I can't believe the Rockets are so confused if it all broils down to giving James a player option in the 4th year and a bonus for a trade. Think about it, MJ wanting to opt out after three years is good news because he's gonna play his a$$ off to get more money! It definitely works out in favor of our championship runs in the next three years. A trade kicker is nothing a big deal. It's not like that James is untradable because of it. James just wants a little compensation if the Rockets trade him again. In the market, a marginal raise in salary is not gonna affect a player's performance/price ratio much. The Rockets once again shot themselves in the foot. They had guts to call bluff on their plan A when their plan B sucks compared to it. When they had leverage with Gay and Swift, they freaked out and cheap sold. When they didn't have leverage, they waited for too long and called bluff. This offseason is horrible, they should be skinned and made into banners hanging on the rafters of Toyota center.
Good points. I'm deeply bothered by the contradictory logic shown by the management. First they tried to win now by flushing away assets, then throw away chances to win now by putting on a tight lid. It's like nobody is controlling the ship and the course is random. What's next? These two moves has made a void in me. I'm completely underwelmed.How am I gonna pass the long off season? Oh well, like another poster noted, just keep chanting we have T-Mac and Yao, and dream about Novak and V-Span come and turn into studs.
Fred Jones would be my target as well. Dangerous game though. We either have to offer a full MLE and hope they don't match, or start at the TE and still probably have to kick in years 1st rounder. Mike James was cheaper and less risky, but Jones is younger and more upside as a pure athlete.
Yes, but this is what they get for botching the James deal. I'd rather see them spend money on a useful player than gamble on a project. Point is, Indiana has some SG/SF that they could trade and we could use: Jackson and Jones.
what bothers me even more is CD's aw shucks, "today's not a good day" quote. was that real or another of richard justice's fake conversation bullsh!t? if real then WTF? this implies to me that we don't really have anything up our sleeves as a legit plan b. if so then why didn't you sign him? he practically begged to play here and i don't think the deal he got was anywhere close to a bad deal on minnesota's part. i just don't get it. i was stunned at the draft but have come to like that move. even after sitting on this one i'm not happy. this is just not inline with that strategy at all. mike james isn't a perfect fit but he fills a need. he's a steal at the mle and most importantly he brings fire and passion that this team needs.
I am a Mavs fan but being a Texas fan the Rockets are the team i cheer for after the Mavs and I was really pissed to see that not only did he turn down the Mavs, he turned the Rockets away also! I just understand his reasoning, it doesnt go along with what he has been saying all along. He said he wanted to be near his family. Minny is NOWHERE near Houston obviously. At least Dallas was near. He said it wasnt about money, but he sure did jump quick to the team that offered the most. He said it was about winning a title... Minnesota is not close to winning a title. Minny didnt suck last year because of injuries like Houston did.... Minny sucked because they suck. No excuses. Adding Mike James isnt enough to make the playoffs for them much less win a title!
I agree! Jackson or Jones would be great and would give the Rockets more chances to make the playoffs.
This is a complete myth. Overall stats (per 48 minutes) T-Mac: 20.8 FGA, 7 FTA, 25.1 points Yao: 15.9 FGA, 8.1 FTA, 23.9 points With Mike James (per 48 minutes) T-Mac: 24.2 FGA, 8.3 FTA, 27.8 points Yao: 16.1 FGA, 10.6 FTA, 26.3 points James may not have been a passing PG, but nevertheless the stars shot MORE when he was on the floor. My guess is that having a legitimate 3rd option on the floor kept opposing defenses from double/triple teaming T-Mac and Yao, allowing them to get off more shots. I'm starting to see a bunch of Clutch fans bashing and hating on Mike James now that he has turned the team down. I don't know if all of you hated him all along, but if you didn't (and it's all because of this) then I have to say that I don't like the irrational "with me or against me," almost tribal attitude. I've seen it in other sports fandoms, and it's stupid. As I see it Mike James looked at several offers and picked the one that was best for him. There's nothing wrong with that.
Player option is money. If the player plays well the year before the option, he will certainly opt out and ask for a raise or bolt. If the player sucks, he will opt in and you still have to pay him. And if he sucks and there's the trade kicker, you'll have to pay him extra trying to get rid of him. It's all about money. Money for the Rockets, money for James. Let's not kid ourselves. It's not about winning, not for James, not for the Rockets. It's about money.
The more I think about it, the more I think it doesnt make any sense. Rockets offered initially 3-year contract and then finally 4-year contract to Mike James at MLE. So it means they are fine with 3 or 4 years contract. Then why did they refuse a player option after the third year? Didnt they prefer 3-year contract at the first place? Then the trade kicker. Assume MJ doesnt play as good as we expect in 2006-7, I dont think the management would call it a failure immediately and trade him after next season. It's very realistic to assume that he would be with us for at least 2 seasons. Then how much does 15% trade kicker worth for his remaining contract? 2M at most. So the management decided that $2M extra is too much to afford for their off-season No.1 priority? MJ is a bargain at MLE. See how's the contracts of Bobby Jackson or Speedy Claxton signed. You say MJ is difficult to be traded with trade kicker. If players like Blount, Patterson, Malick rose (all have trade kickers in their contracts) could be traded, how difficult would it be to trade MJ. Remember his contract would probably only worth 13 or 14M at the time he will possibly be traded, which is much lower than the contracts of players like Rose or Blount. Remember this article? http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/lopez/rockets/3806240.html We have a lame duck coach who's at the last year of his contract (team oprion at 2007), I suppose he wants to win now at all cost We have a GM who will retire next season, I suppose he wants to play it safe We have an ast Gm who will take over the organisation next season, I suppose he wants to look for the future Who's the boss? What are their agendas? Trade Gay PLUS Swift for Battier? Give up their No.1 priority because they dont want to pay potentially 2M extra? What will be next?
F%@# James. We dont need his ball hoggin a*$ anyway. Next. We tried to sign him. He was bitter. KG reached out to him at the last minute and boom.......he lands in antartica. Oh Well. I bleed Rocket Fuel. I am definately not going to loss any sleep over this. Move on my fellow Rocket brothas.
Let's see how happy James is in Minnesota after they have a few more losing seasons. I personally am very happy. Good riddance. I don't think he realizes how big of a mistake he just made. Saying that our season is a wash just becuase we didn't get MJ is foolish. Would it have been nice to get him, sure....but due to the fact that the free-agent pool was so weak...he was trying to get as much leverage as possible, realizing that at age 31, he isn't getting better. At least we don't have to waste any more time with Mike James threads anymore...thank God. He's Mike James people...not Michael Jordan.
Argh! It's not too late, Mike James- Wade is backing out of his original verbal commitment, and you can too! Rox- give the man a 4th year! All of the dumb contracts you've done, and you balk at this one?!? The draft trade is debatable. Not getting a legit, penetrating scorer like James is not debatable! Ugh.
To clarify the situation a bit, based on reports this morning: First, Houston MATCHED Minny's offer of a fourth-year player option. We did. However, Houston would not, AS A MATTER OF POLICY, offer James (or ANY player, not even Yao or Tracy) a 'trade kicker' - ie a 15% pay hike JUST if a trade is made. This is not CD's call, and has nothing to do with anyone but the OWNER, Les Alexander. And Les is not alone in this. Very few teams offer such terms. It pushes teams too close (or even over, depending on the circumstances) to the Luxury Tax, and it makes it difficult-if-not-impossible to trade a player if he needs to be traded. I suspect Minnesota is going to regret doing this. There is no way James is going to opt-out of the 4th year, and he will ONLY be slower and less effective with each passing year. He will also be untrade-able, and Garnett will likely be long gone in a trade while he still has some good value left. Meaning the T-Wolves are going to be stuck with MJ for the duration. Now that is not to say that he won't pay immediate dividends - he probably will. But will Minnesota challenge for a title? No way. If anyone is destined to be a perrenial lottery team between Houston and Minnesota, it's Minny. Funny thing is, once James starts to get over the 'high' of being the prettiest girl at the prom, and realizes he lives in a boring white-bread town that lives in sub-zero temperatures a lot, AND he lives in a state that is going to be helping itself to a heck of a lot of his money, and that KG is no longer there, and he is never going to be anything more than a medium-sized fish in a small pond, he is going to start squawking about wanting to be traded, preferably to Houston. And it won't be happening. Although, that DOES offer up something of an interesting scenario. How soon COULD Minny trade MJ after signing him? Could the crazy little conspiracy theorist inside me be wondering if this all isn't just a grand scheme with our original draft-night trade partner, Minnesota, to find a way to pay MJ a higher amount of money than the MLE or the TE would have allowed us to? Could Minnesota have purposefully signed him with that 'kicker' in place strictly to trade him to us, and strictly so that it would trigger an additional 15% pay increase over what we could have paid him any other way? Once the 'kicker' had kicked in, the kicker would no longer be a part of his contract, instead he would simply be making the higher dollar amount. I know this is absurd, but how could that work? I mean, if we COULD have offered him more money, we WOULD have, right? So could we work the deal with Minny now, with the TE, and a future 2nd rounder or a low-paid player or something, get MJ, and pay him 15% more than the rules would have allowed any other way? HMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmm... Absurd, I know, but it sure would make a lot of people look pretty silly for all their screaming, wailing, and gnashing of teeth about hos terrible CD is.
ball hoggin who? Overall stats (per 48 minutes) T-Mac: 20.8 FGA, 7 FTA, 25.1 points Yao: 15.9 FGA, 8.1 FTA, 23.9 points With Mike James (per 48 minutes) T-Mac: 24.2 FGA, 8.3 FTA, 27.8 points Yao: 16.1 FGA, 10.6 FTA, 26.3 points do you think we need more passers or more shooters? we didn't give him a 3rd year player option which makes no sense since we already gave him 4 years and he was only asking for flexibility no you bleed rocket management fuel.. sheep..
Do you know that Mike James was also asking for a 3rd year player option and the rockets did not give it as well. If you're already giving the guy 4 years, might as well give him a player option. So its not only the trade kicker. James even said if the Rockets gave him the player option, he would have signed with the rockets so the trade kicker was not that big of a deal for him
Two moves that are going to haunt the Rockets forever are: 1) Trading Mike James for Rafer Alston and then desperately wanting James back the next season as a FA 2) Signing Stro Swift, not playing him much, and then dumping his ass back to his original team. Add to the fact that Gumby ball is staid and boring and that he loves to play guys who are too old to be out there (35 years and older), you have to ask yourself - why in the HELL would any decent player want to come to the Rockets. To play with Yao and T-Mac (who may never be the same)?? Yea, right - that's a pipe dream. That is probably why the Rockets FO keeps getting their heads handed to them because they keep thinking erroneously that everybody and their brother wants to play with them. The reality is far from that - FAR from that. I am tired of this constant bumbling by this FO - they have left me with no hope for this upcoming season...at all.
Ah, I've been out of the loop the past 18 hours, and missed this. I do think that Minny is the best fit for MJ at the moment. He will be the #2 option; a go-to guy like he has always wanted to be. I also agree that in a year or so, he might be b****ing and moaning about being on a horrible team, a team that he's the #1 option on. It's like a Twilight Zone episode.
You aren't understanding how a trade kicker works. The difficulty is that for the purpose of a trade, the Rockets would have to count his salary without the kicker. Any team receiving James would have to count his salary plus the value of the trade kicker. It's like a mimi version of BYC. Like BYC you can still complete some trades, but it's more difficult.
