If nothing else comes up, we should keep Sura in order to use his contract around the mid-season trading deadline, when teams are often willing to exchange decent talent for expiring contracts in order to help their cap room for the following off-season. No telling what we might need to pick up at that point to compensate for injuries or bolster weak positions.
probably won't be a medical retirement. more likely, you are correct that bob and the rockets have agreed on a buy-out which will take his $3.8M off the books. that money will move the rockets down closer to the $57M mark and far from the LT line. that will allow the team to use most of the MLE on scola (maybe $4M?) and re-sign hayes ($2M?) and deke ($1M vet min). about $7M to be added to the books would put the rockets around $64-$65M. once again closing in on the LT. i think after signing those guys the rockets will release lucas and leave newly overseas. a roster like this will probably be there on opening day: yao-deke-butler scola-hayes-landry shane-bonzi-novak tmac-head-snyder james-rafer-brooks
The Rockets don't need to agree to buyout with Sura. His contract is only partially guaranteed for $1,000,000 this season. They can simply waive him (and his $3.8M salary) and only have to pay him $1M. Same thing (to a lesser extent) with JLIII, who the Rockets can waive (and his $770k salary) for $500k. Also, what do the Rockets do with Justin Reed? He's got a player option for 2008-09, meaning that it would be very costly for the Rockets to waive him this summer. Another trade needs to happen to round out the roster. As a side note, I would not mind if the Rockets traded for an overpriced rotation player to come off the bench, as long as the player had a short contract. I'd rather "overpay" a legit 7th or 8th man $6M for one or two years than to pay three players a combined $6M to sit at the end of the bench. Just my two cents.
CD said over a year ago that the Rockets are already qualified for that medical retirement thing. So Rockets can buyout Sura for $1 million but it won't count towards the cap.
i forgot about reed. i actually think he will stick on the roster. there was a reason morey had him added into the deal. i think he replaces snyder as the athletic potential at the end of the bench player. snyde ris in his last year of his deal and may just get released r packaged in a trade with head.
I have a hard time believing that the Rockets would waive Kirk Snyder. He is simply too talented. I have to think he'll either be traded or will at least be a fringe rotation player on this team. Getting back on point, though, did Sura officially retire? I've got to think that the Rockets want to stretch that out a little further.
He hasn't yet, but after the Scola+Butler trade Rockets would benefit more if he did than using him as a trade asset. If Sura retires, Rockets are around 7.5M under LT. That's 7.5M to fit Scola, Hayes, Deke, and Landry.
