Everybody keeps harping on the Rockets' "horrible" cap situation, and how they'll never win anything because they've made so many bad decisions by handing out all these huge contracts. Let's look at some moves made so far this off-season: Orlando signs Juwan Howard New Jersey signs Alonzo Mourning Minnesota signs Michael Olowokandi Los Angeles Lakers sign Karl Malone and Gary Payton Cleveland signs Kevin Ollie Chicago signs Scottie Pippen Golden State signs Speedy Claxton. Atlanta acquires Terrell Brandon from Minnesota; Minnesota acquires Latrell Sprewell from New York; the Knicks acquire Keith Van Horn from Philadelphia; and Philadelphia acquires Marc Jackson from Minnesota and Glenn Robinson from Atlanta. Indiana re-signs Brad Miller and trades him to Sacramento while acquiring Scot Pollard from the Kings; the Spurs acquire Hedo Turkoglu from Sacramento and Ron Mercer from Indiana. All of these moves were made (or could have been made) without cap space. The vast majority of activity this off-season has come from teams that do NOT have cap space. In fact only a few teams in the league have any cap space to play with this off-season. The Rockets haven't made any moves yet, but it has nothing to do with deals they've made in the past. They wouldn't have needed cap space to sign most of the guys mentioned above. Get off CD's back. It's not lack of cap space that's preventing the Rockets from making moves. If it's all about the luxury tax, the blame lies at the feet of the yankee who got rid of the classic championship uniforms and fired 2 of the 3 greatest Rockets of all-time.
all hope is not lost.... No word yet on whether the Rockets will match the Grizzlies' offer sheet to James Posey. Insider first reported on Wednesday that the offer sheet was for four years, $24 million. That may be too rich for the Rockets' blood. The Rockets' payroll is already dangerously close to the luxury tax. Giving Posey that deal would push them over the edge. "We have to look at all the options," GM Carroll Dawson told the Houston Chronicle. "We have two weeks. We'll have to see. We have time." we can still get posey and according to the outrage of losing him on the rest of this board, hes all we need I will say it again a lineup of francis/ mooch mobley/hawkins posey/rice/nachbar griffen/taylor yao/cato is good enough to contend IF and thats a huge mother IF, yao and griff get their potential and francis and mobley get their head straight, and nachbar needs to study peja's every move. IF that happens, then in a year or two with no major moves, our team should contend. we made the only move we needed, a change in philosophy!
I got a lot of questions. If the Rockets match Posey's offer and go over the salary cap, wouldnt it only be for a year? Rice's contract is up after this season. Wouldnt that put them back under the cap? Plus isnt Les supposed to be gettin paid from that deal with Toyota? I dont know if that would help him with the salary cap though.
The expiration of Rice's contract will go towards Steve's new contract. In short, the Rox will teeter around the luxury threshold for atleast of a couple more years and we may not see any huge movements for a couple of years.
There are 2 reasons teams do not want to get into the luxury tax. 1. Of course, teams have to pay taxes on contract over the luxury tax threshold. 2. LT Teams do not get the tax money distributed to non-LT teams. The 2nd reason is more important than the 1st one.
Cap space may be overrated, but luxury tax fears are not. The combination of cap space and luxury tax relief sure helped the Spurs. Spurs had cap space. Indiana needed luxury tax relief. Spurs get Mercer and Hedo. Indiana gets Ferry and tax relief. To relate to the Rockets, I agree cap space is not much of a problem, but the luxury tax is. The issue with the Rockets signing Posey is not cap space but luxury tax. The lessons I think we should learn. 1. Sign players for reasonable dollars 2. Do not sign bench players to long term deals (ie. over 3 years)
