Bibby would be so much better for as a starting PG than Brooks it's not even funny. You sir need to wake up. Sure he struggles on defense too but he's a hell of a lot smarter than AB. You think Adelman played Jackson in crunch time because he's a better defender? That's hilarious. I recall numerous clutch shots by Bibby in a Kings' uniform. Why would I want Bibby's bad defense when we already have Brooks' bad defense? I've already answered that question. Bibby is coming in, and Brooks is going out. That upgrades the team right there.
I actually think BOTH issues (2010 free agency and a T-Mac trade) are largely misunderstood. Moreso with 2010 free agency, which is why I started this thread. I don't think most people on this BBS had truly accepted the fact that the Rockets likely won't have much money to spend in 2010 when Tracy's deal comes off the books. On the T-Mac trade front, if Les Alexander wanted to lose a TON (I mean a LOT) of money, he could probably do a deal that would make the Rockets a better basketball team. But it would likely involve having multiple truly horrendous contracts on the team and the Rockets having one of the top 1 or 2 team salaries in the league. We're talking New York Knicks big. But I don't think Les Alexander has "Paul Allen money" that will enable him to easily eat those losses. Les has been a great owner for this team and the City of Houston. I certainly won't blame him if he decides either to re-sign Tracy at a reduced salary or let his contract expire altogether. Either option will save the Rockets several millions of dollars over the alternative of actually doing any sort of realistic T-Mac deal. I hate to be a party pooper. I'm just being a realist.
Even a three-way deal would involve incoming and outgoing salaries from all three teams. Why would either of the other two teams take on Tracy's $23.2M in salary for 2009-10 while only sending out $18-20M? The same principle applies. Take the Rafer Alston-Kyle Lowry deal, for example. Since Rafer made a lot more money than Lowry, the Rockets and Magic needed a way to make salaries match (since the Grizzlies were under the cap, matching salaries wasn't an issue for them). That is where Brian Cook (and his $3.5M salary) came in to play. When the Rockets and Magic asked if Memphis would take on Cook's salary to make the trade work under the salary cap, the Grizzlies just laughed at them. They wanted nothing to do with Cook and his bloated salary, which was more than they were paying Lowry before the trade. So, in order to get the trade done, the Rockets had to eat Cook's salary. Even in a three-way deal, no team wants to eat extra salary.
Three words: sign and trade Two words: salary dump(s) [by other team(s)] One word: commitment If the owner is committed then a competitive (for all the marbles type competitive) team is in place.
lol u must not be serious, steve nash? I know brook has his ups and down but im sure, brook will be better than a old steve nash in years to come. Dude steve nash is 35
i would rather letting T-Mac's contract expired which would give us the potential of 3 players of $6-8m, and give us the flexibility to rebuild the team gratually We all know that a superstar along is not enough to bring the champion What we need is another player with $6-10m a year It takes 5 baby
So we are at about 75 million this season Link for Rockets Salaries The cap dropping to around 57 M is news to me. This is obviously a huge difference. Is this going to happen for sure? I was one of those guys that thought we were in position to offer a max contract. This really throws a wrench into things.
Hilarious, did you even read his first post in this thread? The very reason he made this thread was to explain why we wouldn't be able to load up to get a star like Joe Johnson.
The best way for the Rockets to contend for an NBA championship is for Tracy McGrady to remain a Houston Rocket beyond 2010. really? you want two aging superstars (T-mac and Yao) contending for an NBA championship beyond 2010? Not to mention Shane Battier and Scola will be older too. Thank god you're not the GM and Morey is. The only valid point you make is we cannot sign a major superstar (and even I doubt that) , but we can probably sign a very good PG with that cap space.
The Yao's injury news may changes the dynamics of this situation. If we don't have to offer Yao max money and he still decides to stay with us, then do we have a chance of getting any one of the big names? Even if we get Joe Johnson, we would be okay.
I seriously doubt Yao will be opting out now......unless he has a completely injury free year next year, teams will be afraid of giving him a large contract or building around him because of his injury history. Fair or not, he probably stays now. DD
He never was going to in the first place, He's too content and loyal to/with the Houston Rockets. Houston is Yao's home.
Easy with the criticism there, LCII. My OP was simply stating the fact that, if the Rockets want to keep their current core, they would not have the cap space to sign a big time free agent. This thread was never meant to be a diatribe about how the Rockets have zero other options to rebuild the team. This thread does not directly address trades, the draft, etc. And what cap space are YOU talking about? I just told you that the Rockets wouldn't have more than $4-5M, tops, and that's assuming that Artest signs a lowball deal. More likely, you're looking at somewhere between zero and $2M in cap space. In other words, the team will renounce the cap space and opt for the MLE. If you think the team can get a very good PG for the MLE, then fine. But not many "very good PGs" become available at that price. I'm sure that Morey will explore every option available in order to improve the team. My point was merely that he CANNOT keep this team (minus only McGrady) intact AND sign a big money free agent.
Yao4REAL, here's a REAL simplified answer for our cap situation, if you found BimaThug's calculations too much detail right now the NBA have two important threshold: The CAP line and the Luxury Tax line, both calculated as a percentage of league wide basketball related income. The CAP is somewhere around the $50M region. Teams with a salary below CAP can spend money on free agents up to the CAP. In other words, if your team total salary is 7M less than the CAP line, you can spend the 7M on a player or several players combined. Teams with a salary above CAP can spend the MLE(around 5M) every year to sign a new player. The Luxury Tax line is somewhere around $70M region. Teams exceed this will have to pay double the amount of their overspending. Right now, rox team salary is very close to the Luxury Tax line, which means its approximately 20M above the CAP. If we let tmac walk, his $22M comes off the book, which means we are now about 2M below the CAP instead of $20M above now. which means, we can throw the $2M salary to a top FA and hope they are an idiot and accept the deal, which isn't going to happen. Of course, we can get rid of a couple more player at the same time and make we further below the CAP to free a bit more money than $2M. -- and BimaThug's calculation shows that even if we cut out more players, we won't free up enough money to make competitive offers, unless we totally gut out our team. I hope this is what you are looking for and somewhat explained your question
5 star thread. Thanks to Morey's wizarding however, you have to be optimistic about this team's future.
I am assuming that this is referring to Yao's broken foot. If so, I have to say that the facts are still the facts. Even with this latest setback, Yao is still going to either stay on his current max contract or opt out and sign a new max contract. Even if he gets injured every year, and even if he's not the same caliber of player that Lebron, Kobe or D-Wade is, he is still such a cash cow for the Rockets franchise, he is worth every penny of a max deal to Les Alexander. Unfortunately, that max salary still ties up a great deal of cap space for the Rockets. Like it or not, Yao's salary isn't getting any smaller. If Morey wants to trade off other key parts (Scola, Battier, Landry, Lowry), then so be it. But if the Rockets want to keep the core (including Artest) together, Yao's injury changes nothing.
