We all know about the reports that the Rockets are offering Bosh the max. But being able to do it can get pretty tricky. Specifically, there are two ways to get Bosh: either a normal signing via cap room or a sign and trade. The normal signing route would require that the Rockets have sufficient cap room-- $20.7M to offer Bosh his max. Getting there is all but impossible. Even if the Rockets were to get rid of every player except for Dwight, Harden and Beverley, and then withdraw Parsons' qualifying offer ($2.88M), thus dropping his cap hold to $1.76M before immediately re-signing him, the team would still have only $20.3M in cap room given current salary projections. [Note: I am excluding Capela's number, assuming that he is either traded or agrees to stay in Europe for another year. If he comes over, the math is a bit more difficult yet.] Just getting rid of Lin's $8.4M cap hit in addition to Asik isn't nearly enough. The salary cap numbers would have to come in significantly higher than the current $63.2M projection in order to offer Bosh his "max" straight up and that max number will also go up as the cap goes up. And it will have to go even higher for the team to keep one or a couple of the current small salary guys on the roster (Jones, DMo, Daniels, Canaan) while doing a straight signing of Bosh. If Bosh is signed his way, the Rockets will have to fill out the rest of the roster with just the room exception and minimum wage offers. The table showing the calculations: Spoiler <style type="text/css"> table.tableizer-table { border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif font-size: 9px; } .tableizer-table td { padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc; } .tableizer-table th { background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold; } </style><table class="tableizer-table"> <tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th>Player</th><th>2014/2015</th></tr> <tr><td>Dwight Howard</td><td>$21,436,271 </td></tr> <tr><td>James Harden</td><td>$14,728,844 </td></tr> <tr><td>Chandler Parsons</td><td>$1,760,350 </td></tr> <tr><td>Patrick Beverley</td><td>$915,243 </td></tr> <tr><td>Roster charges (x8)</td><td>$4,058,688 </td></tr> <tr><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Total</td><td>$42,899,396 </td></tr> <tr><td>Projected Cap</td><td> $63,200,000.00 </td></tr> <tr><td>Cap Room for Bosh</td><td> $20,300,604.00 </td></tr> </table> Thus, the preferred way to land Bosh would be to do it via sign and trade. But a sign and trade presents its own issues. First, Miami has to willingly participate in such a scheme-- which it may well do (with Lin going to Miami or some other team with cap space like Philly), if the Rockets offer some asset to Miami and especially if it hopes to operate "above the cap" and use Bosh's outgoing salary to take on substantial salary in a trade (like acquiring Melo, which depends on NYK willing to participate in a S&T itself). Second, if the Rockets engages in a S&T, its own salary will be "hard-capped" at the "apron level" of an estimated $81M-- $4M above the luxury tax line. This $81M would be a substantial limit on the Rockets flexibility and it is a "HARD CAP" that just cannot be exceeded even via signing minimum wage players. Lets say that the Rockets trade (or cut, in the case of non-guaranteed deals) every player making more than $1M except for Jones, Dwight, Harden and Bosh. This gives them the following 7 guys making $61M-- and these don't include free agents Parsons and Daniels. Spoiler <style type="text/css"> table.tableizer-table { border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif font-size: 12px; } .tableizer-table td { padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc; } .tableizer-table th { background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold; } </style><table class="tableizer-table"> <tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th></th><th>Player</th><th>2014/2015</th></tr> <tr><td>1</td><td>Dwight Howard</td><td>$21,436,271 </td></tr> <tr><td>2</td><td>Chris Bosh</td><td>$20,700,000 </td></tr> <tr><td>3</td><td>James Harden</td><td>$14,728,844 </td></tr> <tr><td>4</td><td>Terrence Jones</td><td>$1,618,680 </td></tr> <tr><td>5</td><td>Patrick Beverley</td><td>$915,243 </td></tr> <tr><td>6</td><td>Isaiah Canaan</td><td>$816,482 </td></tr> <tr><td>7</td><td>Robert Covington</td><td>$816,482 </td></tr> <tr><td> </td><td>SUM</td><td>$61,032,002 </td></tr> </table> This leaves them $20M with which to 1) re-sign Parsons, 2) re-sign Daniels, and 3) fill out at least 4 other roster spots. This can be done, but the Rockets will have a hard time actually using its full MLE and BAE under any reasonable projection of the salary cap. Also, if the Parsons' offer or Daniels' offer comes in too high, the team will have to contemplate letting Daniels go and using the MLE/BAE to look for a replacement (which, again, makes the decision to decline Daniels' option rather strange). Either case, the Rockets with Bosh will have a great core, but will seemingly have a hard time getting depth behind that core for at least another year.
Four way trade between Rockets, Miami, New York and New Orleans. Bosh to Houston, Melo to Miami, Asik to New Orleans, Lin and a bunch of assets to New York.
More then Likely the heat will take a s&t for Bosh, because unlike Anthony who the Knicks want to keep, if Bosh leaves, its because either Lebron left and the team will start to rebuild, or because Miami doesn't want Bosh on team and is planning to replace him with Anthony or other free agents. So Bosh s&t is basically a guarantee if he chooses to sign with us. Simple 3 way sign and trade Trade Lin and a pick to Philly Trade multiple future picks to Miami Get bosh on a max contract Would we have to send out Jones or Motiejunas to sign Bosh to the max in a s&t? Or will Lin be enough?
8 Chander Parsons $12,000,000 9 Troy Daniels $ 1,000,000 (sliver of the MLE 3 years/$3 million) 10 Nick Johnson $ 507,336 NEW Sum $74,539,338 That leaves $6,460,662 before you get to $81,000,000. So you could sign a couple of vets to the minimum and they only count $816,482 each against the cap. That would leave you $4.8 million below the apron with $4,305,000 of the exception left to give to an individual player.
It's quite simple: If absolute max, then we can't keep Bev. If just a small cut, then Bev stays. I favor the SnT route myself. I know the issue with the apron, but I'd rather retain more current talent and have the ability to use some or all of the MLE. Something like this: 1) Trade Asik for the pick 2) SnT for Bosh using Lin, Canaan, Rights to Capela, and the NOP 1st 3) Use all or a portion of the MLE to sign Papanikolaou and Llull. 4) Resign Parsons and Daniels Our roster looks like this.... Bev / Llull / Johnson Harden / Daniels Parsons / Papanikolaou / Garcia Bosh / TJones Howard / DMo Our cap looks like this.... 21.4 - Howard 20.7 - Bosh 14.7 - Harden 11 - Parsons 4 - Llull 1.6 - TJones 1.5 - DMo 1.3 - Papanikolaou 1.3 - Garcia 1 - Daniels 0.9 - Bev 0.8 - Johnson $80.2 million. Hard cap is at $81. Does that leave us vulnerable to injuries? Yes. But it significantly upgrades our roster, and it has a lot of versitility if there is an injury.
Is he really getting offered the max though? Or is that just a report. I see it as the Rockets making him a really big offer, one much bigger than Miami's initial offer, one so big you might as well call it the max - then Bosh's agent simply throwing around the word "max" to better position Bosh. This way, if Bosh gets his wish and returns to Miami with Lebron, he'll get more money than Miami's original offer AND look like a hero for still taking a paycut to save the Big 3. Positioning 101. Win-win. Maybe I'm crazy for not believing reporters on critical details, you know, the same reporters that told us Bosh was offered $96mil... Just a hunch. But judging from the numbers I've seen. I think we're taking "max" too literally. I'll go out on a limb. If we sign Bosh I bet his contract starts under $19mil/yr. Bosh doesn't even want to leave Miami unless LeBron leaves. We basically need LeBron to leave. After that, it's not like Bosh has a ton of options left. I imagine Phoenix and LeBronless Miami would be our only serious competitors. Do we really need to offer him the exact full max to beat those teams? I'm not so sure.
That's too much to give away. Offer Miami Lin and the pick directly for Bosh. Miami can flip Lin at the deadline since they are likely going to the lottery if Lebron and Bosh leave.
Wouldn't that be funny? LeBron says he's leaving, Bosh says "sup Rockets how bout that max offer", Morey says "lol nope offer is 15 mil/year now".
It depends on Parsons' starting salary. If it's in a reasonable range ($11m-$13m), then the S&T route is easily the best: max salary, Jones, DMo, mid-level signing/trade.
Is "the max" an actual thing or is it the max we can offer? seems like the lack of state income tax comes into play when talking about how much the player actually nets from the deal although Miami also has that advantage...
nah jokes on the Rockets, cause at that point someone will offer him more. So LBJ gets his wish, Bosh still gets paid and the Rockets end up with nothing.
Seriously? Lol Miami can flip Lin at the deadline? Yeah and package one of their picks to get rid of him? Not happening, unless they want to keep Lin for the whole season just to sell tickets. They're going to either want one or two of Jones, Motiejunas or Cannan, or no salary in return at all. Trading Lin for space, packaging a pick with him Trading some future picks to Miami Getting Bosh and keeping our MLE and BLE, how is this overpaying?
The numbers you have for Daniels and Parsons are rather low-- and even a few million bucks more for them will restrict what's leftover a great deal.
ESPN had that Tom Penn guy run the scenario. Asik/Lin/DMo/Canaan leaving, and keeping the Brazillian KD overseas created enough space.
I don't think we'd do that, but I do think his agent would slightly exaggerate the contract value to position Bosh. And there's no reason for the Rockets to come out and deny the figure. The same people that reported "max" salary are the same that had no clue what the "max" salary would be for Bosh. $96mil > whatever Bosh actually winds up with.
