Hostage for what? Unless you haven't noticed so far the Bulls offseason is : sitting around and doing nothing. If they wanted to sign someone they would have already. You think they care about the 2 days they will have some of their capspace "hostage" ? They already have wasted 5 days. If they lose Lavine they will have noone else to sign. They don't like Nwaba.
What I mean is that if a team threw an offer sheet at Capela, all they would be doing is making it to where they wouldn't be able to use that cap space until the Rockets decided to match. There's no scenario where the Rockets don't match and they actually get Capela. Since the Rockets only have the MLE and league minimum deals to offer, there's no incentive for them to hurry to match any offer sheet. Also, you don't know that they haven't just struck out with everyone they've gone after thus far. Their inability to do anything thus far isn't a reason why they'd want to tie up cap space for a week only to still get nothing.
would the Bulls be wise (are they ever???) to 'trade' ZL for CC (particularly as the overwhelming probability is CC is matched)?
No argument, ok one niggling diversion from the above, Melo being stretched means Melo is free means Melo is more likely, perhaps way more likely, to opt for Hol-lee-woood than H-Town. Do you see that differently? If so, why...how?
Sure ..they could check anyway. If Rockets match they got nothing to lose anyway. At worst they could make them pay. Like Portland did to OKC. I know that they haven't just struck out because they haven't met any FA and their FO isn't exactly what one could call a tight ship.
I don't think so. They prefer to sign Lavine but if the Kings are crazy and pay him 19 mil per maybe they will let him go. They aren't that happy with him and he comes from ACL and this year he sucked. In the end it's not like the Bulls FO to have a long sighted plan for the future like that.
He's hard balling Miami but we wants to stay there. It will take us giving him more money than Miami and I doubt we can do that with the MLE.
I very much see that differently. Melo has no path to being the starter in LA and he'd be on a team with no chance to do anything. In Houston he's almost certainly the starter due to Ariza taking the money in Phoenix and he's on either the best or the 2nd best team in the NBA. He already did the "I don't care about winning, I just want to hang out in a big market" thing and he wasted most of his career that way, I think at this point in his career he wants a chance to win. At this point I don't think there's any team left that has max cap space for Capela so no matter what the Rockets get to have him back for cheaper than what could have happened and any team that offers Capela all of the rest of their cap space will be stuck with no cap space to offer for anyone else for a week while other FA's come off the board.
I know the overall sense from Houston fan base is panic and disappointment but let things play out a little. Clint is more than likely to end up a Rocket (by a long shot) on a better deal than originally projected (unless if he takes the QO and risks us losing him for nothing next offseason, Luc is still an option (if you don’t have short term memory- a very underrated option) and we have one of the hardest working, more intelligent general managers in he league
Fair enough, 3 days, either way the point is still the same. It derails what you are able to do during that time. Now if a team was going to max out Capela, there's still a reason to do so in order to force the Rockets to match but no team even has that much cap space anymore.
It's not even gonna matter because the teams with cap space to offer Capela a sheet worth signing aren't even contending teams. To do the BS Dallas did you have to have the space to begin with. This will come down to a contract offer by Morey for say $40 mil for 3 years front loaded or the QO.
Honestly if a team gives Capela an offer sheet, they'll be doing the Rockets a favor because it takes the chance that he takes the QO off the table and locks him up long term.
