I think our current group of players when healthy are definitely a contending team. Whether we'll get a solid free agent would depend on who's on the market ND who can pay more. A lot team have more cap space than us. I hope Artest would not ask too much (it's a decent hope because he likes it here and the coach).
we rockets fans have been plagued by "what if's." I think it's time to let go of the notion that we'll ever have a Big 3 that can actually make it to the playoffs without substantial injury. You can almost always bet that either Yao or T-Mac will be injured before the playoffs.
I find it hard to believe that the Nuggets could find a taker for AI's $22M expiring contract last season....yet we wouldn't be able to find a taker for T-Mac's expiring deal next year, when the economy is bad and folks are gearing up for 2010 or trying to get rid of longer commitments. For example, I don't see why the Clippers wouldn't make a deal with us to get Camby and B.Diddy (mainly B.Diddy off the books). Just using them as an example....
It's always disappointing when you have a thread where the OP has obviously put in a lot of thought and a lot of research and the first dozen responses are 2-line objections with no facts and/or with suspect reasoning. It's like bringing a knife to a gunfight.
there is another guy whose contract expires soon... Yao Ming. What if he wants to go to another team?? That's even more cap open.
another knee-jerk reaction. Admittingly, salary do go up for each year, but those were already factored into our 2010 picture. The bottomline is, we still have Tmac's expiring contract worth of 23mil. That's 23mils off the book in 2011. I don't care how much the salary is going to go up or how much artest or Yao contract going to be. we still at least have the core of that 23mils at our explosure. yet, no one bother to mention brian cook's 3.5 mil off our book too. I am guessing that 3.5mil will go to artest. we should be able to sign other guys about what they are making for now. Wafer may not even be back given his problem with AD. However I doubt he would ask for more as no other coach would be willing to give him more PT then us. 23mil coming off the book or as a trade bait. that's alot of money that we can do.
I think how you get better in the NBA is pretty obvious. Trade huge expiring contracts to poor teams trying to save money to steal their good players.
I wouldn't mind seeing Yao go, and get replaced by another star if possible. It won't happen because Yao is a great marketing asset. I'd have TMAC and Artest back at the right price.
Nice example, Icehouse, and you very well may be right. However, the key distinction there is that, at the time of that Nuggets-Pistons trade, Allen Iverson was a healthy player who was among the top 10 scorers in the NBA. As much as the Pistons made the trade to potentially clear up cap space in 2009, it was also intended to keep the Pistons competitive in the interim. (Unfortunately for the Pistons, it just didn't turn out that way.) Also, Iverson was still one of the top draws in the league in terms of getting butts in the seats, so there was an element of keeping some level of fan interest even if the Pistons' competitive level fell off. McGrady will be out until after the 2010 All-Star break, so the on-the-court element is not there. He is also not quite the same draw as Iverson, talent aside. While the Iverson example is about as close a favorable comparison as you can get, the fact that any team would essentially be trading for an injured player who has no chance of playing more than 20-25 games next year seems to skew a McGrady deal much moreso than the Iverson deal.
Knee-jerk reaction?!?!?! This thread is the complete OPPOSITE of a knee-jerk reaction. The purpose of this thread was to set out a set of facts (yes, FACTS) regarding the Rockets' inability to afford a big money free agent in 2010 if they kept the existing core intact. At no point in my OP was any drastic measure proposed. At no point in my OP was any alternate scenario proposed (except for a hypothetical salary for Artest) that did not involve keeping the core intact and calculating those players' collective salaries. Yes, Tracy's $23M salary will come off the books in 2010 if the Rockets don't re-sign or trade him. However, the only person on Planet Earth who this will affect is Leslie Alexander. You see, there's this thing called the salary cap, and it's . . . oh, never mind.
That's the story Dumars used as a sell to the fanbase. He knew his team was done (as far as competing for a title), so he cleared cap. As far as seats in the stands...Detroit loves their team. They don't need a star like AI to fill that arena. Teams don't care about getting healthy/good players back if their goal is to clear cap. Look at the Grizz and Knicks as examples. Teams sell their fanbase on dreams of clearing cap to go after free agents all the time. Another example is Miami taking on J.Oneal's $23M contract for this season and the next, and we all know no one expects him to be healthy.
Again, all good points. But your example of the Grizzlies only lends credence to my point. The Grizzlies are still hemmoraging money due to lack of fan interest and may have to sell/relocate the team. The Knicks are just a class by themselves. They'd sell out Madison Square Garden if me and four friends were playing for the Knicks. And Knicks fans are the most deluded in the NBA. They are CONVINCED that Lebron and Chris Bosh are coming to New York. I seriously doubt that either ends up there. Possible, but unlikely.
Do you see anything besides 23 million? The whole point of BimaThug's post was that Tmac's contract coming off the books alone would NOT give us significant capsapce. We will not have a chance at Dwyane Wade or Joe Johnson. Re-signing Artest and Scola makes Tmac's expiring irrelevant. Did you read his post at all? How can you not understand this? Real life example: the knicks just shed 25 million in salary between Marbury and Wilcox. 25 million! Guess how much capspace they gained from it? Zero! Letting 25 million expire did not give them any flexibility to sign a high level free agent. We'll likely be in the same situation next year.
An excellent thread, first of all. I agree with your logic and its correct that the Rockets cannot just go out and pick up another superstar once T-Mac's deal expires. The other thing to add is who would actually want to come anyway? Lebron, for sure wouldn't and I think Bosh and Wade are more likely to want to stay put and sign for the most $ or move to a "destination" like NYC or MIA. That said, I think that the doomsday planning is a little over done. I tend to believe that there should be a couple of deals out there for Tracy that would net us a very high performing player albeit with a bad deal and or multiple other players with bad deals. It is not far fetched at all to think of several NBA franchises who will be forced to make the unfortunate sacrifice of a star player to maintain financial viability as a running concern. Again, an excellent, well thought out analysis. Thank you to the OP.
You're forgetting that some of these owners care less about their fans like New Orleans and some of these owners think their fans are stupid. If the Rockets want to trade Tmac they will find suitors. As for the Baron Davis deal someone mentioned throw it out now because I think the Rockets like their two young PGs. But we're already hearing about teams like the Knicks who are interested in Tmac.
If Yao decides to leave... more cap room? yes? more attractive FA location? hardly so. A team consists of Artest, Battier and Brooks is not bad, but will hardly make any top FA think "wow, that's a dynasty to be made. I'd better join that team instead of the other bigger market teams". You really should re-read the OP's points again. BimaThug has made a great analysis to explain how and why 23mil coming off the book is not as useful in signing a FA as people think, but if you refuse to read it, it's not gonna help...
here is the link and see for yourself. I choose to see it myself instead of listening to what other's thought. http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-player-salaries/team/Rockets/ Name 2008/9 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 Guaranteed Aaron Brooks $1,045,560 $1,118,520 $2,016,691 $2,976,636 $0 $1,045,560 Adam Haluska $711,517 $0 $0 $0 $0 $711,517 Brent Barry $1,910,000 $2,062,800 $0 $0 $0 $3,972,800 Brian Cook $3,500,000 $3,500,000 $0 $0 $0 $7,000,000 Carl Landry $3,000,000 $3,000,000 $3,000,000 $0 $0 $6,000,000 Chuck Hayes $1,933,750 $2,117,500 $2,301,250 $0 $0 $4,051,250 Dikembe Mutombo $797,581 $0 $0 $0 $0 $797,581 Joey Dorsey $816,500 $881,820 $947,140 $1,012,460 $0 $2,645,460 John Lucas $536,114 $0 $0 $0 $0 $536,114 Justin Reed $1,573,000 $0 $0 $0 $0 $1,573,000 Kyle Lowry $1,163,520 $2,034,996 $2,975,165 $0 $0 $1,163,520 Luis Scola $3,150,000 $3,383,333 $0 $0 $0 $6,533,333 Luther Head $1,962,378 $2,868,996 $0 $0 $0 $1,962,378 Mike Harris $711,517 $0 $0 $0 $0 $711,517 Ron Artest $7,400,000 $0 $0 $0 $0 $7,400,000 Shane Battier $6,373,900 $6,864,200 $7,354,500 $0 $0 $20,592,600 Steve Francis $2,634,480 $0 $0 $0 $0 $2,634,480 Tracy McGrady $21,126,874 $23,239,561 $0 $0 $0 $44,366,435 Von Wafer $826,269 $0 $0 $0 $0 $826,269 Yao Ming $15,070,550 $16,378,325 $17,686,100 $0 $0 $49,134,975 Guaranteed: includes POs/ETOs $75,531,993 $61,427,539 $25,040,600 $0 $0 Total with Capholds: Cap holds are salary allocations for free agents with bird rights. You can renounce a free agent to remove their cap hold but can no longer sign them with an exception. $75,531,9 half of you don't even know those players are still in our book for this year. First of all, people kept on saying the economy is bad and it's true, but could anyone confirmed our cap space in 2010-2011 would be? no one, because it hasn't been talked about yet. Some may said there could be a lackout too. The bottomline is, rockets are not the only origanization that is facing this possibility. If others are facing the same issue, then everyone would end up back to square one. the original poster has alot of ifs and things that were based on piror years. if the cap space is going to change, do you thing the player salary calculation going to stay the same? I don't think so. are we looking at pound for pound of 23mil tmac money off the book and transformed into 23mil cap release? no, but i do think we get a big core of it. unless original poster think we probably don't even have enough for anything. that's just looking at it half empty. 2010-2011 brooks - team option - 2mil landry - team - 3mil hayes - team - 2.3 mil dorsey - partially guarantee - 950k shane - guarantee - 7.4mil Total = 15.65 mils Artest - how much do you think we are going to offer him? 9mil/3yr range? Scola - how about 5mil? Lowry - 4 mil? I know what he said about possibility that the player could get up to certain range, but heck we are talking about the current economic situation, aren't we? out of those 3, I only see scola be getting any meaningful offer from other teams. Lowry, would be give up more money for more PT? Artest, who has the will to contain this beast? Give or take 17mil to 20mil here we now have 8 players for about 32.65 to 35.65 mils Yao - has player option - which i don't see him leaving for FA. If he is then he is doing it to leave the team and not because of money. (maybe less money for longer term?) he will be making 17.7 mil in 2010-2011. 9 players = 53.35 I know the poster said the estimate cap space in 2010 could be around 57 mil, but just use your brain and think for a sec, stop letting ppl spoon feed you. In 2008-2009 this year our core player salary = 68.6, not including other which doesn't included onto my cap room, but just salary payment (75.5mils). If david stern think 57 mil is enough to keep evey team in check than I don't know who is smoking a biggest pieces crap. There would be alot of players collecting SS. forget about the draft as no one can offer to paying the rookies while having sure their book is in check. With the inflation, the cap space has been going up steady every year. The worst case it would be us not seeing much if any raise in cap space. I don't expect it to go backward at all. This is not a myth, it is calulation with probability.
