Well, I'm not surprised. Just that it took this long. Les Alexander will now make $316,666.67 less than he was scheduled to make as of yesterday.
It saves the Knicks $9.5M in luxury tax. Whether or not it helps them basketball-wise is irrelevant. Money is still money.
Hey man, so the Rockets signing Harris for the remaining of the season didn't put them in the luxury tax threshold?
Nope. The Rockets got comfortably below the tax threshold. Plus, Harris is only getting a prorated minimum deal, which leaves them room to spare. I seriously doubt that Les would have signed off on adding a D-League guy if it would have ended up costing him $4-5M. The $90-95k that Harris is making is much more palatable for Les.
Luxury tax level is set at $69.92 mil. Rockets are at $69.27. A cheap contract for Harris for the remaining of the season isn't enough to push the Rockets into luxury tax zone. It's only 3 weeks out of a whole 82 games, after all. Mike Harris counts as $73k for team salary. That's a drop in the bucket compared to even Budinger's rookie salary of $750k. http://hoopshype.com/salaries/houston.htm
They took advantage of the loopholes in the system. Mobley was never going to play. They used his salary in a trade,and now they are getting relief as well. This should be stopped.