Rockets will have to make an important decision this offseason. Either make him a restricted free agent this offseason and and ultimately control where he plays or take the extra cheap year and then he becomes an UFA. Personally I am looking to dangle him with the Clippers pick to see if we can move up and draft Casson Wallace.
If we don't end up with Scoot or Amen with our first pick, that sounds good to me. Not sure if just KJ is enough to move up though, might need some other assets like some future picks. Even if we sign Harden, Wallace would be a good backup PG. Although it does raise the question in that case of what to do with KPJ.
A third option I would like to see for the Rockets if they're unable to sign Harden would be to renegotiate KJ's salary up in the summer of 2023 using excess cap room, with a big decrease in 2024 and beyond to help with luxury tax implications. So for example, the Rockets could use this structure: 2023/24 $11,400,000 2024/25 $6,840,000 2025/26 $6,292,800 2026/27 $5,745,600 Total $30,278,400 Which would be comparable to what KJ could get if he just played out his rookie deal and signed a deal comparable to Gary Payton II the summer after: 2023/24 $1,930,681 2024/25 $9,000,000 2025/26 $9,450,000 2026/27 $9,900,000 Total $30,280,681 When you include the time value of money in this calculation, KJ comes out even further ahead, and by the cap spike in 2025, he'll probably be on a contract less than the bi-annual exception. I still have a lot of faith in him to improve with some better coaching and a well-defined offensive system. He's going to only be 23 next year. There's a long list of role players who didn't develop a consistent 3-point shot until their mid-late 20s, like PJ Tucker, Trevor Ariza, and Austin Rivers. I think I'd rather take the gamble on KJ than roll him over for the equivalent of a late 1st rounder, as long as he still wants to be in Houston.
I like where your head is at but I think contracts can only decrease 7.5% per year. Unless I’m missing something. I think you’re on the right track though - it’s unlikely the team will just let things ride with KJ, that’d be very out of character. Obvious there are other complaints, but Stone is good at managing contracts and negotiations creatively. My guess is that they either a) already have the framework of an extension in place and will use his low cap hold to our advantage first and sign FA’s before making the deal official this summer. Probably a deal with solid headline money but a team option or non guarantee on the end making it easily tradeable. Similar to Tate or KPJ in structure. IMO, this is most likely… we’re all guessing at this stuff but most offseason moves are in place or close to it way in advance. or b) they plan to trade him around the draft so all this is moot.
I’m thinking they trade him. He’s a good secondary piece in a trade. Young guy with upside who puts up good numbers. If a Trae Young or KAT wants out this off-season you could package KPJ, KMJ, some of our other young guys plus the LAC pick and BKN picks.
Rockets always skip the extra cheap year - they should use it. Losing guys "for nothing" is overrated. Kenyon was a second round pick - he cost nothing.
You can't teach size, like that possessed by Boilermaker Behemoth Zach Edey - he's one to watch on draft night in according to the whisper circles.
Contracts can normally go up or down by 8% (7.5% was the 2011 CBA) when using the Bird Rule. It's plus/minus 5% when you sign a free-agent from another team. http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q53 However, what I'm proposing is actually not one contract, but giving KJ Martin a raise on his existing deal, combined with a subsequent extension. So in the eyes of the CBA, KJ would be finishing a contract with a final year salary of $11.4M, and starting a new extension starting at $6.84M. You are allowed to sign a new extension with a first year salary less than what you were earning on your previous deal. You can do this kind of simultaneous renegotiation and extension, but the first year salary of the new money must be no less than 60% of the last year's of the expiring contract. Note that you need actual cap space to do this, and can't use an exception to do so (which is why they didn't try to do something similar with Jae'Sean Tate this past summer). This is actually informally known as the Nick Collision Rule, as the Thunder used this exact tactic to give Nick Collision a 4-year, $17.5M extension that was structured as a $6.5M signing bonus that took his yearly salary to $13.5M the year before his extension kicked in, and a per-year salary of as little as $2.2M over the lifetime of his extension. http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q59 Just for arguments sake, the maximum first year salary that KJ Martin can earn on an extension without using cap room should be around 120% of the average player salary in 2024-2025 (~$13.6M / year). What's your fair price on him where you'd be happy with the contract? I do think there is real advantage to the Rockets locking him in prior to the projected cap spike in 2025.
In all seriousness, Im warming up to the idea of letting eason take over martin's spot and letting him become a UFA
Super interesting. I forgot about that wrinkle. However, I don’t really agree with the intuition behind what you’re proposing. Essentially you want to accelerate some of KJM’s cap hit to this year when we have cap space, to save us money in the out years / make his contract more appealing in the future. I don’t really agree with that goal. Using up say ~$10M of space this year to offset ~3M of payroll in the next 3 seasons doesn’t make sense IMO. This is the summer when we are most incentivized to minimize unnecessary outlays because with that $10M we can bring in a solid player or win a RFA we’d otherwise lose, whereas in the next couple years, we’ll likely be an over the cap but way under the tax team, and the opportunity cost of extra dollars to KJM will be lower than today. We’d only want to structure something like this (or sign a player to any descending contract) if we have nothing better to do with the money now… the marginal value in the future is minimal IMO. In terms of contract value, I don’t have a good sense of how the league values KJM, and I think this board is optimistic on that front on all our players. I’d guess $27M/3 if we convert him early this summer? If the league values him much higher than that, I think we’d be better off trading him because that means we’d be getting back real value.
Teams are constantly leaving him wide open from 3. He just can’t shoot and that’s a huge problem. He needs a bench role
He will be best as first or second guy off the bench to provide a spark. Harden Green Jabari Wemby Sengun Tari (getting 30 min.) KMJ (getting 24+ min.) Garuba TyTy Christopher KPJ and Nix and Silas will of course be gone. @maj21 will cry.
U right. I'm just not high on Kevin Martin Jr. He works well with sengun and is probably one of our best cutter/dunker. But he's quite limited on offense (bit better than garuba) but can't shoot 3s or defend well either. He really feels like a bench player but that's just me.
I think the Rockets should let him test the market as a RFA. I don't really see a downside in doing so.
Keep dreaming. Sengun would be gone! Jabari will start at the 5 and Wemby at the 4. That team would have horrible spacing. Good thing stone isn’t dumb like you. I’d be okay if KPJ is gone, but you’d lose your **** if that bum Sengun gets traded
this is what we should have done with KPJ too. but given the need to pivot towards being a better team next season, and given that Kj is not the future at the 3 or 4, and given that he’s one of our best trade assets, and given that we have too much youth and need to start consolidating…I think trading KJ is a foregone conclusion. I think letting him walk for nothing would be very dumb.
You sound hateful, especially when you talk about KPJ and Jabari. I bring that energy when I speak about Sengun. He’s gonna get traded and ima be the happiest person ever. If he doesn’t, then the rockets have no plans to win in the future
