Houston has only around 30 million committed in salaries for next year and there will be no big-time unrestricted free agents now that Dwight has committed. All this team needs is some star power to elevate into top 4 in the West and contender status. I'm assuming Morey is aiming to throw mad cash stacks at RFA's like Eric Gordon, Nicolas Batum, Ryan Anderson and Roy Hibbert. Do you think we have a shot at any of these ballers? Side discussion: Just remembered, Jeremy Lin will be an UFA, do you think Morey will try to pay him? Some other interesting smalltime UFA options are Carl Landry, Tim Duncan, Ivan Johnson, Greg Oden and Omer Asik.
Asik, Batum, Gordon (depending on the medical evaluation of his knees), Dragic, Ersan Ilyasova. These players are all worth going after.
We don't need any big time FAs. We need just a few more band-aids. If we get those, we're on our way!!!
There is such a thing as trading. Just got to hope somebody is looking to unload a good player on a contract which does not seem desirable. That is how the Grizzlies got Zach Randolph for free. Cap space is flexibility. It doesn't mean you have to sign an FA.
Lin is restricted and the max anybody can offer him is MLE. Knicks will match anything thrown his way.
Rockets will probably just try to re-sign Lee & Dragic and then go from there. (Trade old assets for new assets )
Morey has already gone on record as saying this is a sellers market. To many teams under the cap and only DWill worth Max money. Akot of players will get overpaid and with Snt under the new CBA not benefiting the player many will just sign outright with the team of their choice. Which is why I could not understand Morey not trading Dragic. Either he is all in for winning now at the cost of losing him or he plans on trading Lowrt during the off season or he has some plan to keep him by promising him the starters job. Who knows.
I think we will resign one of Dragic/Lee (preferably Dragic), bring BOTH Llull and Motiejunis over, and go heavy after Asik. Assuming we drop Dalembert and Lee, that gives us a cap of ~$32-35M, depending on Fisher. Assuming the following deals... Dragic - $4-5M Llull - $4-5M Motiejunis - - $3M Asik - $7M That gets us pretty close to the cap. Lowry/Dragic Martin/Llull Parsons/Budinger/Morris Scola/Motiejunis Asik/Patterson
Isn't Deron Williams supposed to use his ETO? Gerald Wallace also has a player option, which could potentially put him in that mix.
Donuts' max, ie 120% of rookie scale for the 20th pick, is $1,361,400. Asik falls under the Gilbert Arenas rule. His max is the MLE which is frozen at 5M for the next three years.
I doubt they resign Dragic because it would hurt Les too much to pay 3.4 million to Fisher for being a 3rd string pg.
