Update re: Rockets' Right of First Refusal on Mobley

Note one thing: Mobley is not a ROFR until we tender the qualifying offer, which must be in 30 days before free agent season begins.

If he intends to take the Middle Class for one year from us, and re-sign next year with Full Bird rights, then we don't need to make a qualifying offer to him. We should just renounce him. That way he count $0 towards the cap. We would then sign him later in August, only after we go after other free agents.

Going the renouncing route can save us $2.2m in cap space for other free agents.

Why?
1. Making the qualifying offer must be in my June 30th. If anyone offers higher, we must match it in 15 days or lose him. Once we match it, he then is signed and that value counts towards the cap.
2. Free agency starts Aug 1.
3. If we make the qualifying offer, someone will up it, just to make us sign him before Aug 1st, so he counts towards our cap.
4. Instead, renounce Mobley and re-sign him at our leisure.

this is not risky. if he wants $2.2m and Full Bird rights, he will stay. If he wants more, then we can't pay more, so ROFR or not, we will lose him as Juan summarized.

[This message has been edited by heypartner (edited March 10, 2000).]

 

The question of our right of first refusal on Mobley came up some while back, with some saying we couldn't match other teams' offers and others (myself included) arguing this right would allow him to give him his money. I was sufficiently interested to check the CBA FAQ and then write to Larry Coon to find out the specifics on the rule.

His contact finally got back to him and he got back to me with less than heartening news. He says it is a LIMITED right of first refusal. Here is how I now understand it:

A team with the ROFR is given an exception big enough to make a qualifying offer. A qualifying offer here is 125% of his previous salary, or the minimum salary plus $150,000, whichever is greater. When another team makes an offer sheet, the ROFR team can match it with the room it has under the cap, a mid-level or million-dollar exception, or with the ROFR exception. If it cannot match the offer with any of these means than it has to cross its fingers and hope the ROFR player will take less to play at home.

What this means for Mobley and the Rockets: According to Davo's salary page ( http://rocketdavo.tripod.com/ ), Mobley makes $301,875 this year. 125% of that is $377,343. The minimum for someone of Mobley's tenure is $423,500 and you get to add $150,000 to that for a total of $573,500. This would be the number used for the first year of the ROFR exception. (Note that I'm not sure Davo read the minimum salary table ( http://members.home.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#9 ) correctly, but I won't challenge him now.)

We also have available a million dollar exception (I think). Next year, it will be for $1.2 million. The Mid-level exception is for $2.25 million and its availibility is not affected by using it on Anderson last year. There is also Early Bird Rights which will allow us to give Mobley 175% of this year's salary for $528,281 in the first year of at least a two-year contract. Obviously, we won't have any money under the cap to give him.

The most we can offer Mobley is the mid-level exception of $2.25 million. We have other options if we want to use this on someone else and Mobley wants to be paid less. But this is the most we can give him.

This news is neither all-together good or bad. He obviously could make better money elsewhere (depending on how the FA market shakes out). Our right of first refusal is next to useless. However, Mobley can still get decent money and he'd only have to sign for one year in order to get full bird rights. If he goes for the money though, and Hill and Duncan stay home, we probably can't compete.