I respect your opinion of Tracy McGrady. Just keep in mind the following: THAT is the best the Rockets can likely hope for if McGrady never plays another game for the Rockets.
It's not a "steal" if the guy is an often-injured player on the wrong side of 30 who makes near-max money for the next 5 years.
Man you guys need to shut the **** up about getting Mike Bibby. He's not any better than Aaron Brooks. In fact, i will say Aaron is better w/ his speed, not IQ. Shooting-wise, Aaron is better. Defense-wise, both are horrible. I used to be Kings fan and I KNOW Bibby can't play shyt on defense. That is why Rick Adelman play Bobby Jackson in crunch time and give him a majority of mins than Bibby. He's doing the same thing here in Houston. He gives Lowry more times than Brooks during crunch time. So why the hell do you want Bibby who can't guard nobody on defense when you already have someone on your own team that does the same? Wake the **** up!!
Hmm..I thought it was a big-time steal, because without that trade, Lakers wouldn't be a contender. And they didn't really give up anything to the Grizzlies! Or it was a really imbalanced trade..seemingly
You're kidding, right? I was talking about the guy's suggestion that the Rockets "steal" Baron Davis from the Clippers. The Gasol trade was such a steal, it's almost criminal.
Well this is a breath of stale air! Just what we need, more depressing news! If true, then what you see is what you get: a moderately talented, overachieving, moneyball inspired, undersized, unathletic, collection of nice guys who will give us an entertaining regular season and a short playoff run. Thank you Uncle Les, we are so thankful for our bowl of regular season gruel seasoned with a few playoff moments.
Rockets can always trade away some of their other pieces- Brooks, Battier, even Artest to bring in new talent. Fret not clutchfans, In Morey We Trust.
Hey BimaThug, Can you do a salary analysis of the team salary using numbers than just talk about it. I don't know how this thing work and why when Tmac's contract is up that we can't use his $$ to sign another decent player since after all, doesn't his salary take up a majority of the team cap?? And so if you take his contract off due to expiring..doesn't that free up a huge amount of $$ for us to sign a decent player?? I don't get it.
Yao4REAL, I don't exactly know what you mean by "using numbers than just talk about it". I did use numbers. However, if you want to know how I got to the initial $38.5M figure for Yao, Artest, Battier, Landry and Brooks, I'd be glad to. All the other numbers are spelled out fairly clearly in my original post. The estimated 2010-11 salaries for the aforementioned players is as follows: Yao Ming - $17,686,100 (which may be moreif he opts out and gets a new max deal) Ron Artest - $8,000,000 (again, this is a very low estimate; he'll probably make more) Shane Battier - $7,354,500 (final year of a long term deal) Carl Landry - $3,000,000 (final year of 3-yr./$9M deal) Aaron Brooks - $2,016,691 (fourth-year rookie scale salary) Total: $38,057,291 Plus, Joey Dorsey, if waived, has his 2010-11 salary ($947,140) partially guaranteed. For purposes of my calculations, I'm guessing that the partial guarantee is about $500,000. Similar to what the team gave John Lucas III. That's how I got to the $38.5M figure. Take another look at my OP to figure out the rest. It's all there.
While I fully agree with your main premise that we will not be players in free agency, I think you too hastily arrived at your subordinate conclusion that a trade is unlikely in supporting your conclusion with regard to your two 'best case scenarios.' while it's unlikely, given the dire financial straits of some franchises, i wouldn't rule out a trade, even given the deterrent of some bad contracts attached to the package. talent will be there for the taking. the nets offered the blazers vince carter in addition to draft picks for raef's contract, and such an offer will most definitely still be on the table. it will be up to daryl morey and les alexander to weigh the potential benefits of any deal against the reality of the costs in relation to our financial standing and their perception of our proximity to a championship.
thacabbage, I didn't go into detail regarding a T-Mac trade because it did not relate to the topic at hand, since a T-Mac deal would even further reduce the Rockets' chances of participating in 2010 free agency. While I agree that teams in financial turmoil will look to dump even talented players for expiring contracts in order to get out of the red, I just think that T-Mac's deal is too big for its own good. Raef's expiring contract was for $12.7M. The teams looking to dump salary were looking to do so at a cost savings THAT year. Using the "125% +$100k" rule (which allows teams to trade salaries totaling within 125%, plus $100,000, of the other team's salaries), the salary-dumping teams were looking to dump as much as about $16M for LaFrentz's $12.7M expiring deal. That would have saved the salary-dumping team $3.2M+ this season, plus the additional savings beyond 2009. T-Mac's deal, on the other hand, is for $23.2M+ in 2009-10. That is a LOT more empty salary for other teams to take on, even if it is for only next season. We're talking $8.5M more. Plus, those salary-dumping teams would be looking to offload MORE than $23.2M (as much as $29M) on the Rockets in any trade for T-Mac's expiring contract. I just don't see a team being willing to be significantly on the other end of the "125% + $100k" from T-Mac's salary. For instance, do you think that Phoenix would trade away $18.5M in long-term salaries in exchange for T-Mac's $23.2M expiring deal? That would end up costing Robert Sarver $4.7M MORE this season. I think he'd rather make a deal with a team with multiple, smaller expiring deals where he can take back less in 2009-10 salary than he sends out. I'm not saying that a T-Mac deal is completely out of the question. I just don't think the fact that T-Mac has an "expiring" deal overcomes the fact that it is just so damned large.
This is the exact reason I've been saying the time to win is now. I don't know people think we were just going to be able to keep this team intact. Get rid of T-Mac and replace him with another superstar the cap doesn't work like that. Years of playing Franchise mode NBA live with the salary cap let me know that were pretty much stuck with this team. Because of the guaranteed contracts in the NBA. You really have no room for mistakes when you commit big money to a player you better hope he's the right guy. You see these mistakes made all the time. Hence the Stevie Franchise buyout. That's why I like Morey he's not only a number crunching stat junkie, but he is also practical. And I feel he will take care of business and continue to build this team with player that will mesh and contend for championships.
Vince Carter? Really there's areson the Blazers didn't do that trade. It wasn't worth it! Draft picks In the Nba are really not that high of a value unless its a top 5 pick. After that it's pretty much a crap shoot!
God, I hate rookie posters. I wasn't suggesting we trade for Vince Carter. The example was to demonstrate that there will be players available.
Interesting perspective and certainly one I haven't heard before. If your analysis holds true, I think this is far more significant than your main conclusion regarding free agency. While most here had already accepted that the team would not be players in 2010 after the Artest trade, the mainstream opinion has been that the team will look to reload with a McGrady trade, in effect lessening the blow of his injury and antics this season. If true that our fate is held completely in Tracy McGrady's hands, the state of things is much more depressing than originally perceived.
Before anyone else points this out to me, I just caught a minor error in my math (see above). When I added Scola's $6.8M cap hold, I accidentally added $8.8M in salary. Still, this doesn't change my point. The Rockets still would only have about $5M in salary cap room, tops. That STILL won't be as much as the MLE. Sorry for the error.
