Rox front office were dumb as hell to keep pursuing him. Not surprised at all. I would have been surprised if he actually did come over. I will be extremely disappointed if they didn't have a backup plan.
There was a pre-draft, ie in the the year Llull was selected, that he had no interest in playing in the NBA.
He's on one. Lots of people are dogging on him for this decision, but it's a choice that he has every right to make. I wanted him here as much as the next guy, but he doesn't want it so let's move on. I'm sure morey has other options.
Haters, relax. Llull is Smart, 6m/y + 5m BO now, or up to 10m/y + and less BO next year. Quit hating and acting like you know stuff.
How many second round picks ever leave their Euro teams and become rotation players in the NBA? I don't keep track, but I bet it's not many.
Yea that's what I was thinking too, higher salaries overall mean there will be a higher MLE. It's a reasonable gamble to wait until the MLE grows enough to significantly offset his buyout. This actually helps our ability to pursue other players to add to thhe core this year. I am pretty high on KJ and want to retain him. This drastically improves the chances of that.
If he's renegotiating his contract with Madrid as that Woj article seemed to hint, buyout could also be more onerous.
If the Rockets were offering the full MLE or close to it Llull would've been giving himself a raise even with the buyout taking into consideration the no state income tax deductions and this info: <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/BimaThug">@BimaThug</a> actually no, he would get a strecth payments and a discount for Real to own his rights outside of the NBA like it always happen</p>— Artem Panchenko (@ArtemPanchenko) <a href="https://twitter.com/ArtemPanchenko/status/616356612987580416">July 1, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> The Rockets need to trade his rights to send a message.
