I believe if he does nothing, he becomes a free agent. There was a player a season or two ago whose agent screwed up by not exercising the player's option to stay when he be paid much more than he was worth. So, I think you have to file to stay. You might also be able to file to leave though. I recall a couple of players recently that officially became free agents by declining options.
If you gave Cat the MLE---which is going to be what? starting at about $4.7 million---and go from there, let's see: $4.7 + $5.2 + $5.75 + $6.3 + $7 + $7.7 = app. $37,000,000. If you give him a 6 year contract, that would help make up for the lack of front-end money. Cat would be set, and he and his family would be A-OK. Cat would have his teammates over to his family's for those big meals. So you know he was happy here. I think it's a good idea. Cat is well-liked around the league, so you know he's well-liked in his own locker room. And he didn't try to punk Yao, except by playing follow-the-leader with Steve, who is long gone. Cat is still relatively young (for this team, anyway). He wouldn't be worth the last year or two of his contract, but he would be sacrificing a lot of money to be here. Free Cuttino!
Cat is for sure going to opt out, where he wants to go is anyone's guess. But I wouldn't be suprised if we resigned him. Houston is his home, we know he loved it here and I'm sure he would like to come back, especially now that we have become legit contendors. He might have some hard feelings, but that was his first trade and I'm sure a lot of players react that way. Now that he has been traded twice and knows that the league is business, I could see Cat putting his differences aside.
in the new CBA thread, it talked about the MLE starting at around 5.5M (it was 4.9M last year). they also said it's likely contracts with another team can only be 5 years insteand of 6 and raises i think 8% instead of 10% (or maybe i made that part up). so that would be: 5.5 + 5.94 + 6.38 + 6.82 + 7.26 = 31.9M over 5 years so that's essentially averaging next year's possible salary over 5 years. and while he has to start lower, as i said earlier and others have just said, having 5 years of guaranteed nba money over 1 is always good. especially when he's not likely to make too much more if he waits a year.
i don't think he's coming back to us, but assuming he has no lingering feelings from the trade, we would seem to have as good a chance as any of winning an MLE battle for his services. we're good, should be good for a while (he wants his pay day but this contract will basically determine where he goes to try to win a championship before his career is over), definitely need a starting 2 guard, and his arm will get tired from all the open shots tmac and yao will get him (well i'm not sure if mobley's shooting arm ever gets tired). so if no one wants to give him over the mle, we would be a good choice. i for one hope he comes here, but i can't see it happening. but that would be some serious backcourt talent to team up with yao. get a good pf and man we could be good.
Too bad Mobley hasn't been in the league for 8 years (he's a 7 year veteran). If he was, then he could have signed with Houston and put a no-trade clause in his contract. Then I think him returning to Houston would have been a slam dunk. As is, I think Denver and Cleveland will both be looking at Joe Johnson and then Cat as a consolation signing. All the other SGs I expect to re-sign with their teams (Allen, Redd, Hughes, Simmons). I don't expect any team to break the bank for Cat, but if somebody gives him a deal slightly more than the Full MLE, like what Quentin Richardson got last year, then that might tip things in their favor.
How about this? Today at work i saw Cuttino Mobley pull up in the shopping center where i work. He was driving his white Maybac. I saw him out of my window but couldn't go out to meet him. He was happy and talking to everyone he was meeting. He pulled up infront of Texadelphia restaurant, i believe.
that was a great day last summer! i started screaming in the middle of class when i saw that we got tmac online
Money is usually the decider, but we know his family put down roots in Houston. I still say if we (screw up and) give him a sixth year, then he'd come here.
My own preliminary estimates for the MLE are between 5.25M and 5.56M for next year. Not too much of a 1 year pay cut to get 4 additional years guarenteed for Mobes.
Circumventing the CBA like that would be a hell of a trick to pull off. micah- How are you "estimating" this? I haven't seen any word of changes to the MLE calculation. In the past it was done based on a variant of the league average salary. The salary is going up primarily because of a change in the calculation (a higher percentage of the BRI). While this may have an effect on the average salary eventually, it shouldn't take effect right away. In fact, this past year the MLE actually went down slightly (a few thousand dollars)
I estimated with very crude methods. They are wrong. I did previously see one paper say 5.5M. I've now looked at the CBA fAQ and assuming the calculations are the same it will be somewhere around: $4,998,388.19 to $5,093,134.12 depending on which (Hoopshype or Patricia) you believe for total NBA salaries.
One day remaining... I sure am curious to see what, if any of this, holds true. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!
I hope we don't have the same draft woes of the past. Yao has been the only decent pick in years....lets hope that if we trade Wesley for a pick, we use it wisely!!
One nice thing about this BBS, is that every insider gets tested. The proof is in the pudding. Its easy to see if things happen or they don't, especially when stated so strongly. None of Derrick's inside info turned out to be accurate that was predicted for draft day. <b>Derrick, care to explain?</b> I'm not sure the Rocket's themselves knew what would happen today, so I know its impossible to foretell. But, since none of it happened, I think its appropriate to tell the inside story. That doesn't mean you don't get another chance. If you actually are an insider, we want you here, and hear everything you know. You may have reported what you actually heard, and then they did something different. But, I think you need to let us know what happened and what is coming up instead, or else you'll be written off as a fake.
