This being my first post, I'm ready for alot of abuse. That being said... What if Yao opts out? With his major injury this year, maybe he would like to opt out of his max contract, sign a long term (but lower value) contract to insure his future. How long could Yao resign for if he were to opt out? Would a 5 year 50 million deal be something he might consider with his injury history?
If we get Bosh it is going to include Landry, not Scola. The package should be Battier, Landry, Cook, Lowry, and a future first or...... some convuluted 3-team trade that involves us trading McGrady's expiring for a talented big to send to Toronto along with Landry, Cook, and Battier or Lowry......whatever is needed to make the salaries work.
Dude, that's a reasonable question and a solid first post. It's much better than the typical "yo what if we trade Yao 4 Kobe cuz Yao sux".
Thats actually been brought up before. I dont think it was discussed to heavily though. Would be awesome if it worked out like that, would help bring in more players too.
Solid post. Do you think teams might be willing to sign Yao to a five year contract? I imagine they would, but that's a pretty big risk! I think, at this point, Yao opting out is something that Rockets fans just can't fathom.
I do think alot of teams would be willing to sign him for purely financial reasons. Take a guy like Donald Sterling for example. He doesn't care about the Clippers or their cap room, just his bottom line. And Yao is very good for your bottom line. But what I really meant was that he opts out and resigns with the Rockets for a longer term deal at less than the max. It gives Yao long term financial security and could free up another 7-8 million in cap room for the Rockets next season. So now Bima's 7-10 million turns into 14to 18 million. Bima, do you know how long a player who opts out can resign for with his original team?
If Yao opts out and becomes a free agent, he can re-sign with the Rockets for as many as six seasons (only five with any other team). The idea of Yao opting out for the express purpose of taking a substantial paycut in exchange for long-term security (in case his foot is never the same) has been discussed before. While it would, in theory, open up a bunch of extra cap room that could allow the Rockets to offer a max contract to a free agent (but still subject to dumping T-Mac along with some or all of Scola, Lowry and Hayes), I just don't see that happening. Yao knows that Les NEEDS him in order to keep the Rockets the big time money-maker they have been for Les. Taking a $7-8M pay cut PER SEASON is not something that Yao would (or should) willingly do unless he was fairly sure that his career was about to be derailed. Yes, it is the single most plausible scenario in which the Rockets could create significant 2010 cap room. But counting on the altruism of a star player to take a substantial pay cut is not something on which we should be basing our Big Plan for the Rockets.
Plus the fact that you still have to break up a substantial part of the core (very good core). It is just not smart to do that just for a shot (far from guaranteed) for a big time FA. It makes much more sense to build through trades and drafts or a combination of both.
Oh I agree. I'm just looking at things that might happen. I think T-Mac plus open roster spots are a good indication that something is afoot in the near future. But I can dream about Yao taking a paycut for the team right?
Agreed, but if Yao did for some reason take a paycut, the Rockets would only have to make roster decisions on the team options for Landry (no brainer) and Hayes (maybe?) before the start of free agency. As long as the Rockets make qualifying offers to Scola (who would be foolish to take such a low amount) and Lowry (who could conceivably accept it, although he'd be better served to negotiate a long-term deal), Morey can fish for free agents while still retaining the rights to Luis and Kyle. If no major free agent bites, then proceed to re-sign Scola and Lowry (oh, and even T-Mac). But if Chris Bosh suddenly decides that he must be a Houston Rocket, the team has the flexibility to then renounce its rights to those players in favor of the cap room. That said, I still don't know if the Rockets would have max money available if they even kept just Landry and Hayes in that situation.
I really don't agree with the highlighted part because of the salary cap if we're talking basketball. Teams like dallas,pistons,and bulls don'y have a guy like yao and they do just fine. Now if you want to say we can't replace his talent, then i can go with that, but les doesn't need yao just like yao dont need les. They're both business entities with the exception les is a billionaire. The toyota center with all the bells and whistles are whaproduces the revenue and with the salary structure of the nba, cost certainty is huge like in football. If the rockets still played on the sw side in the outdated summit, then that a different deal, but being downtown in a state of the art arena is where its at for the team. Personally, i don't think the rockets or yao should make any decisions until he's back on the court again and see what kind of player he is. He may come back to being a all star type of player or he may come back is show a sharp decline. I highly doubt yao would give up 17m guaranteed right now if he doesn'e have to.
I DO think that Yao would take a pay cut to have a shot to win. Yao's contract, much like Lebron's, Is a small portion of his total earnings... Yao could do a few Del Taco commercials and be good to go...
Regarding Yao, I think the Rockets would be foolish to sign him to a max deal, his feet are just too risky. DD
I think they see how he does next year and decide......but I think the Yao and TMac era should be over, IMO, you can not have 2 injury prone players..... DD
Let's take a look at a different scenario. Let's say we are unable to trade T-Mac for a star and just let his contract expire. But we successfully develop our younger players into solid players and then we re-sign them with the cap space left over. This may very well be our team for the next few seasons: Starter/backup/total pts (conservative estimates) Yao/Andersen/26 Landry/Hayes/23 Battier/Budinger/15 Ariza/Taylor/14 Brooks/Lowry/22 A decent mix of offense and defense, up tempo and half court. This is a pretty good rotation, a definite second round team. Now if Morey manages to pull just one rabbit out of his hat and replaces one of those solid players with a star player then the Rockets are championship contenders again.
For the last 3 months or so this has become my favorite thread of all even though at the beginning I wasn't into it. It maybe the most informative thread I've ever read. Good stuff Bimathug and Leebigez.
Also you have to consider that his minutes and impact will more than likely be less. I would not be surprised if he is on a 3 year deal....or 4 tops, but not for max money. DD
