so is the idea to use our cap room this year on Harden in order to have more cap room in future years?
This off season is just one surprise after another. Trade for Boogie and GSW better tighten shorts, Rockets are ready for blast off. Harden has just become a true Houston icon.
No matter what we now will have three years at least instead of two to build smth around him before he bolts. And thats the important.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">James Harden on his future with <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rockets?src=hash">#Rockets</a>: "There's no indecision. There's no doubt. ... There's new life here"</p>— Brian T. Smith (@ChronBrianSmith) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChronBrianSmith/status/751860475403444225">July 9, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Sources: Over the next four years, Harden will now earn: $26.5M, $28.3M, $30.4M and a player option for $32.7M in 2019-'20. Via Woj. Sorry don't know how to post tweets. That's awesome news.
Rockets usually never give extensions to players and never expected Harden to want/accept an extension. This is great news! Tells every player in the league that Harden is 100% committed to Houston and now the Rockets don't have to worry about Harden possibly leaving in 2 years.
So if the last yr is a player option then this only guarantees he's here for one more additional yr (since he already had two yrs on his contract).
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Just to be clear, Harden's extension only GUARANTEES him staying 1 more year. His prior deal ran until 2018. Harden can now opt out in 2019.</p>— David Weiner (@BimaThug) <a href="https://twitter.com/BimaThug/status/751861353359347713" data-datetime="2016-07-00T19:31:30+00:00">July 0, 2016</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>