We aren't talking about a lot of money that would carry over to next years cap. Les will have to pay something for any buyout to be accepted. A buyout equal to less money this year would be say 80 cents to the dollar for each game. I'm saying the buyout might at a full dollar for each of the remaining games, but spread over two years. It wouldn't be a huge cap hit, so you might be overly complicating, too. But, you very well could be right. My guess is partly just about negotiating. It depends upon how much saving money means to Les. I can see the agent pulling off full-value for this year, spread over two for the buyout piece. It's somewhat a minor amount. ---------------------------- As for the benefits of going to another team with a true cut in salary this year, it ignores the fact that he his getting minutes right now. He is getting a chance to perform, especially since Thornton might not, and we might make the playoffs. The only teams where he'll get to showcase more is some one tanking right now. Even one good game in a playoff series can offset what someone does on a tanking team. And from a pure math perspective, where talking about assumed increases in offers. He'll still get an offer. I'm not so sure he takes yet another cut in pay...
I'm not convinced this is a luxury tax move. Aren't we at least $3 million over the tax threshold? I suppose if Lawson waives ALL of his remaining $3.2 million in salary we could get under the tax, but there is no way he agrees to that. Plus, we probably wouldn't be able to sign another player without going back over the threshold. I would assume the reason to get under the tax is not to save Les a few dollars, but to avoid facing the repeater tax down the road. But I don't see it happening, unless there are other buyouts on the way (Thornton, Jones).
Eh... I don't care much, I guess. But if the DMo/MT trade had gone through, it would have been nice to keep him buried on the bench as In Case of Emergency insurance, given that we always manage to have an emergency.
This. If we do manage to make the playoffs and Bev goes down again, we are stuck with Terry as our only backup PG.
I believe his contact guarantees for next season on or around June 24th. So he would be a candidate for a post-season trade up until then but not until draft day. .....unless I'm off on the guarantee date. Don't think he would likely accept less. If I understand his contact right he is eligible to sign an extension. If so, it would be interesting to see if he could sign a 2-year extension with only around $4 million or so guaranteed in the first year of the extension, then negotiate a buyout of the remaining salary he is owed this season (around 3.4 million). If so, this would allow us to stretch the other $4 million guaranteed in the extension over a 7-year period starting next season and allow us to sneak back down to the edge of the luxury tax. This would amount to a tiny cap hit of around $580,000 for the next seven seasons which would likely be mostly set off by Lawson's next contract. Don't know for sure if this is possible but been thinking about it for a while. Perhaps a cap expert can clarify if this is doable................. (bima slowly climbs the stairs to enter stage right.).
Lawson was a solid gamble. But it failed miserably. I am at a loss as to how his play degenerated. I can only suspect that dealing with the transition away from alcohol was just very difficult to deal with. Lawson's failure was more on himself, than his ability to mesh with Harden. Lawson had plenty of opportunities to take the reigns of the 2nd unit and provide solid bench scoring and didn't do it. Just lifeless now.
Yea, okay we don't have a set offense but u can't at least try to shoot more? He was purposely trying to get bought out.
Flat out, to start the season I was pissed that the Rockets didn't seem to evolve their offense to mesh Lawson and Harden instead of sticking Lawson in the corner. And this was a problem. But as the season progressed, even when Lawson had the ball in the 2nd unit he just didn't deliver. All of that speed and attacking ability was absent. The player that showed up is not the player the Rockets traded for.
Too bad. At least we got him for virtually nothing. I won't miss him. It's not like more minutes for Jet can really make the defense worse, and Jet at least does something positive on offense occasionally.
This.... I bet that was an interesting conversation between Morey and Alexander...... "Well you are back in luxury tax territory..... well yes, we did trade Motiejunas..... "
We can still trade him as an expiring, though. My guess is no one would want his 2nd yr at that price, anyhow, so we'd have to drop the 2nd yr to make him tradeable as expiring. Interesting comments about signing an extension and extending out buyout payments for many years. Sounds fine to me, if an extension is in play. Fundamentally, we know Les would be looking for something in sum that is less than current+lux tax. Math might be more flexible your way, but it could work by merely exercising team option on next year, and buying that out enough to save money for Les and also get Lawson equivalent of full salary this year....in one yr of spread payments
