When will the Rockets have some cap room to actively pursue a major name during the free agency signing period in the offseason? Who will be available when we have this cap space? Anybody know?
When Francis and Yao retire. Seriously, I think we are really aways off from having enough cap room to sign a major free agent.
Yeah but why? Yao's contract isn't very big right now and the Spurs had enough cap room to resign Duncan and pursue Kidd. Why don't we ever have cap space like that?
HMMMMMMM... maybe when we get rid of stupid contracts like kelvin cato, MoT, moochie.... thats when we will get some free cap space.. although when it comes to giving a contract extension to Yao, and trying to keep cat in the team (if the rox intend to) we will be tight for a big while...... so yeah thats pretty much it... we already have our main guys we just need role players..... so its cool
Yao 4.5 Francis 13 Rice 9 Cato 7 Mo 8 Moochie 4 Griffin + Piatkowski 3 Griffin 2 Nachbar 1 Mobley 5 And some players unknown now...... Last year...our bench made more than our starters. I think.... Rice's contract expires this year so that's good. Mo Taylor is a good backup but should be traded to anyone for an expiring contract if possible. Moochie should be packaged away if any trades come....Cato can be traded for an expiring contract. Yeah...but if we don't move them....then it will be about 4 years before we have any cap space. And maybe not because Griffin and Nachbar might demand a lot of money and Yao will be asking for the max......so we're screwed!!
The Wolves acquired Sprewell and Cassell, without caproom. The Lakers acquired Malone and Payton, without caproom. The Kings acquired Brad Miller, without caproom. New Jersey got Alonzo Mourning, without caproom. Why do the Rockets need caproom again?
Answers: 1. Thats becuz the wolves made the trade work becuz they matched salary for salary... like persay sprewell makes 14.. just an example... well minesota send terell 11 and marc jackson 3. to work the deal... but also other teams were involved that made the deal work 2. They used their MLE and the veteran exception to sign both... 3. Sign and Trade... 4. MLE 5. Becuz we are over the limit.. 43.(blank).. we are just paying luxury taxes now. and we used half of our MLE to sign piatkowski
I believe the point TheFreak was trying to make was that caproom is really overrated as a method to improve you're team. I would go as far as to state that only the Los Angeles Lakers, when they dumped salary to sign O'Neal have become significantly better than if they had not dumped that salary and gone with their team as is.
here's a look at the future for the Rockets: for the 2003-2004 season, the Rockets already have 54.8 mil committed for 11 players for the 2004-2005 season, the Rockets already have 43.8 mil committed for 9 players, and will likely take the team option to keep Eddie at 2.9 mil, bringing the salary hit to 46.7 mil for 10 players for 2004-2005 for the 2005-2006 season, the Rockets already have 42.8 mil committed for 6 players in Francis, Taylor, Cato, Yao*, Norris and Piatkowski. If Cat exercises his option, we are up to 49.1 mil, and if Eddie is kept at the qualifying offer, up to 53.0 mil the 2006-2007 season is the first opportunity for cap relief, and Yao will be due another 7 mil that year, so that has to be factored into the plan. We will have about 35 million tied up in three players: Francis, Yao, and Taylor, so even then, not much room to make any moves. in summary: cap room is not going to help this team, improving the value of the long term contracts will, particularly Mo Taylor's, which can't be moved until he has reclaimed his prior form. *Yao is included because the Rockets certainly pick up his 4th year option.
Let's not forget Kobe Bryant. If we send Mo Taylor and Kelvin Cato to Miami for Brian Grant, does that improve our cap situation or make it worse? It depends on what's the pay rise % on each contract right, does anyone have that information?
IMO, it's worse. Cato's contract ends one year sooner than Grant's. Plus, think about what your asking. How can a difference of 2.5% make that much impact if the contracts were within 100k to start? On equal starting payrolls of $42m, team A has 12 players at 12.5% and team B has 12 players at 10.0%. The following year, Team A's payroll is $47.3m and Team B's is $46.2m...a difference of about a $1.1m. Anyway, Cato and Taylor will be about $3m cheaper in year 3...Cato's last contracted year. The % rise may important to duck the LTax, but it's not significant for cap space. Nowhere near as important as contract length.
