Another enticement to the Heat for a Bosh S&T if Lebron comes back to Miami is the notion that it could generate a $20.7M trade exception for Miami that it could attempt to use to S&T for Melo. Of course, Melo would need the legit threat of walking to LAL or CHI for nothing in order to get the Knicks to play ball. But don't discount this possibility. I'd imagine it is something the Rockets have considered.
To clarify: I am NOT proposing to trade Harden for Bosh. I don't think it would be smart to do it. I would trade Harden for LOVE under the right circumstances but Love is 25 and Bosh is 30. I posted this thread because I was curious about how the cap math would work with a Bosh acquisition, did the calculations and decided to share the results.
Hornets just offered Gordon Heyward 4/63. So using Parsons at 12M/per could be low. Unless Parsons understands that he has to take less to stay in Houston and Morey already has a wink wink deal lined up for him.
Looks like one has to slot in at least $13.5M maybe $14M for Parsons' salary. $14.88M is the maximum that he can get. With the Rockets ability to give him higher % increases and offer a 5th year, they could maybe make an equally valuable offer for him at a slightly lower starting amount, but not by much. This is going to make the "hard cap" scenario rather tight. Lets say the Rockets have the following 7 guys left after S&T transactions: Dwight Bosh Harden Beverley Jones Canaan Covington They count as roughly $61.2M toward the hard cap. $14M for Parsons leaves $5.8M to add 5 more guys, including possibly a re-signed Daniels, to the roster, each of which will count as $915,243 or more. So, lets say we sign 4 minimum guys (including Nick Johnson), each counting as $915,243, this would leave around $2.14M to re-sign Daniels (using a portion of the MLE) or to sign some other outside FA while letting Daniels go (unless he takes a contract close to $915,243). The team will not be able to sign any other non-minimum player to a contract. We are talking about a roster with some excellent players, but only 6 guys with 200 minutes of NBA expereince-- Dwight, Bosh, Harden, Parsons, Beverley and Jones -- plus whatever players that they can land at the minimum or close to it. So, either the likes of Canaan, Johnson, Covington and Daniels show they are NBA ready, or the Rockets better land some cheap guys who can play ("Hello, Aaron Brooks/Omri Casspi/Cisco Garcia? This is Daryl.")
Its a good point, but look.. every year the money dries up in free agency and guys go from getting vastly overpaid to vastly underpaid. This year more than others, there are some quality vets that could very well get passed up on and be willing to sign at the vet min. Also couldn't the Rockets still get a few vet min deals like Brooks last year where they only have to pay like 900K and the league pays the rest? Do you know how many of those contracts they could sign vets to? I'm looking at Jameer Nelson, or maybe Okafor (if teams think he can't play anymore and he secretly can). I'm also going to watch the waiver wire this year too. I have a feeling some quality players will get moved out as a byproduct of whatever major moves happen or dont happen for certain teams that Morey can prey on.
If this is where we are headed, my suggestion would be to trade Jones and Covington and sign Bosh outright. This would be the basis of the 4/85 number we heard floated in the media that we actually offered Bosh. (starting salary of $19.99 million) That means essentially finding a team that will give us a draft pick for Jones. I don't see what the big deal is with this. It's not like Jones is going to be a major rotation player for us that is not irreplacable with a number of minimum salary vet free agents on the market. And with that we don't have to worry about no stupid apron. You pay Parsons his money, fill out the roster with a huge choice of vet free agents. Josh Powell can most likely be re-signed. Charlie V. is out there begging the Rockets to bring him in. And then there's the possibility of trading for a bunch of non-guaranteed minimum salary contracts right after signing Bosh. For instance Philly has around $4.4 million of those type contracts. We could trade a second rounder to Philly for those contracts, wait 2 months, then aggregate those contracts together and trade for a player(s) with a salary of up to $5.5 million. That could all be accomplished before the season starts. We could possibly flip for Keith Bogans' non-guaranteed $5.2 million deal which would make him eligible to be aggregated into another trade by Nov. 15th if we traded for him by Sept. 15th. If Brooklyn wants to get rid of Mirza to save a few tax dollars...there you go. Target teams for acquiring minimum non-guaranteed salaries: 1. Philly - Williams, Sims, Davies, Thompson, Varnado - all non guaranteed with no guarantee dates except Varnado guaranteed $75,000. - Total salaries - $4,444,534 2. Chicago - Brewer, James, Admundson - all non-guaranteed wit hno guarantee dates except Admundson has a $300,000 guarantee if not waived by August 1. And Brewer was released by us last season but he cleared waivers and I think we can trade for him, but perhaps not. Don't have time to check on that for the purposes of this post. Total Salaries - $4,063,062 That's 8 players and over $8 million in salary with only $375,000 of it guaranteed. We would have roster slots to add all these players and still add Daniels back to the roster along with paying Parsons. I would think these non-guaranteed contracts could be acquired with some second rounders...which we have an abundance of. For instance Philly...I would think perhaps Jones going to Philly for a second rounder and then later a second rounder going back to Philly for their non-guaranteed deals would be doable. And Chicago...they have no use for any of these guys except to trade them. They'll have to release them anyways if they bring in Pau or another free agent. The thing is if we acquire those guys right after we sign Bosh, re-sign Parsons, and sign back Daniels, then those guys can all be aggregated in another trade in 2 months...before the regular season starts. I'd think we could turn some of those deals into perhaps Ilyasova....and a second rounder coming back...or perhaps Thad Young...with a second rounder coming back....or any number of other viable solutions.
Basketballhollic suggests trading Jones.... huge surprise Seriously though, there has GOT TO be something about either or both the Bosh & Parsons contract that we have yet to see that will make us all do a big "OHHHH" when we get the details (if the Rockets are lucky enough to pull this off).
It's about the Rockets, dobro. The Rockets. Perhaps if we trade _ones all the _OFs will leave with the LOFs.
A couple notes: 1. The Rockets will most likely end up including one or more current players (DMo, perhaps Jones, maybe a signed and traded Daniels) as well as Capela in a "Lin trade package" whether they pursue the cap room route or the S&T route. It appears that the money will be so tight after adding Bosh contract that even a relatively cheap rookie scale deal like DMo's or Capela's will put pressure on the cap situation. 2. In this case, people will complain about how big a price that the Rockets are paying to get rid of Lin because we are giving up all these young cheap assets maybe in addition to a future pick. However, the thing to remember is that, given the salary constraints, even the "young cheap assets" are contracts that themselves need to be traded for no $ in return-- and you probably aren't gonna get too much for them even in a 1-for-1 trade in terms of future picks because the Rockets won't have a whole lot of leverage. Looking at the Cleveland/Jack deal, for example. Some would argue that Cleveland traded 3 assets to get rid of Jack's contract. But two of the "assets" are Zeller and Karasev, whose (rookie scale) salary also affects the team's cap flexibility. Besides, the "car dealership theory" of draft picks applies in this case: Once you select a 1st round pick, his value decreases unless/until he starts impressing people on the court. So, you probably aren't getting much more than a 2nd rounder for Zeller or Karasev in this situation anyway (see also, Marcus Morris, Jordan Hill). 3. I think the Rockets will try to keep Jones if at all possible. He has flaws, but is young and showed improvement. Also, as I mentioned, he will be only the 6th guy on the team with more than 200 minutes of NBA experience (in addition to any cheap players that the team could add). Most importantly, you are not getting much extra talent from the cap flexibility created by trading him. Somebody has to play those PF/C minutes that Bosh and Dwight are not playing. I don't see there being a better candidate out there given the salary constraints. 4. The whole aggregating non-guaranteed guys to trade for an expensive guy proposal is a nice thought, but it looks like a Rube Goldberg machine that requires the cooperation of multiple other teams who may or may not want to help the Rockets.
I can't see how the Rockets can trade for these non guaranteed contracts and not send salary back once they are over the cap. How does these trades work?
I think if the most the Rockets need to wonder about this season is how to best make moves under the $81 hard cap, then there's basically nothing to worry about. Whether the Rockets can keep DMo or Capella is hardly a concern. Spoiler
FWIW, if signed to the rookie minimum (or, I believe, anything less than $915,243), Nick Johnson--as a second round draft pick--would only count at his actual salary for determination of the hard cap. I also believe that Canaan (also a second round draft pick) would only count at his $816,482 actual salary. (Not 100% on Canaan, since he was signed to a three-year deal, not technically a "minimum contract".)
Thanks for the clarification/correction. However these count, though, the money gets pretty tight-- which it often does with any team hard-capped at the apron, but especially with one in Houston's position where they are planning on re-signing an expensive free agent of their own after reaching the soft cap via a big sign and trade. Miami has a similar issue (which you pointed out on twitter) if they have to pay Bosh and Lebron the full max, sign Wade and Haslem (and maybe Birdman and Ray) back and also use the full MLE and BAE.
[rQUOTEr]NBA Salary Cap for 2014-15 season jumps to $63.065 million ... tax level is $76.829 million ... minimum team salary is $56.759 million Non-taxpayer mid-level is $5.305 million, taxpayer mid-level is $3.278 million and mid-level fo team w/ room under Salary Cap is $2.732 mil[/rQUOTEr]
It feels like a 5 year, ~$70 million deal starting at $12 million with a player option and trade kicker is coming. Basically no discount; actually more of a slight raise considering the Rockets let Parsons out of a $1 million year.
For Bosh, we would only be able to sign him to a 4-Year contract, regardless of if he is a FA or used in a S&T. That was added in the recent CBA.
