woods and harris are both signed for next season on non-guaranteed contracts. the rockets can cut them without owing anything. they can also be used in trade as ending contracts OR essentially a TE if their new team wishes to cut them and thus clear their money from the books.
Hayesfan- When u make trades, ur either trying to create competition and or replace someone. I'm just going by what the gm said. He said Reed was a target and not just a throw in. Of course James was the main piece, but gm's haggle over throw in guys all the time. So lets analyze it. They wanted to upgrade the Hayes spot. I hope we're clear about that one. I know this because they trade for a 2 players and draft another at his position. Once u make that commitment, u have to go through with it. So I'm saying once they got reed,traded for the best 4 overseas and give up cash for a 2 nd rd pick, Hayes should have been gone. Its not different than the bonzi deal. Deal number 2. The rox wanted to be a better combo and pg than rafer and head. How do I know this? Trade for James, a combo,sign Francis, another combo and draft Brooks. So now head is expendable. As a coach, other than tracy,yao and battier,he probably didn't know much about the other guys, so he played it safe. That's why Hayes went from starting to not playing. That why Head had moments when he didn't play. So now I ask you, does the expirings
I'm sure if July or August presents itself, the Rockets will jump on it. I'm sure Morey isn't married to the "wait til February" plan.
I think waiting till february is really asking for trouble. I would rather deal asap so the team can use the preseason to gel like boston. If u wait and the team is struggling like last yr, it might be too late. I've said it before, if the rox go 15-7 which playing .680 ball, the team is in the lotto. As scary as that is, factor in portland and a healthy kings, we're talking trouble.
They wanted to upgrade at point guard too. The thing is, once you get the players in there that you think are going to be good... you don't immediately drop them. Especially in this case when you are doing it preseason where you can evaluate the players. So the fact that they did that, evaluated and saw that Chuck and Rafer needed to stick they did what they had to do. The same thing with Head. Don't you think if Snyder could have outplayed him for PT he would have. For that matter... if Francis or James could have they would have too. You are jumping in a time machine and saying what the Rockets should have done after the fact. I am sure that if Reed and Butler were effective in the preseason we would have lost Chuck or possibly Landry. But obviously we know two things... they were outplayed and we are stuck with their contracts as deadwood. They were trying to piecemeal the bench together after Francis was hurt. That is why we traded for Green and got rid of Snyder (we knew he didn't fit). We also knew that Bonzi was too much of a defensive liability and James was garbage. So we traded for someone to replace Aaron temporarily in Jackson. Saying that dropping Head and Hayes before all of that started would have made the bench even more depleted than it already was. There is no way you can say that was the wrong decision. At that point they didn't know if Francis or James was going to work out, nor did they know if Landry was going to be any good.
Woah, wait a minute, this was not meant as a BASH last year's deals thread. It was more about this is the situation we are in, type of thread. Nike, I agree...the only other alternative would have been getting rid of Snyder before the season....when you knew he was not in the rotation, but it being Adelman's first year, he probably wanted to keep him around to give some more evaluation time. I don't mind that they did what they did....it just sucks that we are still paying Matt Maloney type of money to players that have ZERO value to the team going forward. I understand Butler was the poison pill for Scola, and Reed was our target....pre Scola, so that is ok........ Just commenting on how it sort of sucks to have the deadwood around. And whomever said it was a cheap shot at Francis, it was not intentional, I just think the guy is completely done as an NBA player......I hope I am wrong but whenever I hear Bullard talking about a quad injury and how hard it is to come back from, it makes me think he is through. I hope that is not the case..... DD
the francis thing was stupid... he won't do squat next year and looks like he doesn't even care about playing anymre
Gave Sura a shot to come back from back surgery. Francis is a guy you just give the guy a chance to see what he can bring. Lots of guys come back from this type of surgery.
you have to spend the money to get better. When you create these bad contacts it actually helps you in the long run. When you have these kinds of contracts you can make big midseason deals. There was absolutely nothing wrong with what Morey did. What are you going to do with those contracts off the books. You would still only be able to use your MLE in the offseason so that money is only hurting Les.
I hope you're right, but some things DM the GM has said leave me suspecting it'll be quiet at the Toy Shop for a few months (relating to major moves). This is a good team, but not one built for a long play-off run IMHO which I hope is w-r-o-n-g.
I read the same things... my takes is that DM isn't insisting on staying put... just don't want to make desperate stupid moves in August for the sake of making a splash. All depends on what's out there. I wouldn't be too upset about things being quiet if there really isn't a deal to be had to help the team.
Maybe I'm confused, but are you saying that a 56 win team (.680) is going to be in the lottery, when 57 wins was 1st place in the most competitive Western Conference race in history? Interesting take...
We don't want a dumb trade - duh - but this team, tho good, is not a championship contender IMHO and one I hope is an absolutely wrong assessment.
DD -- I know it wasn't your intent. If anything, we should be giving credit to Les for being willing to make moves like V-Mac for Scola + Butler, when he could have just as easily taken the V-Mac money and run (like the Spurs did). In the time machine, if you get rid of Snyder, then you're cutting a contract expiring this past season. Basic economics says a contract expiring sooner is more valuable than one expiring later. Add to it that Snyder's a much more talented player (see: Snyder still playing in the NBA, Butler/Reed not so much), and that decision is pretty sound. Reed was not the target. Mike James was. We traded away Juwan Howard, a guy who lost minutes to Chuck Hayes, for a guy a year removed from a 20 ppg season, and who most favored as our starting point guard. Reed was just as much a poison pill as Butler was. We thought so much of Reed that we subsequently traded for Scola, drafted Landry, resigned Hayes, and brought Mike Harris to camp. Regardless of any rhetoric (which at the time was mild at best), Reed was the cost to upgrade our PG position. If Mike James had played like Scola did, it would've been well worth it. 1. If you seriously think we targeted Reed, this isn't a conversation worth having. 2. If you think we should have gone into the season with Scola, Landry, and Reed as our power forwards, two unknown commodities including one still recovering from an ACL injury and a guy who averaged less than 3 ppg in 3 out of 4 years in his career, this isn't a conversation worth having. 3. The Rockets abandoned the Head as a point guard experiment last year. He was coming off an effective year off the bench as a 2, and was the best shooter on the team with any experience. If you think having Butler or Reed on the roster would have been better than that, this isn't a conversation worth having. 4. If you can't come up with a situation that doesn't involve giving up Head and Hayes for nothing for the sake of not having to cut Butler and Reed, this isn't a conversation worth having. That's all I'm saying.
Once Bonzi was in the mix, which he was and james,francis, and brooks entered, heads usefullness was gone. DD brought up deadwood which are contracts the rox are paying for. So head was setup to have his minutes cut out, but he's holding a roster spot. If the expirings are as valuable as we think, u shuffle the roster to keep the money for future us. That why eventhough he was playing, ratliff was still on payroll. Now the rox didn't have a big contract like ratliff, but butlers 2.5m, reed 1.5m, along with francis 2.6, and Jackson 6m gives u 12-13m in expirings which gives the rox the chance to get a 15m player. That's all I'm saying.
Head is an expiring contract right now too. Keeping Head and Hayes over Butler and Reed gives us 2m less in expiring contracts, and the Rockets could nearly throw in enough cash to cover the life of Hayes' contract. You would sacrifice the talent level of Hayes and Head, while neither of whom are starters have both played significant roles on winning teams, for a marginal $2 million in expiring contracts. Further, coming off seasons where Hayes was the starting PF and Head averaged 11 a game off the bench, you would do so because you would be willing to go into the season with the PF slot stocked with European rookie, a 2nd round pick coming off ACL surgery, and aforementioned Justin Reed at the 4 spot, in addition to releasing Head in favor of a mercurial 2/3 who was 40-60 pounds over playing weight just a year before. All for an extra $2 million in expiring contracts. That's beyond silly. You can take issue with Morey over the Rudy Gay decision, and we can debate if it was right or not, or if he was even behind it to begin with. But criticizing Morey for not cutting Hayes and Head and missing out on an extra $2 mill in expiring contracts that would have been useful 12-18 months down the road is just ludicrous. If that's your stance, you should be praising Morey to no end for the Snyder trade. By trading Snyder for Gerald Green, who fit into one of our prior trade exceptions, we are now able to recycle the value of Snyder's $2m expiring deal for another year!
By the way, if the Rockets really want $2 million in extra expiring contracts. All they gotta do is sign a guy with their bi-annual lower level exception to a 1-year deal. They can also sign veteran minimum deals to make the math add up. Pick 25 won't be expiring, but one would presume that's an attractive salary to have if another team likes the player. It's not that difficult. I think, in fact, if Harris and Loren Woods stay around, their contracts are expiring, too... and there's Mutombo also (if you want him back, you can always Brent Barry him). There is nothing that requires Reed or Butler's contract that you can't just generate.
I got a call from the Rockets today that wanted to clarify two things that were on the board, and I can see they are clearly referring to this thread. 1) Jackie Butler is completely off the books Don't shoot the messenger ... I know Butler signed a 3-year deal in '06, but I'm told that definitively, that his contract is off the Rockets books. Maybe Year 3 was a player/team option that was agreed to be waived in a buyout? Don't know -- I didn't dig any deeper because I didn't know what it was in reference to, but I was told he is off the books (and I can't believe anyone would even THINK about complaining about having had to take on Butler's salary). 2) Loren Woods and Mike Harris are non-guaranteed deals. There is no money on them unless they make the team.
