Are you sure about that? I am no cap guru, but RealGM has the Rockets with 44.3m committed for 2002-2003 (basically Walt's 5.5m of off this year). Take out Rice's $9m and that leaves about 7m to pursue FA's (more if the cap is raised). Sounds like your saying we're better off with Rice and a 4.5 MCE than 7+m to spend. Also, if it's a MCE you really want, we could have let them both walk and signed Bullard for 2001-2002 to the vet minimum and still have been over the cap. We would have been technically over the cap until we renounced Bull's contract and eligible for a 4.5m exception in 2002-2003. No matter how I twist and turn this, in my mind Glen Rice cost us a shot at Rashard Lewis.
My bad. I was thinking about this season, instead of next season. So yes, we're better off NEXT season without SA or GR.
This just never goes away. Don't blame Rice on Rashard. Rice was a good gamble and may still work out. At the time, we had NOOOOOO idea Lewis wanted to come to Houston. You got to play your hand...you can't keep hedging your bets for future possibilities. Chances are, you'll be left with nothing. Look at Webber. As much as he complained, everybody knows he was never coming to Htown. Rice may even still pay-off. His injury had nothing to do with original concerns. If he is productive next season and can provide a positive locker-room effect, then I call it a success. Afterall, it's still a shorter-term contract and I'm sure we'll figure out how to spend that money when it's available.
I cut/paste the below message from the thread "Cato Trade Bait" on 1/15/02. Everything I said then I still beleive. quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Dream Sequence What gun? We should have done the smart thing...let Shandon walk! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If we let Shandon walk, who would we have signed with that extra $? In the NBA, a valid cliche is "Use it or Lose it." Cap space doesn't do us any good sitting idle. Rice at least produced comperable numbers to SA and we'll get out of the contract 3 years quicker. Plus Rice has more on court potential than SA. The injury he got was unrelated to the original concern we had with his foot so you can't hold that against management. As it stands today, the Rocks will be 1 mil under the cap next season and that doesn't include the token 10% increase that we've seen nearly every year (granted that is not for sure but it's our reference point). If we get 10% increase, Rocks will have ~2.8 mil to sign a FA. That assumes we resign our own FA's after we acquire the new person. Expiring contracts are: Walt, Willis, Langhi, Torres and Brown. So if we can sign a better center, Torres is probably the only person we'd resign and he'd be cheap. The Rocks still have a chance to to pickup a solid role player. With the emergence of Grif and the readdition of MoT and Rice, all we need is a solid role player who can catch a pass for a dunk and rebound. As I said, the Rockets are not desperate. They have some wiggle room. And if we stand pat at center, that wouldn't be the end of the world.
