Thanks for the correction, I can't believe I missed that (I was doing two things at once.) I did hear the tail end that there was a deadline (Fri?).
If the Rockets offer Gortat the full MLE they won't be able to offer Taylor or Budinger deals longer than 2 years or more than the min. Things could get tricky if Taylor looks for more money. So I'd guess they wouldn't offer that much. Gortat already has a shoe deal with Reebok, that's one chip down. The tax situation in Texas could trump NY. Then there's Cuban who has a rep for being very generous to his players...
Rockets need keep a full MLE for a backup center, I have been saying this for a while. Now we offered Gortat a MLE, and it would cost the Magic a minimum of $11.2 million in tax and salary the first season to match an offer. I do not think Magic will match the offer, the chance is high for getting Gortat.
I hope the first several emails he received were from China's shoe companies.... The chance we are getting him is even lower if we could not give him MLE....
Gortat is only 25... so perhaps the sale point for Morey is that we may offer you a million or two less than the full MLE now, but we got a good team and plenty of minutes for you so that you can probably earn all of that back, and much more in the next contract. I am imagining the contract will be a multi-year deal with a player option, so that Gortat gets security in case of injury, and has the option to cash in on his production early. It may start at or near the MLE in order to make it harder for Orlando to match, but decline for the next season(s) so it's not a "full MLE deal" (which, I guess would be technically starting at the MLE, for 5 years with maximum annual increase). I do wonder who is offering more than the MLE, though, and how much more? Ain't too many teams under the cap. Maybe Oklahoma city?
The best bargaining chip we have is that he starts right away... i don't think any other team has that offer
I don't post that often, but I'm 32 and am a born and raised Rockets fan so I've been through the lows and the highs. Let me preface this by saying, in Morey we trust; the man is a genius and understands how numbers and chemistry work together. We obviously took the Lakers to 7 games and that shows that only minor tweaks are required to make us championship contenders. This made the trade rumors all the more confusing. Obviously, T-mac's expiring contract is highly sought after due to three reasons. One, it's for only one more year, two, the entirety of the contract won't be paid due to his injury status, and three, when T-mac is motivated ie contract year, he can be a beast. With alot of the owners in dire financial straits, it makes all the more sense that we should not be unloading his contract for long term contracts unless the players that we get in return have potential in the long term, are not overpaid, and where there won't be a huge change in chemistry. So the tangible changes thus far were just picking up 3 non-guaranteed 2nd rounders. I'm a huge fan of these picks because so far Morey has had a knack for picking up diamonds in the rough and if we give him 3 bullets, 1 of them has to be gold. Following that, rumors started to abound about trades/pickups, which to me didn't make sense because of the disruption in chemistry. The Rubio trade I didn't get because AB obviously showed that he can be the go-to man, but at the same time, his court vision is limited which wasn't transparent because we ran a primarily half court offense. The Amara/Barbosa trade didn't make sense because Amare has proven he can't mesh well with someone else clogging the paint. Now take these moves with the advent of the Yao misfortune and they all make sense. Think of our lineup with Rubio, Barbosa, Artest, Scola, and Amare. Add a Gortat, Rasheed, and/or a Stephen Jackson to the mix and we'll have a nice bench as well. We may be rolling the dice by retooling heavily, but we give up a couple of pieces in AB/Landry and we let Wafer go, and in its stead we add a full court offensive scheme, which takes advantage of Adelman's flexibility and keeps us highly competitive for the now and for the future with Yao. I really can't say enough about Morey and I'm excited to see if these trades can come into fruition ala Boston during its championship year.
<BR> Your eyelids are getting heavy, Marcin... Come to the Rockets... You want to play here... Look what awaits you in Houston, Marcin... <BR><BR>
Marcin-'I don't need the full MLE. I will play for a little less money. I will play for a better team, a better coach and better fans. I will have more glory.'
I like Gortat and would love to see him on our roster. I can imagine a Scola/Gortat front line giving teams fits because of their hustle. Plus we have been needing a solid tall rebounder like Gortat for a while...tired of watching us get outrebounded when it mattered the most(remember the last game of the Utah series a few years ago?). I don't know if the full MLE is appropriate but I don't think it's unreasonable to pay up to the MLE for him given our lack of any true center or size for that matter when Yao is out. In the free agent market only a few years ago, Gortat would have been an absolute steal at the MLE considering how bigs were getting overpaid(See Dalembert). ...I think the other thing to note here is although the Rockets are close to the cap limit, they can realistically spend a little more money and go over because although Tracy and Yao's salary counts against the cap, they will be receiving insurance money to offset that cost of missing those players. This means they don't have a lot to offer on the free agent market(basically just the MLE to work with) but they can resign their own players to what they want even if it puts them "over". They can resign Artest and Wafer and get Gortat with the MLE if he accepts. The question here is really whether Morey wants to blow the team up and rebuild or keep talent on the team and hope to swing for the fences in a trade or free agent acquisition when Tracy/Yao's contract expire to bring an marquee player in. In either scenario though, I think Gortat is young enough and good enough of a player to make sense whether your competing now or looking to build for the future or collecting talent for trade chips later on. I think he gives us a lot of options in terms of talent, value, and team needs. Get it done, Morey! ...let's just hope the notorious over spenders like Cuban and Walsh don't ruin it for us and offer Gortat some ridiculous amount of money.
I think it is a stretch to equate Gortat to Artest...or the backcourt. Fact is, even with Yao, we are too short in the forntcourt, and desperately need another center-type player there. With Yao, obviously this is a backup center, who probably takes minutes from Chuck Hayes more than anyone else. Chuck's 12 mpg plus 5 or so from Yao and maybe a few here and there and that give shim 15-20 mpg, depending on the night. If he produces, and in this case that means rebounding, a defensive presence and hustle more than anything, that it probably is worth the full MLE. Without Yao, it's almost definitely worth the full MLE. Heck, he may be the only center available out there that could actually outplay his contract. If he gave you 10-12 points, 8-10 rebounds and 1.5-2 blocks a game in a starters role, that would be more than worth it. I understand the argument that you don't think he can do that, which is a valid argument. But I don't think it makes sense to say we shouldn't do it because it means we lose Wafer. Wafer was probably already gone, and definitely can be "lost" if it means solving what is now a gaping hole in the frontcourt. And you still have Tracy's contract to try and get some value in return for.
[RUMOR] Rockets may have offered Gortat MLE Free agent Marcin Gortat’s agent is telling teams he has received a full midlevel contract offer. Odds are the offer came from the Rockets, who were the first team to meet with Gortat just after midnight. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_y...aw-gordonvillanueva070109&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
