My point was that if he wanted to be a Rocket he could make it happen even if he was unrestricted. Obviously if the Rockets were going to lowball him then he shouldn't do them a favor. I wasn't talking about a 50% discount, but if a team gave him an offer sheet of $12 mil he could go back to the Rockets and say I'll stay for $10 mil. Obviously he could also just say match the offer and I'll stay. You only lose him if he signs the offer sheet from the other team. Now as a RFA we can match offers, but we could be in a bind if we haven't signed other players yet or if the only offer he gets is much higher than we wanted to pay him.
I see your point but in this scenario Parsons is less inclined to take a discount to play here. Whereas this year he could've made pennies on the dollar instead of the favor that Morey is cutting him. It's a "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" deal right now because Parsons is getting paid early. AFter next year when he's UFA, Parsons wouldn't really have any favors to pay back.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Gordon Hayward has agreed to an offer sheet with the Charlotte Hornets, the Observer has learned.</p>— Rick Bonnell (@rick_bonnell) <a href="https://twitter.com/rick_bonnell/statuses/486729927933165568">July 9, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Big news cause takes Hayward off market so all teams that were focused on Hayward may focus on Parsons now and Parsons is expected to get an offer in the same range as Hayward
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Charlotte has agreed to a 4-year, $63M maximum offer sheet with Utah RFA Gordon Hayward, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.</p>— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/WojYahooNBA/statuses/486736670599806976">July 9, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Looks like we already have our third max contract, holy over paid.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Charlotte has agreed to a 4-year, $63M maximum offer sheet with Utah RFA Gordon Hayward, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.</p>— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/WojYahooNBA/statuses/486736670599806976">July 9, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> welp, bad news for parson's contract...
