If a team like Phoenix is regularly willing to sell its first round pick for $3 million cash, what will $8 million cash get you (in addition to reducing team salary if the Rockets take back more than Yao's $17.7M cap figure AND in addition to any cash--up to $3 million--that Les may also include in the deal)? Probably at least a first round pick with those expirings. That actually sounds like a reasonable request to me.
How many times has a team traded an expiring contract for another AND gave up a draft pick for it? There may have been some examples, but I'm struggling to think of any that don't involve one team doing the deal to get under the luxury tax. From what I understood, the Rockets were looking at a combination of expiring contracts, prospects, and draft picks in exchange for Yao. The article mentioned they called Sacramento offering to deal Yao for Dalembert & Cousins. If that was the deal, wouldn't you almost feel insulted if you were the Kings GM? Surely there had to be a lot more included in that. I can understand the Rockets using Yao's contract to relieve other teams of long-term contracts and picking up draft picks/prospects in the process (like my Rashard Lewis/1st idea). But trading him for other expirings and draft picks? I can't imagine any team lining up to take that deal. I mean, the only reason the Rockets got Hill/1st rounder is because they took back Jeffries. Woj's report makes it sound like they want the same deal without taking on Jeffries.. I don't see that happening.
The idea of trading an expiring for an expiring is simply to make salaries work. Teams give up a first rounder to be rid of long term salary. For instance, Charlotte may consider giving up a 2012 first rounder to be able to dump Gerald Wallace's contract. So, they may be willing to give up Wallace and Nazr (expiring) for Yao's expiring and throw us a bone (the pick) to get us to take on all that salary.
An update from Wojnarowski: http://twitter.com/WojYahooNBA "So far, Rockets aren't impressed with offers rolling into them for Yao Ming. Still, there are several weeks for teams to get serious" Definitely looks like we'll be waiting till close to the February deadline...
I mean, I get the basic idea of matching salaries. I'm just confused at the lack of inclusion of a sentence like, "the Rockets would be willing to take back long-term contracts in exchange for picks, prospects, etc." Kinda like we did with McGrady. I don't see your Wallace idea ever happening. Giving up a pick to get rid of a long-term contract implies that it's a bad contract you have to give up an asset for to get off your books. Gerald Wallace is a damn good player. You GET 1st rounders for Gerald Wallace, you don't give them up to get rid of him.
Unless you are cash-strapped and you aren't going to the playoffs and you are trying to survive as a team and rebuild. And if you are a team like Charlotte, Philly, Detroit, Portland, Memphis, Golden State, or Phoenix with enough star power to stay out of the basement and out of the high lottery but not enough star power to really dance with the big boys, you may realize that it would be best to part with the #10 to #20 pick in the first round in order to get rid of boat anchor contracts like Elton Brand and Gerald Wallace in order to get worse, save money, and get into the lottery and rebuild with young guys. Those teams are tweener teams. And a lot of them are hurting for money. They have poor attendance. They are either going to the playoffs as the 8th seed and getting toasted or they are not going to make the playoffs at all but have a very small chance of getting in the top 3 with the ping pong balls. Besides that, most trades made for first rounders right now come with lottery protection, top 3 protection, top 1 protection, top 8 protection, etc. etc. etc. And then the draft typically produces less than ten very solid NBA players and less than 3 or 4 star to superstar players. Add it all up, when teams get desperate to unload salary, they will unload picks to get rid of that salary.
I agree with most of that -- but we both know there is a big difference between Elton Brand and Gerald Wallace. If you're trading Elton Brand for an expiring contract, you have to give up something (1st) to get them to take him on. I still maintain that, that is NOT true with regards to Gerald Wallace -- the Bobcats should be able to get 1st rounders FOR him, not give them up to get rid of him.
Woj's insights lead me to believe that Morey leaks info to him in order to manipulate the market. While i'm sure all GM's do this, I find a special satisfaction out of how tight lipped our org generally is and how they only allow info to sift to one or two sources. Masterful.
It all depends on the new CBA. We keep hearing that the owners want a hard cap and if they get their way then its' a whole new world. Think about a hard cap, that means no exceptions of any kind. No Bird rights, no MLE,no minimum salary exception. You would have to actually fit the salaries of all of your players under the cap, you can't go over to resign your players, you can't sign guys for the minimum and not have them count against the cap. If a hard cap were put in place there'd likely be some method for allowing teams with high payrolls to get under the cap. Maybe they have an intermediate (reduced) cap next year and then have to be at the real cap the following season? Or they might be allowed to waive players (while still paying the guarenteed money on the contracts) without having it count against the cap. If there is a hard cap some of the teams that are way over the current cap are going to have to dump players in order to get under the hard cap. Let's say the cap for next season goes UP to $60M but it's a hard cap. Think about a team like the Lakers who have $59.1M owed to just Bryant, Gasol and Bynum next year. What do they do? Even if you ditch Artest,Odom and everyone else for nothing how do you fill out the remaining roster without a minimum salary exception? You've got less than $1M total to fill the remaining roster spots. More likely LA would have to let Bynum go to free up money. If a hard cap is approved there will be several teams that will be forced to dump salary. It's not just LA but teams like Miami, Boston, Dallas,San Antonio and Orlando will have to make some hard choices. There could be some quality players available and teams with cap space will have a chance to scoop them up. It's certainly not guarenteed that a hard cap will be part of the new CBA but if it is then the teams that can manage their salaries and find undervalued talent will have an advantage. A hard cap would level the playing field for all teams and I like Morey's chances in that environment.
We act as if Yao is Dream. Dream is the only Rocket that deserves this type of treatment of not being traded and even Dream moved on an played for the Raptors. We need to get better. But I do think Kevin Mart deserves to stay.
First of all, I agree that asking for DeMarcus Cousins and an expiring contract in exchange for Yao's contract is not the most even-handed trade proposal. I am not defending THAT particular trade proposal (if it was, in fact, ever made). What I AM defending is the notion of Yao's contract being "worth" an expiring contract and a first round pick. Let's look at this in simple terms: What is the point of making a trade to get under the luxury tax? It's not "to get under the luxury tax". That is just a means to an end. It is to SAVE MONEY. Yao's contract allegedly comes with an insurance payout of $8 million cash from the insurance company. If it works anything like most insurance does, where a "deductible" must first be paid by the insured before the insurance company pays the rest, then this would presumably require the Rockets to pay the FIRST $9.7 million of Yao's salary, with the insurance company then either paying the rest or just cutting a check at the end of the season. Based on this premise, it would appear that by shortly after mid-season, Yao's contract will either pay for itself or, better yet, net the team who has Yao on its roster at the end of the season a financial windfall! It's the equivalent of trading a normal expiring contract but being able to throw $8 million in cash into a trade (actually, up to $11 million, if you count the regular $3 million allowed under current trade rules). Plus, the Rockets could take up to $22.2 million in salary back from the other team in exchange for Yao's $17.7 million cap figure. In total, by trading one or more expiring contracts to Houston for Yao's insurance-covered contract and cash, a tax-paying team (for instance) could conceivably net up to a total of about $20 MILLION in cash, payroll relief and luxury tax savings (or more, if the trade sneaks the team below the tax threshold and they get to share in the luxury tax revenues). For THAT much money, I'd give up a damn first round pick. But maybe that's just me.
Well, if there is a playoff team out there that has an expiring to match Wallace's and a first round pick to trade and they feel like Wallace will put them over the top in the playoffs, that may be possible. But what ultimately does Charlotte get out of a deal like that? They get a first round contract that they are obligated to, typically a lower first round pick, somewhere between 24-30, and they are obligated to 2 years of first round salary. That's nothing. And most of the time a team in trouble like Charlotte don't want the low first rounder and have to pay money to a player that is going to be out of the league more than likely after two years. Now, with all that said and done, where's the deal?
We're going to end up with at least 1 superstar by the deadline since pretty much everyone on our team is being considered in trades, including Scola, Martin, and Battier. Source: http://realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/70839/20101229/houston_very_active_in_trade_talks/
I don't think that's the reason we want some expirings back. If we let Yao expire, we cut our salary by $17.7 million. We don't want to drop our team salary that much, but we do want to drop it some. We have to take back some salary to make it worth the other team's while - not much point in trading him for another $17 million contract. It might also make it easier for the other team to match; they might not have $17 million worth of contracts that they want to lose. If we take back $5 million in expirings and the rest in contracts that go a few years, we cut our team salary by $5 million. I expect we would like our salaries to go down some.
You're right, I dont agree with that part of the article, but the fact that the players mentioned are available came as a suprise, especially Martin.
I know we are all anxious to see what happens, but the longer the team waits till the deadline, just like the McGrady deal, the deal just gets sweeter and sweeter... let em wait Morey.
Yeah that was kind of a head scratcher for me. I think Scola is a little bit underpaid, quite frankly. How many players in the league can you find that average 20/10 on a consistent basis? While I agree that Martin is a tad bit overpaid, depending on how you look at it, his efficiency at the offensive end alone justifies his contract and he's still relatively young at 27. Also, you won't find alot of expiring contracts like Yao's "floating around" as Ford put it. His expiring is unique in that is insured and you instantly pocket 8 million dollars in savings and that doesn't even include the DPE that you could obtain simultaneously. Ford needs to do some more research.
The reason why we want an expiring back is to be able to combine with Jeffries and possibly even Battier to pilfer another team. In the dream scenario, we would hand Denver a bunch of expirings along with young talent for both Melo and Billups. Billups has a very small buyout for next season and his contract could be used to flip for Paul. Like I said, that is the dream scenario. Not likely. Bima seems to think we are valuing having max space available next season. You are suggesting we want some space under the cap. That only helps us if the new CBA does away with the MLE. I am suggesting that because after Melo and Gasol there is not really any free agents that we are going to be interested in that Morey is actually trying to use our expirings to take on salary if he can land a superstar or two or significantly upgrade our team by adding a key piece (center) that drives us back to contention.
