Letting go Battier & Scola for cap space; I'm stunned!!?? Lets say we reduced our payroll to 8mil$ for 2010. We signed both Lebron and Wade (if you dream, dream big) And then what? Are these guys gonna play just by themselves? 5 on 2 perhaps. Because with this kinda moves you'll end up 2 superstar + 10 garbage. Not even Brian Cook level garbages. Come on seriously. And also do you really think a superstar will come a team without any good role players, any kinda suppotive cast.
You make it sound so easy, when Morey has tried and failed to T-Mac for value. He's tried to get Rubio for Battier and Brooks. And he's obviously doing his planning on the assumption that Yao may never return. But it's equally apparent that he's also looking at 2010's market. As he wasn't even willing to give Gortat a full MLE offer like I assumed. Which only makes sense if he wants to squeeze as much cap room as possible next year. My original post just want to say that if we do nothing major this summer, then Morey's basically on course to join in the 2010 FA market. Thanks. I didn't know that. In that case, I could easily see us renouncing his rights if someone like Bosh is willing to come. Same with Scola. It's pretty apparent that these two will only stay if we have nowhere else to spend our money. But IF we do make a splash, there's no chance of them returning.
i see your point, but its a risky one. staying close to the LT means we may not be able to resign guys like landry or brooks when the time comes for them to get a big raise. i'd rather trade scola and lowry for endings who dont have any money held on the cap next summer. get picks for them, and still be able to sign a star if one wants to play here. i know $ball doesn't "break the bank" for anyone as you put it, but les will pay max for bosh, amare, etc... on the other hand i a see your point. if no star signs, then we lost tmac's worth for nothing. so let me ask you this, would you advocate trading tmac for chandler and peterson, or even peja and peterson, for the hornets unprotected first in 2010?
If you have lebron and wade, I would take 8 scrubs. The shaq kobe teams never had great talent, but they won because of those two.
Not if we move Battier for expirings, and also move or renounce Lowry; then we are in business. We can then keep Scola and sign a max level star, such as a Joe Johnson. I personally like this tandem better than a Chris Bosh / no name shooting guard tandem.
If the Rockets sign Gortat to (a large portion of) the MLE, then that also counts against the cap. If they use the remainder of the MLE on Wafer, then that counts against the cap. Also, if there are fewer than 12 "roster spots" taken up by signed players or "cap holds", there is what is called a "ROSTER CHARGE" counted against that team's cap equal to the rookie minimum salary for each player below 12. The rookie minimum for the 2010-11 season will be $473,604. Multiply that number by the number of roster spots below 12 not taken up by signed players or unrenounced free agents, and that's the amount by which the Rockets' cap room is FURTHER reduced. The Rockets will have a lot less cap room available next summer than people think, unless some major changes are made before next summer.
Nobody is going to come and play for the rockets if we don´t have our supporting cas together. If Bosh, Wade and Bron leave their current teams is because they don´t want to keep playing surrounded with bad players. Are you even thinking to go to another city to have a similar situation.
Let's say we trade TMac and Scola for Chris Bosh and Marcus Banks. And we don't sign anyone this year, including Gortat, Artest, and Wafer. And Yao picks up his 2010 option. Could we afford to add Wade or Joe Johnson in 2010? PG: Brooks / Lowry SG: Wade or Johnson / Taylor SF: Battier / Budinger PF: Bosh / Landry C: Yao / Dorsey Is this realistic? Maybe not if Yao opts in, and Bosh and Wade or Johnson demand the absolute max. But if Yao agreed to take less per year in exchange for an extension? If Bosh and Wade or Johnson agreed to take a little less? Could it happen? If so, that's a championship team on paper.
Yeah, and that's where Morey has to make a decision. And it might not be this summer, but near the trading deadline. I really could see Battier being moved for an expiring. That might be enough to give Morey the cap room he needs. I still would like to see us keep Scola, but I would move him if we had to.
As of right now the Rockets are supposed to pay $ 29,100,720 for the 2009-2010 year. Let's say that we sign both our 2 rookies, then their 2nd yr salary would be about 946,300 (Dorsey's 2nd yr) and 2 players with the full MLE ($ 5.585 mil) making our payroll $ 36,578,320. Let's assume that we cut White, do not give offers to Dorsey or Chuck Hayes, and give the qualifying offer to Lowry and give Brooks a team offer that would mean about $ 32,371,900. Lottery pick that adds $1,807,100 and Scola qualifies as Larry Bird player whose salary was below average so it adds $6,751,200 if we do not renounce him. We would now be at 9 players signed, so to fill the team at three minimum contacts pushes the total to $ 42,302,964. Assuming a salary cap of say $60,000,000 next off-season, we would be $ 17,697,036 under the cap. That would be enough to sign a player who has played 6 or fewer years at the max. It may possibly be enough for someone has played 7-9 years who would likely require about $18,000,000. (Bosh, Wade, Lebron, Joe Johnson would be in this latter category) Trading Battier may get us further under the cap, if we got expiring or a trade exception, which would make it very possible. A more savy way would be to renounce Luis Scola during that off-season so you do not have that contract against the cap space, but then we would be limited on how much we could sign him too since we would have only $23,990,648 to sign a big name, Scola and some fillers. Now all of this is assuming that we waive our MLE, TE, and Bi-annual exceptions that off season.
Nice post. A few things to correct/consider, though: --Kyle Lowry will have a cap hold of ~$6.1M (300% of his 2009-10 salary; for some reason, DraftExpress.com has that cap hold listed at $8.9M, but I think that's wrong), notwithstanding the fact that his qualifying offer amount is only $2.9M. --The second year of a full MLE contract (whether spent on one player or two) will be closer to $6.05M. --Dorsey's contract is partially guaranteed for 2010-11, so waiving Dorsey might cause a portion of his 2010-11 salary ($500k? - just a guess) to still count against the cap. --Given that the current economic crisis is likely to carry over through the entire 2009-10 season, the salary cap for 2010-11 is expected to be at or less than the 2008-09 salary cap of $58.68M. So, using your hypothetical situation (which involve picking up options on Brooks and Landry but not on Hayes), we get the following (I'm rounding and guessing a little, so this is not exact): Yao - $17.69M Battier - $7.35M Scola cap hold - $6.77M Lowry cap hold - $6.10M 2009 MLE free agent #1 - $4.32M (based on initial salary of $4M) Landry (TO) - $3.00M Brooks (TO) - $2.02M (this option must be exercised by this October but is a no-brainer) 2010 first round pick (#13 overall?) - $1.92M (with 20% standard increase over rookie scale) 2009 MLE free agent #2 - $1.71M (based on initial salary of $1.585M, or remainder of MLE) Dorsey - $0.95M (partially guaranteed) Taylor - $0.76M (league minimum - he may get a piece of the MLE) Budinger - $0.76M (league minimum) Total Team Salary = $53.35 Salary Cap = ~$58.68M $58.68M - $53.35M = $5.33M. That's less than the MLE. Like I said, the team will need to make some serious changes in order to be major players in 2010 free agency. Letting Artest go for nothing and letting T-Mac's contrac expire for nothing will not create enough cap room by themselves.
Nice catch. I was thinking the offer sheet given to a RFA would count for that player instead of the hold, but after re-reading I think you are right, and that number on DraftExpress would be correct. We would then just have to sign him immediately when the sign period started, because then the Salary Cap would revert to his signed amount instead of the held amount, freeing up Cap space. Corrected for the other stuff and a Salary cap of $58.68 million, and assuming we immediately are able to sign Lowry for the qualified offer... The team amount still only comes to $50,603,943 which is only $ 8,076,057 under the cap. Basically we have to ask Yao to opt out and take a lesser salary.... or trade Battier for more expirings...
I doubt Lowry will agree to either (a) immediately sign a long-term deal that starts as low as the $2.9M qualifying offer or (b) accept the qualifying offer so early in the summer rather than exploring his options in (restricted) free agency. So, "slotting" Lowry in at a convenient $2.9M figure is not very realistic. So, you're still probably looking at cap room in the $5-6M range. While I doubt Morey would want to foreclose the option (however otherwise undesirable) of being able to renounce Lowry's rights and open up that cap room, one possible strategy to maximize the Rockets' cap room for 2010 (again, assuming that Morey definitely wants to keep Lowry long-term) would be to talk extension with Kyle THIS summer. If the team can lock him into a long-term deal that pays him, say, $4M per season, that would effectively reduce the amount "Lowry the restricted free agent" would otherwise count against the cap next summer by over $2M. Just a thought.
