Rockets luxury tax watch 2019: What we are doing and why it matters

It matters because it lines Tillman's pocket.

 

IOW, we're punting on this season. Got it.

 

Truly a seminal moment in the Tilman era. We now know what his priorities are.

 

Luxury tax watch day is exhaustive. @jcf I'm gonna have a nip of the old snort. Edradour Caledonia 12 year if you're keeping a scorecard.

 

Tilman basically told Morey, swing for the fences and if we land an all-star (Butler, Beal, etc), we can start the ticking repeater-tax-timebomb now. Otherwise, let's get under the tax line and delay things for a year.

 

"Hey 15 minute free throws then we're gonna wrap up today's practice. Ehhh except you Clint, you're exempt. Go home and play fortnite."

 

Cue the Jennifer Lawrence "Oh yeah, sure." gif. Tillman is a carnival barker, who bought the team with borrowed money, but, unlike Jim Crane, isn't able to out and out tank for three years with a league minimum-possible payroll, and thereby stock up on high draft picks and revenue sharing.

Every, and I mean every, move the Rockets have done this season has been made with the primary goal of lowering their salary obligations. Instead of taking advantage of teams like Washington (pre-Wall injury, when they were facing the repeater, yet still sub-.500) or Cleveland, or any other team that rationally was trying to blow it up, by making trades that would take on salary and also fill areas of need on the Rockets.

Instead, every move has been to dump salary, and getting rid of Ennis, Stauskas, and Baldwin are just further examples of this.

Morey can still surprise us though. It ain't 2 PM Central yet.

 

If you are delaying starting the tax clock for another year then you should be all in this year trying to field a team that can beat GS. What it sounds like is that they are just saving Fertitita the tax money this year so hopefully with the increased ticket and concession prices with the "we got CP3" romance that he can make back some of the money he put down on the team, but then Hardens super max kicks in, and it will be even harder to field a championship team.

Window has closed already? Depressing.

 

@Nook

Nate Duncan with this thoughts...

 

I’m the first to call Tillman a cheap ass owner but repeater tax isn’t something any owner wants to do. And those that do usually have hot garbage teams and 1 All-Star. Smart move by DM.

 

Interesting