Forbes: Parsons' relentless recruitment game changer for Dwight Howard's arrival in Houston

What many don't seem to get is the "Morey approach" to salaries changes completely with the foundation pieces (Harden, Howard) in place. He's said it himself plenty of times. The Morey playbook from the past three seasons... you can basically throw it out.

It is extremely unlikely, if not impossible, for the Rockets to have maximum cap room again in this era. Even in the summer of 2015, when Lin/Asik expire, Harden and Howard alone combine for $38 million. Then add in minimum cap holds, extensions if anyone else on the current roster pans out, etc., and you're not going to have max room. More than likely, the team will be operating above the salary cap, because they'll either extend Lin/Asik or extend whatever star they're able to package them for by trade.

What does this mean for Chandler? It means that unless Les Alexander goes cheap, which I doubt (and he has said he won't), there's no benefit to letting Chandler walk. If he has an $11 million/year offer somewhere else, it's not like we can take the savings and use it elsewhere. It's Chandler or nothing... and I don't see the Rockets letting a young asset walk for nothing.

In past years, Morey was hard-line in negotiations because he didn't have foundation pieces. Preserving max cap room was of the utmost importance because we lacked superstars, and if a deal potentially compromised that, it wasn't worth it. Now? What's of the utmost importance is putting the best team we can around James and Dwight, and letting Chandler walk for nothing doesn't do that.

My expectation is that the Rockets will decline Chandler's option on 2015 and let him go into restricted free agency next summer. Fegan won't like it, because it's tough for players to get peak offers when the market knows the original team will match. But that's the best strategy for the Rockets to lock up Chandler long-term on a reasonable deal.

 

Well said! That's the way I see it. It's very hard for me to imagine a realistic scenario where we move Chandler. Unless there's something out of left field, I think he's going to be a key member of the rotation for the next several seasons, and I'm cool with that. Now that Luis is gone, Parsons is my favorite Rocket. Besides, my significant other thinks he's cute. What's a guy to do? ;-)-

 

I'm glad Parsons did all of this stuff! He is one player I hope we never lose!

 

I was really worried that Chandler would be traded this offseason or next in a package to get a star player. Now that we signed Dwight outright, I hope we can hang onto him.

 

Someone will get moved someday, it is inevitable, but not Chandler Parsons.

 

Chandler views Lin as an asset

 

Or how about:

 

This is an extremely flawed view. Again, Morey wants assets. Assets are valuable. Morey wants cap flexibility, which is not the same thing as cap space. When you are re-signing everybody on your roster to big extensions, you are flushing your cap flexibility down the toilet and headed into luxury tax land.

Parsons' 2014-15 team option will get exercised and Houston will attempt to re-sign him to what they consider to be a team-friendly extension. Maybe something like three years, $21-$24 mil. Parsons likely can get more than that in free agency two summers from now, and likely turns Morey down. Morey then auctions Parsons off to the highest bidder, probably for a pretty high first round pick. Morey replaces him either internally, through the draft, or by signing or trading for an undervalued veteran.

My guess is that Parsons gets traded on draft day for a mid- to late-lottery pick, which may well be used to draft Parsons' replacement. Who will, of course, be younger and cheaper than Parsons. Whoever trades for Parsons will have the privilege of giving him a $40+ mil extension.

 

Parsons will only be traded, along with Lin/Asik if expectations next season isn't met. Why? To get that 3rd star. But if Rockets reaches WCF at the very least, Les won't mind going through luxury taxes (at least for 1 season) if that means competing for the ultimate ring the next year. Who wouldn't want a ring?

 

The Heat are paying the luxury tax and seem to be OK with it. Sure, they amnestied a broken-down Mike Miller because they might as well, but they're still over the line and you don't see them breaking up the team.

Can you define "cap flexibility" a bit more? Because with Harden and Howard making $38+ million, I have a hard time seeing the Rockets with much of it in this era. The only downside, as you said, is heading to luxury-tax land. But if your owner is willing to pay it, and Les has said he is, what is the big deal?

The only way moving Parsons makes sense is if Les tells Morey he has a limit and Morey is concerned with Chandler's deal exceeding it. If Les tells Morey he will pay the tax, as he seemingly has, there is no way that the trade return for Parsons would outweigh simply keeping Parsons (from a basketball perspective). It's not about "assets" anymore, in the usual Morey sense. It's about putting the best basketball team around Dwight and James that Daryl can in each given year.

That's probably not going to involve shipping Parsons out and replacing him with a late-lottery rookie.

 

Maybe you guys are right. I guess we'll see! My thinking is simple: a 20-year-old under team control (a rookie contract) for four years > Chandlers Parsons under team control for just one more year (2014-15) before hitting the jackpot (e.g., for years, $40+ mil) in free agency. The assumption is that the mid-lottery pick you get back for Parsons can be used to draft a player who provides comparable production.

Spurs fans were presumably initially disappointed when George Hill (also under team control for just one additional year) for the right to draft some kid named Kwahi Leonard. Do the Spurs regret that move? George Hill cashed in the following summer. Would you rather have George Hill at $8-$9 mil/year or Kwahi Leonard at $2-$3 mil/year?

That's what I mean by cap flexibility. Everybody on the roster is an asset. If you need to free up cap space for any reason, moving an asset is easily done. If you want to toss together 3-4 assets when a James Harden becomes available, you can easily do it. Parsons at any price is a good ballplayer but if he becomes expensive enough then he's not much of an asset.

 

Good discussion here.

I had forgotten that Morey has indeed, on multiple occasions, said that contract strategy changes once you have a contending core. We now have the best center in the league and arguably the best shooting guard in the league tied up. So supposedly, now we can go into "solidifying a champion" mode which is a different strategy of cap management.

What that means, in my opinion, is that Morey is not going to try to maximize cap space with 10 rookie contracts, and Les is willing to pay luxury tax to go for the ring. (Although looking at our roster now, it's two max guys, two dudes at 8 mil per year, and then a bunch of rookie contracts and vet minimum players.)

This makes sense, but you're using the word "asset" wrong in your last sentence. Once you overpay a player, that player is no longer an asset in the GM sense of the word. He will of course be an asset on the basketball court, but in every other sense not.

If Les is willing to go over cap and pay luxury, what difference does it make to us? Might as well keep a good player. That makes sense, except it is said with the assumption that all players will always be healthy and happy and never have internal conflicts and always re-sign with our team.

***** happens. Injuries happen, players retire early or leave, unexpected rifts develop between a player and coach or staff or GM. If anything bad should happen regarding our max guys, whether it's health or trade demand or whatever, then we're back from "solidifying the champion" mode back into build mode... except now we have Parsons at 11 mil/year. Not good.

So I can see why Les/Morey will go over cap to make a real champion, but I'm guessing Morey will never pay over market value for any player. He'll offer what he thinks is the real value but let them walk if they don't like it.

 

I'm also a little surprised at the number of people who think Chandler is untouchable or will be an all-star or a star. Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy with him, and he's just the kind of glue guy that's perfect to go into the starting lineup. Does everything well, shoot, defend, drive off the catch, pass, run the break and finish. But I'm not sure I understand the projections for a star. Wonderful glue guy, and he will get better- but I'm having doubts he'll get so much better he can command 10 mil/year in 2015.

 

I see the ability to move a contract pretty easily as cap flexibility. Lin doesn't fit that criteria. Asik does. Morey won't overpay for Parsons.

2 things can happen:

1. If we acquire a player like LMA before the deadline, Parsons will hit the market as a RFA next summer. Morey will match anything that isn't absurd. I say he gets a deal similar to Batum's. 12 per.

2. If we don't acquire a player like LMA, Parsons' option will be picked up. Morey will try again all next season to get said player. Morey will then sign Parsons next summer at 10-12 per.

Signing Parsons before we trade for the player takes us out of the running to acquire a player in 2015 outright. I hope Morey doesn't go that route. Trade for the player and his bird rights or wait until a third legit all-star is signed before signing Parsons.

 

Chandler Parsons

How did you foster a relationship (with Dwight)? Does this go back to HS and college?

I met him a couple of times before. I'm from Orlando. He played on the Magic so I had a relationship with him prior to that. Recently I fired my agent and hired Dan Fegan who also represents Dwight. I've been spending a lot of time in LA this summer and so I would be at a lot of dinners with Dwight and with him going through free agency, we would talk about that and really just hit it off out here this summer. Throughout that process, I was someone to make him feel more comfortable. We became good friends and that's just a plus on when you're deciding where you want to play. That's how it went.

What was your sense of what he didn't like about LA?

Well he wanted to win. Throughout the process, that's what he kept talking about - I want to win, I want to win rings, I want to win right now. I think he took a look at our team and when you add him to our core guys, that was his best chance to win immediately.

Did you dig into your Florida bag of tricks in terms of recruiting?

A little bit. Really I was just myself. Obviously there was multiple reasons why Dwight came to Houston. It's just my personality. I'm an outgoing guy, I reached out to him and my character & makeup is to bring people together and get along with people and that's what I did.

How does he fit with Omer? It was reported he wasn't fond of playing with Dwight. How do you think he fits with Omer?

Omer is a great player. He's a great guy too. It's hard to believe he's upset and demanding trades. I don't think that's true. I think, obviously Omer has proved himself. Last year he had a great year and he is a starting center in the NBA so I can see the frustration a little bit but if you look at Dwight in Orlando, Dwight had Gortat and I think this can be a very similar situation with having two of the top centers in the league could really pay off. We have a chance to go big if we needed to and having those guys compete every single day in practice, both of them will get better from it.

If McHale can give him one of his post moves and if Hakeem can give him another post move and then bring in Yao to work on his free throws, you take a little bit of all that, he becomes greatest center of all-time right?

(Laughing) The resources are there. For Dwight to be able to work with a skilled center like Kevin McHale every single day, he's going to learn from it and get better from being around him. Like you said, throw in Yao, throw in Ralph, throw in Dream, he's got so many big guys who have done it before that are gonna be on his side and can really help him get to the level he wants to get at.

There are some that think he is too silly, too goofy and you can't win if you aren't taking things seriously. Your perspective on his personality and if it translates into a true championship personality.

His personality has nothing to do with his work ethic. It's totally different and we're blessed to play basketball. We have fun with it. He has a big charismatic personality. He smiles all the time. He enjoys playing basketball. There is a problem if you're not doing that, not having fun. Dwight works extremely hard. He takes basketball very seriously. He wants to win. Just because he's smiling while he's doing it doesn't mean he's not taking it seriously, isn't working hard and can't win championships. That's far from the truth.

At Florida, you were a point-forward, played the one, the two, the three and the four. Does this mean your days of playing power forward are numbered?

No I don't think so. We have the versatility to go small and put Dwight at the five, me at the four, and spread the floors with shooters with James, Francisco and Omri. I'm more of a guard and a three than a four but I think our team is so versatile now we can give teams different looks, we can still run up and down the floor, we can play inside out, let Dwight go to work down low, pick and roll will still be the ???easiest/biggest??? part of our offense. With our roster changes, it gives us the versatility to show many different lineups.

You're working out with Team USA. Is there a different level of respect for you personally because you kinda blew up this year, especially in the playoffs?

Definitely my life has changed but I've known most of these guys for a long time, playing against them in college and the last two years in the league. They're great. I think this week is a huge opportunity for us, just to play against each other and learn from each other. We're definitely making each other better. Houston definitely made a lot of noise this summer with the Dwight thing. I think last year in the playoffs I kinda made a name for myself but that's done and over with and I'm trying to become the best player I can become and there's a huge opportunity this week for me to do that.

Harrison Barnes and Doug McDermott were high school teammates. You and Nick Calathes were high school teammates. You guys could take them, right?

(Laughing) I'd like to think so, yes.

When you were at Florida, how well did you know Aaron Hernandez?

I did know him pretty well. He was a cool kid. He hung out with, obviously he played football there, I played basketball so we had to go to a lot of the functions and he was big into basketball so him, Brandon Spikes, the Pouncey Twins, Riley Cooper, Tebow, these guys would always go to the rec. center and play basketball and pick-up at night. I got a chance to know him a little bit through that. That whole situation is sad and shocking. Obviously I don't know details on it but a crazy situation.

A lot of former Gators, like ball players and guys you know, been texting each other and reacting to this stuff?

A little bit, not too much. I try to stay away from the situation. It's a terrible thing and unfortunate. I haven't spoken to many of them about it.

Sources close to LeBron say he won't play in '14 or '16 at the Olympics. Your thoughts on leadership with Team USA basketball? Feels like the next guard is coming in with the Kobe and LeBron's having fulfilled their duties and there is some openings for new guys.

That's tough. Obviously he's one of the best players to play and in the game right now so we'd want him playing for our country. That's an opportunity for guys like me ... to try and prove themselves and get a spot on that roster.

You get credit for signing him right? You go by and tell Daryl, "Hey man, when my contract comes up, I should get an extra bonus bump in my deal because I signed Dwight Howard."?

I didn't say that exactly but he knows I had a big impact on it.

 

If i was relentlessly pursued by him like that I'd turn gay

 

Eyeing his prey.