Rockets agree deal with rookie center/forward Dorsey

good player that dorsey kid

 

Nice move. Personally if he can prove he can play, I would rather him be our backup center for Yao.

 

Well put and I agree.

On a couple of other fronts:

Why the deal for both parties? For the Rockets the deal is obvious. Low cost (barely over the min, maybe even a tad less in LT for the 1st two years vs a min exemption contract) and lots of flexibility over up to 4 years. For Dorsey it makes sense to. What you have to realize it is insures his NBA career earnings will be not less than 1.6 mil. Compare that to 442K or less for 1 year guaranteed or partially guaranteed deals at the min that many 2nds get. Think if Landry had a career ending knee injury last year. Further, it is true the Rockets could exercise both options. but then Dorsey walks away with 3.5 mil and is now an URFA on the market who had to be good enough for the Rockets to extend. Overall, could Dorsey have given up a lot of earnings potential over the next 4 years, sure, but you balance this with 1.6 mil that is for sure and know that whether the options are picked up or not you are not in a bad spot. win-win for both the player and team in risk-reward.

On the rest of the MLE to Deke. Not a good idea. His vet min is 1.3 mil. The base rate for that contract for cap and tax would be 800K (the league reimburses the rest). So Deke asking for the extra 400K would cost the Rockets about 900K-1.7mil. Sign him for 1.3 mil and give his charity 1 mil and with the tax deduction it is still a much better deal than even the rosiest scenario using the rest of the MLE for him. win-win again.

I do have a question for capologists. For the life of me I can't figure out how a team get two option years not on a 1st round rookie scale contract. I realize there can be a team option year and contracts 4+ years can be extended. But how can they pull off a 2 + 2 under existing CBA language?

 

I believe I've seen it done before where multiple years down the road are non-guaranteed. Thus, it's not a true option, but the team can cut the guy without paying his salary. For all intents and purposes, if the language is written so that the salary is guaranteed if he's not waived by a certain date, it's a team option and to reduce confusion, gets reported that way.

For some reason, Antoine Rigaudeau comes to mind.

Teams have done this most recently to get around the 3 year minimum sign and trade rules -- only the first year has to be guranteed.

 

He also may have said that to motivate Dorsey to really prove himself this pre-season.

 

Right, except for rookie scale players, there can only be one team option year. So, as NIKEstrad said, this most likely is about how many years are guaranteed for "lack of skill." Guarantees (except for rookie scale) are negotiable. "Lack of skill" allows you to waive someone who isn't a good enough basketball player, without paying them. Odd that this is being reported as two "team options."

 

Thanks Nike and HP.

So a follow-up.

I assume if you had a true option, say you decided not to pick up the players 2nd, 3rd or 4th year depending on the original contract, they could still be an RFA. For instance say after Landry's second year on the new contract (3rd year in the league) we could decline his 3rd year but then later place a QO so we could negotiate a new deal while he is an RFA. (Of course Landry could always just take the QO [I believe the last year X 1.25] and be an UFA after that year, so I have a hard time seeing a scenario where it is smart for the Rockets to exercise the team option in order to sign him to the next contract early).

But now I assume in this case with Dorsey, if instead of declining an option, you actually have to waive the player and give up rights to him. But now in both Landry and Dorsey's deals if they follow them to the end the next contract they will be URFA (4 full years in the league)--much lessening the negotiation leverage of the Rockets.

If my understanding is correct maybe the Rockets should have just done a 3 or 4 year deal with a team option on the last year with Dorsey where if he proved exceptional we could have declined the last year (but still have his rights) so that he would be restricted and with Bird Rights when we entered negotiations. In Dorsey case the base for the QO would be terribly low (about 1.2 mil) so if he was really good he would be really motivated to get the next contract done.

 

maybe the 4th yr is a true team option. We're just saying the 3rd yr can't be.

We can't really tell by the wording of the announcement, but it could be a 4yr contract with Team Option on the 4th yr, and the 3rd yr not guaranteed for "lack of skill." That structure would allow us to waive him after 2yrs should he suck, but also choose not to use the 4th yr team option, thus making him a restricted FA, in the event he becomes a stud who we don't want to become unrestricted.

 

If your right, it is a 3 + 1 year option with the 3rd year being none guaranteed, you are right that is about the best of all worlds. If he shows zeros signs of an NBA player we owe less than a mil a year (about a min contract) and cut our (minimal) losses after two years. If he is a serviceable 10th-11th man type player or shows signs thereof we can just let the cheap 4 year contract run through and attempt to resign or not. If he is better than that, we can still let the contract run through (great value for 4 years and see what happens on the URFA market with us having Bird Rights at least) or decide if after year 3 it would be better to try to negotiate contract #2 while he is still RFA and while our QO is peanuts given his value by declining our option on year 4.

 

Sounds about right. Plus, in your scenario where Dorsey becomes a valuable rotation player, the Rockets have the ability to talk with Dorsey and his agent immediately after Year 3 about a new deal BEFORE deciding whether to exercise the team option on Year 4 (a definite advantage that a first rounder contract doesn't have). As long as terms can be ironed out before July 1, then Dorsey never even has to hit restricted free agency.

 

I should print this thread to try to gain a strong understanding of the business side of personnel management--impressive stuff.

I saw Dorsey play 8 times in person last year, four times here in Houston. It was difficult for any one player to stand out in that lineup, but I have never seen a combination of speed, quickness and agility in such a powerful player with that kind of size as I have Dorsey....."our Joey", as Calipari derisively called him.

Sometimes he fools himself into thinking he can guard anyone (see 5th foul in national championship game), so he's going to have to learn to maintain better assignment discipline. However, with the Rockets frontline, he won't be trying to make up for others, as he was forced to do against Kansas (and didn't, I might add).

Still, what might impress you the most will be his ability to make a defensive play, manage to get the rebound, make the outlet pass to start the break and then suddenly appear on the follow to clean up the glass, if the break isn't converted with the first shot. Sometimes he even was the first shot.

He and Artest together provide me with the most intrigue in terms of, "How's this going to work?" The rest of the league is likely to push our Rockets to near the top of their, "I HATE that team," list rather quickly, if Joey's contributing.

Like Shaq, Joey's just a big kid, which means sometimes he's all fun and games, and sometimes he goes into these ridiculous moody funks where he acts and even looks like his mind is in another world. Here's hoping he grows up and rarely becomes the sideshow that he often became in Memphis.