sign a contract to play for the team with whom he signs (unless it's a legit sign-and-trade done as a favor to Yao). I admire your creativity, jopatmc, but I think you're swinging at windmills at this point.
The difference between a Dampier and a Yao is the 'money aside'. One can't think of money aside, one can put money aside to think of his welfare. One is an athlete-mercenary one is an athlete-man.
IMHO there will not be a traditional 'negotiation' with Yao. There will be a conversation resulting in a respectful decision reached by both the team and Team Yao.
Yeah, I know. I suspect Morey is going to offer him a 3-year deal at the MLE or slightly above it with salary decreases in the 2nd and 3rd year and a mutual opt out after one year. It will almost certainly have some sort of opt out or buy out in the 3rd year, similar to how Miller's deal is structured. If we offer him MLE money in the first year, I don't see another team being willing to commit that much money to him. Even though he is "good for business", if he's not on the court for major minutes or not a part of the primary rotation of the team, it's not going to be the same as his marketing impact in Houston. The Asian fan base isn't going to show up to games or watch them on TV to watch Yao ride the pine on another NBA team that they haven't been following. They've been following the Rockets for years. There is some intrinsic value there. They would follow the Rox just to catch a glimpse of Yao sitting on the bench and hoping he gets on the floor and rooting for the Rockets to get a championship. I don't see that happening anywhere else, even in Golden State. I'm just hoping he signs a favorable contract that helps us build a contender. I think it would be great if we could somehow front-load the deal and have him at a relatively meager salary and he give us 75% of what he once was. That would be a bargain. Yao, at 75% is better than 90% of the centers in the NBA. The whole idea of renouncing Hayes and Yao is not even worth considering. Hayes is a top 10 defender in the NBA. He has tremendous value, especially for the money we've been paying him. If we get him at the MLE, he's still a bargain. Brad Miller and Thabeet are essentially expiring contracts for 2012 since Miller has a relatively low buyout for 2013. Those contracts along with Scola and some of our young guys are trade assets to upgrade. We're NOT going to be able to get under the cap enough to get a center away from anybody else that is going to upgrade us enough since we would be losing Hayes and the opportunity to evaluate Yao to do so. It makes no sense.
