I understand what many of you are saying, but you are not completely understanding what I am saying. I never said Les was cheap. Spending money and spending wisely in building a contender are two different things. Les bought a championship team built by another regime. What has he done since?. It has been a very long time; we are closing in on twenty years. During that time the Rockets have won ONE playoff series and have spent a good bit of time in the lottery. Last night reminded me of lost glory, it has been so long. And we haven't won the series yet. That's how starved for success the fans are. No matter how you cut, the bottom line rules. No doubt Harden is a step in the right direction. Until then, strike out, strike out, strike out.....shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, ....a revolving door going nowhere. I do see hope, but it has been long time in coming. Other teams have built and rebuilt, and rebuilt again. We have foundered. Make all the excuses you want. Les is ultimately responsible; failure has its reasons just like success.
All you need to know if for Jeremy Lin the person he got 5 million salary this year. He did not get 8.3 million. He will get another 5 million next year and 15 million the year after that. That is all that matters to Mr. Lin. The money he sees in his paycheck. Same for you. If you get paid 50,000 this year do you care what kind of accounting gimick your employers use for reporting/accounting purposes. All that matters is your employer paid you 50,000 and you got 50,000 pre-tax. Les paid Lin 5 million and Lin received 5 million. The rest is accounting/Cap hold and other non-cash accounting/reporting numbers that doesn't matter for a team that is under the luxury tax.
This was much more a no-brainer than the move to get Asik, as far as Les would be concerned financially. It was an equally risky move in terms of putting a quality team on the floor. I would say tentatively that both moves have worked at least as well as we'd hoped, overall, as far as team quality is concerned.
Hit and miss. Royce White is a bust, Parsons is the most bang for the buck player in the NBA. If Les wants to spend money to take this team over the top, he needs to spend more money to hire a better coach like Phil Jackson or Stan VG. I think one of our best assets is the RGV Vipers D-League team They do an excellent job of recruiting, evaluating, and developing talent. I wonder how much Les pays to run the Vipers ... but I'd imagine he's invested more than other NBA teams do to their D-League affiliates.
While I'm still not 100% positive on who pays what if such a trade occurs (although I think the acquiring team pays the full salary), I am fairly sure that the actual PAYMENT RECEIVED BY THE PLAYER is $5 million this season, $5.225 million next season, and ~$14.9 million in 2014-15. If traded in Year 3, Lin/Asik would still count against the acquiring team's cap at ~$8.3 million.
So the owners that give out bad contracts deserve praise as well? I've got nothing against our owner, but I'm not going to praise him beyond saying he hired the right GM.
All you need to know is that I'm competent enough to understand subtleties, so I don't need an abridged version of the salary situation. This is a big boy conversation with specifics. I'm with you on counting for $8.3, but I literally asked Gersson this point-blank and he said that they count for and are paid the $8.3 mil. It doesn't make any sense that you can pay for someone on your bottom line a separate amount than they count for against your cap just because of what happens with the dynamics of a trade. If you indeed pay them 5/5/15, and they only count for 8.3/8.3/8.3, why would any team in their right mind want that 3rd year? It would basically mean that teams who sign poison pill contracts would be forcing themselves to trade in the first year or just swallow the contract whole. I'm almost 100% sure that they receive and count for $8.3 million. In that CBA FAQ site you put before, he did not change that Gilbert Arenas rule section to accommodate the new CBA (up top he doesn't say he changed #44). I do not believe that is updated information that reflects the current CBA rules pertaining to poison pill contracts in the new CBA environment. Although the poison pill was implemented to address the Gilbert Arenas rule.
The CBA FAQ site you saw is entirely for the 2011 CBA. The "notes" at the top are for items that Larry Coon revised subsequent to his initial FAQs for the 2011 CBA. It is NOT outdated. Once again, I can pretty much GUARANTEE you that Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik are not writing down "$8.3 million" on their 1040s. They are paid as I said above. For an example of this, look at what any business does with a capital asset. DEPRECIATION is a common example of how an asset can appear on the books in one sense and be addressed in cash flow in another sense. While I will not blindly assert my view on the issue of which team would pay the Year 3 salary (as I am only pretty sure but not certain), I will not bother arguing with you on the issue of payments to the players. I have said my peace on that, and you can feel free to continue believing whatever you want to believe. Just know that I think you're wrong on that issue. Yes, if the acquiring team would need to pick up the full $14.9 million in Year 3, it would make Lin and Asik a little more difficult to trade. Still, at least in Asik's case, I don't think that would too greatly scuttle his trade value if he is moved this summer or maybe even next February.
Actually I think Les just pays the overhead for the staff on the basketball decisions side of RGV. The Rockets don't have ownership of RGV, the moneyside of things is controlled by RGV; the basketball decisions are run by Houston Rockets.
Ditto back at ya :grin: It'd be nice for clarification on the year 3 amount in a trade situation, it just seems too crazy to me to make the new team inherit a $15 million dollar cost and only have it be a cap hold of $8.3 mil. Which amount would you need to be within the 25% of for the salary match in a trade? Lots of strangeness if your scenario is correct...
I would assume that all trade rules would be based on the $8.3 million figure, together with cap and tax calculations, etc. It would ONLY boil down to the paychecks being cut to the players. Yes, seems unfair to the acquiring team . . . until you realize that the acquiring team KNOWLINGLY acquired the player contract associated with that player. If they don't like it, then they don't have to trade for the player! (Oh, and sorry for the douchiness of my last comment you quoted above. Was just typing it quickly and didn't realize how bad it came out. Way to take it in stride!)
Houston Rockets makes a real sizable profit each year. Now I'm not saying Les is a terrible owner, per se, but he isn't "exorbitantly generous" with his "forking out loads of cash for 2nd rounders" as some of you make him out to be. If Morey had James Dolan or someone like the Nets owner Mikhail Prokorov, then I'm sure he'd have done a much better job with access to much wider resources. As of now, Les has the lowest pay roll in the league and has basically never paid the luxury tax for as long as I can remember. He traded away Stromile Swift and thoughtlessly gave up Rudy Gay and along with it a championship run with Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming along with it. Now THAT is despicable.
Time for Les to dig deep in his pockets and pay the luxury tax? You know Dwight and CP3 are free agents this Summer. Our salaries are so low that we'll have about $20m cap space to sign Dwight outright and be about at the limit. But CP3 would cost another max $19m. We'd have to move out Asik and Lin for draft picks or minimum contracts (I don't know if that's possible), that'd free up 2 x $8.3m = $16.6m, the rest and luxury tax hit, Les would have to pay. If Les and Morey can pull this off they would be > miami 2010 > Lakers 2012
