I agree, the cap space goes up to $108 million by next season. That's why Dwight is also looking for his pay day.
My guess is if Morey can't get Durant+Horford, he tries for Durant+Howard. If he can't get that, he may keep his options open in terms of signing DMo. He may make a strong push for RFA Harrison Barnes. He may look at Nene or Noah as C options. They will be much cheaper than Dwight and might give similar defensive production. Morey will look at Llull and Gentile. Morey will look at other role players like Jared Dudley.
Cap space will be at 90M or 92M this offseason. And that is why either Ariza or Brewer will have to be moved to create the 50M in cap space to offer 2 25M max offers. The 108M cap is the summer of 2017. So yes, if the Rockets strike gold with Durant and Horford in 2016, then in the summer of 2017 Morey can beef up the role players that might be a bit bare to make room for Durant+Horford.
Assuming Durant signs a one plus one contract with OKC, could we sign Horford / Llull / DMo and still have room to sign Durant in 2017? Assuming we can dump Ariza and Brewer, of course.
I think there is a good chance that if Morey strikes out on his key free agents that he ops to keep cap space to absorb contracts at the deadline, or setup for a bigger free agency push in 2017 when there is much more cap space available. The big item really that will start rearing its head if it hasn't already internally is James Harden's future. Obviously they want to keep him, and recreate a productive environment for him. They can't afford another year like this if they do want to keep him. If no Durant/Horford, or Durant/Dwight, I would be surprised if Morey opts for signing stop gap players. I'd even say that it would be unlikely (unless its a bargain deal) that D-Mo is resigned in that situation. Morey knows he needs to get someone next to Harden that is a true #2 that fits and he needs him fast. If he stikes out in July, I think he will opt to try again in February, and again for one last swing in July of 2017.
Great. If Hinkie's 76ers are the perpetual poor man's "nooooooooot yet; nooooooooooooot yet; wait for it; just wait...." team, then we're the middle class version. Not an All Star? Don't spend. Put it all on Harden another season and hope your stopgap players and coach can make a splash (and not the kind when the turd hits the toilet water). So fingers crossed that The Summer of 2016 is going to be bountiful for the Rockets. I'm not one of the Morey naysayers but he obviously has a lot of pressure on him to produce this offseason after a disastrous 2015-16. You can only ride one player (and hire coaches to slavishly follow a system for which their players are ill-suited) for so long.
Yeah and I'm not necessarily saying that I agree with his process, but he has a long history of said process when it comes to roster building post T-Mac/Yao. That history kind of tells me that I probably shouldn't get too attached to our fan favorite from Lithuania unless he's a bargain Morey can't pass up ALA Lowry when he became a RFA.
Perhaps Donuts would consider a two year contract with a second year player option. That would enable a much better deal the next year, when the cap goes up significantly.
I can't see Durant and Howard on the same team for starters..secondly Howard isn't worth 20 plus million dollars...maybe somewhere else..only takes 1 idiot to pay it out there tho
If you are the Rockets why would you ever want to sign Llull? The guy isn't good enough. If he were, he'd be here. Regardless of what him or the org says.
I feels ya. I don't disagree with your reasoning. I just don't want all of us Clutchfans to spontaneously combust, or our heads to explode like that guy in "Scanners", baffling police from Greece (malakas) to Australia (aussie rocket, et al) who will finally have to piece it all together: "This is Wolf Blitzer. Breaking News: the Houston Police Department and Interpol believe that the unexplained cases of exploding heads have a common link: They were all Rockets fans who couldn't take it anymore when the General Manager of the Rockets NBA team failed to land even one significant free agent in 2016. We switch over to sports director Randy McIvoy of the local NBC Houston affiliate KPRC, where it all began. So, Randy, it appears this was not some weird strain of Super-Zika virus....." "That's right, Wolf, and we all missed it here in Houston because 94% of us don't care about the Rockets so long as we have the Texans...."
LOL, this is some funny stuff. Predicting this is like predicting that Trump will say something controversial in the next week. More than likely if Morey isn't hated now, he's going to be public enemy #1 in Harris, Galveston, Fort Bend county, and so on. Its a joke, but on a serious note I hope the guy stays out of harms way. Its not that hard to imagine some idiot doing something stupid that gets out of hand if things get much worse.
If Durant signs the 1+1 with OKC he can be a FA next year. And at that time his max deal will start at 30M (versus 25M this year). The NBA salary cap is expected to rise AGAIN in 2017. Perhaps as much as 20M. So, if that is the case and the Rockets are over the cap, they just need to clear around 10M off the books.
