[Grantland] Zach Lowe and the Parsons Plan

They won't be able to offer him an Asik type contract because he has more than 2 years in the league at that point.

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That said he will get offered a lot of money probably. Batum's getting 11 mil a year. Iguodala's getting more. Different types of players to be sure but GMs just love throwing money at two-way wings. Morey's biggest problem will be whether he should lock in that core of Parsons/Harden/Howard.

 

Parsons's cap hold as a free agent in the summer of 2015 would only be a little over $1.8 million.

The Rockets could sign a major free agent first, THEN re-sign Parsons.

That said, they likely won't have "full max room" without making other moves to clear salary (besides letting Lin and Asik walk).

 

Parsons as an UFA will command a lot of money. If we do sign a big FA and then sign him, Les is going to pay a lot of lux tax even if we dump both Lin and Asik. We are looking at three max players plus Parson as a high end role player. Am I right?

Don't forget if Beverley is worthy of being our starting PG, he's going to get PAID in 2015 too.

 

Yeah I also kept hearing how Parsons' contract was so lopsided, but as you said, that opinion seems to be in hindsight.

Jermaine Taylor also signed a "Parsons Plan" contract as a rookie. Given that he is in the D-league now, I'm sure he appreciated getting more money upfront as an NBA rookie.

On the other hand, things worked out great for Budinger, who signed for a three-year $15 million contract after finishing the full four years of the "Parsons Plan" contract. And IMO Budinger benefited from those four years as he got to develop and prove himself. If he had a shorter rookie deal, say, after his second year in the league, I think his big payday could have been smaller.

 

Beverley also has a small cap hold.

 

This is an incredibly long and typically brilliant Zach Lowe article. Every time I read one of his stream of consciousness articles I envy the man for his depth of understanding and knowledge of the ins and outs of the NBA. I cannot recommend this article enough.

 

No

No. Sign someone like Love first to get near or at cap. Then you sign Parsons who we have his 'bird rights'. We can sign him because of 'bird rights' at any amount needed to keep him. It puts us in tax but we don't have to pay the luxury tax on his salary. Still would be a big payroll though.

 

i say resign parsons 1st, i think with all the attention on dwight and harden he is going to have an awesome year because he can score consistently.

 

Lol

This next year we can see what he is worth.

 

I think it would be even better to prove we can go deep without Love and have a deep bench instead.

 

This bolded part is completely false. Bird rights don't preclude luxury tax liability. Where did you hear that?

 

i think people tend to forget that the luxury tax is a fair distance from the cap (around $13m currently), you actually end up with quite a lot of wiggle room.

People also seem to believe that building a good bench requires some excessive amount of money, Miami spends about $25m apart from its highest paid 3, even San Antonio who have people on mega discounts are barely above $30m once you remove their 3 highest contracts (the 2 "discounts") and both of those teams contain some bad mid level like contracts.

 

Lol

Read it somewhere.

 

Parsons' socring numbers may very well go down even if he and the team has a good year. Dwight Howard is going to use more possessions than Asik did so somebody will likely have to take less shots. It is not unusual for guys like Parsons, who primarily scores assisted FGs, to score less when the team has more talent overall. See, for example, Rick Fox's career stats.

 

time for les to put his money where his mouth is. Houston has consistently been a top 10 cash generating franchise (forbes had it at #7 as of January 2013) and les has paid no real luxury tax to speak of. Morey's put together a great team on the cheap but eventually, if we want to be perennial contenders, we're going to have to pay some of these diamonds in the rough what they're worth.

Les said he's willing to pay tax for a winner. we'll see.

 

OK

Reread the article. Sign the superstar then use the bird right to re sign Parsons. In the article he wrote that we would not pay the luxury. He doesn't explain further if it is because it was expected that Parsons would sign cheap enough to stay under or if he is clueless on the luxury tax. I am expecting Parsons to get a nice paycheck.

 

Lol

He said he was willing to pay some tax. I doubt he will pay the amount it would take to re sign Parsons and a max to a superstar and then still have to pay vet and rookie minimums. That is a lot and we don't have the revenue of LA or NY. Those cities get that huge payday from TV and the people here in Houston are balking at paying.

 

idk what is so hard to understand about this... Parsons contract (if the team option gets picked up) will expire the same summer as Lin and Asik... which means any cap you get from Lin and Asik will be negated by the fact that you have to re-sign Parsons... that's why the only way you could get another big time FA is if you take advantage of Parsons small salary while it's still on the books, which means finding a way to dump Lin and Asik the summer of 2014.

 

Bird rights are meant to let you retain your players while you are over the cap. It's not a loophole for teams under the cap to sign free agents first and then still keep their players. Hasn't this offseason taught you guys anything? It's that you need to let go of your players and renounce their rights if you want cap space to sign a big time player.

 

Some of us know how cap holds work.