2014 off-season Compendium

[thead]

Even he was an allstar and all-nba team member.

yeah but then he took a shit in someone's shoe, brought guns to the locker room and imploded his career making him the worst bang for your buck in league history.

[TSF]

Gilbert Arenas?

Hey at least Washington didn't give 24 million dollars a year to a 35-year old with a torn Achilles tendon

[Primer]

Remember when Mutumbo was getting $17M per year because the Knicks and Nets were both paying him? That was pretty funny.

Shawn Kemp was also paid $15M despite not being in the league anymore.

I think those contracts ended up a bit worse than Gay's.

[Bendit]

Apologies if this has been mentioned in the thread (did not have time to comb thru) but my wet dream of a SF who is young, has a two way game and great personality from what I have seen is Chandler Parsons. His current contract situation is a bit convoluted since the mix of considerations includes Houston's cap problems and with Asik & Lin contributing to the clog. In anycase the item below explains it well. If MU could swing a move on this.....

The Houston Rockets are going to take a risk with Chandler Parsons, but which one?

Parsons is under contract for $964,750 next season with a team option.

If the Rockets pick up the option, they’d get Parsons for that ultra-cheap salary next year. However, he’d become an unrestricted free agent in 2015, and Houston would face a greater risk of losing him for nothing.

If the Rockets decline the option, Parsons would become a restricted free agent this summer. The Gilbert Arenas applies only to players with one or two years experience, so Parsons doesn’t qualify. But because the Rockets has Parsons’ full bird rights, they could match any offer he receives. Plus, Parsons’ restricted status would likely cool the market for him, because other teams would know Houston could match any offer.

Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, in a Q&A with Jonathan Feigen of Ultimate Rockets:

Q: How do you make a decision on picking up the option on Chandler Parsons’ contract when you don’t know what will happen in free agency two weeks after your deadline to make a decision?

A:”We won’t know everything we need to know when we have to make a decision on Chandler’s (contract) option. We have to make the best decision at the time we have to make it (June 29).”

Morey’s decision very well could hinge on Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin.

Free agents continue to count against a team’s cap until renounced or signed. How much a free agent counts against the cap – called a free agent amount – depends on multiple factors, but whenever Parsons becomes a free agent, he offers a big opportunity for his team.

This summer, his free agent amount would be $1,760,350. Next season, it would be $1,833,025. Either way, that’s extremely low for a player of Parsons’ caliber.

Houston could let Parsons sit on their books at his free agent amount, use all their other cap room and then re-sign Parsons to his larger salary ($9 million per year or so).

But the Rockets aren’t slated to have cap room this summer, so Parsons’ extraordinarily low free agent amount wouldn’t really help now. They’d still just have the mid-level, bi-annual and minimum-salary exceptions to sign free agents.

However, the Rockets are expected to have cap room in 2015, when the contracts of Asik and Lin expire ($8,374,646 each). Then, Houston could use the aforementioned trick to get most from its space before re-signing Parsons, assuming Parsons agrees to wait.

This all changes, though, if Asik and Lin are traded sooner. Either they could be traded for less salary (giving Houston cap room this summer) or a long-term contract (eliminating Houston’s cap room next summer).

Unless he’s already traded them by Parson’s option date, Morey has to weigh the likelihood of trading them later among many other factors. The decisions on Parsons is definitely complicated.

With the information I have available, I’d exercise Parsons’ option, and the call isn’t that close.

Asik and Lin hold actual 2014-15 salaries of $14,898,938 (even though their cap amounts are lower), so trading them won’t be easy. The Rockets definitely think Asik is undervalued, and they might be right. But if nobody else knows it, it doesn’t matter as far as trades. They face similar difficulties with trading Lin.

Plus, at a cheap salary, Parsons is a tremendous trade asset himself. If he becomes a restricted free agent, not only would his higher salary make him less desirable, he’d have the right to approve any trades for a year if Houston matches an offer sheet to keep him.

Unless an Asik-Lin trade emerges before the end of June, the Rockets should exercise their option on Parsons and reap the rewards of their good drafting and smart signing for one more year.

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.c...arsons-option/

[Primer]

Apologies if this has been mentioned in the thread (did not have time to comb thru) but my wet dream of a SF who is young, has a two way game and great personality from what I have seen is Chandler Parsons. His current contract situation is a bit convoluted since the mix of considerations includes Houston's cap problems and with Asik & Lin contributing to the clog. In anycase the item below explains it well. If MU could swing a move on this.....







http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.c...arsons-option/

Just one more great player that will be in the 2015 free agent class. I, like the author, think it's a no brainer for Houston to pick up the option this year. They'll still have the cap space to resign Parsons in 2015, and if he wants to stay it should be easy, restricted or not.

[BobLoblaw]

Even he was an allstar and all-nba team member.

Not after Arenas signed that max contract. After signing it, he played a total of 121 games, and his level of play would've been embarrassing for Rudy Gay.
5 years, 100 mil.

[BobLoblaw]

Apologies if this has been mentioned in the thread (did not have time to comb thru) but my wet dream of a SF who is young, has a two way game and great personality from what I have seen is Chandler Parsons. His current contract situation is a bit convoluted since the mix of considerations includes Houston's cap problems and with Asik & Lin contributing to the clog. In anycase the item below explains it well. If MU could swing a move on this.....

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.c...arsons-option/

He has a two way game? Is that sex lingo? I think he's pretty disappointing defensively.

I wouldn't mind signing him regardless. I think offensively he's a brilliant fit.

[Letter N]

Just one more great player that will be in the 2015 free agent class. I, like the author, think it's a no brainer for Houston to pick up the option this year. They'll still have the cap space to resign Parsons in 2015, and if he wants to stay it should be easy, restricted or not.

I disagree with that, if you actually want the player you decline the option and unless some other GM does something stupid you match the 8-10M offer he'll get and you move forward. If you pick up the option you give him a year to hate you for keeping him poor and you give other teams an easier ability to throw lots of money at him.

Now this is all assuming Parson's is in their long term plans.

[white men can't jump]

He has a two way game? Is that sex lingo? I think he's pretty disappointing defensively.

I wouldn't mind signing him regardless. I think offensively he's a brilliant fit.

I agree. He's average at best. Houston just has a lot of guys who don't really play D at all, so he looks pretty good on their team.

[DanH]

I disagree with that, if you actually want the player you decline the option and unless some other GM does something stupid you match the 8-10M offer he'll get and you move forward. If you pick up the option you give him a year to hate you for keeping him poor and you give other teams an easier ability to throw lots of money at him.

Now this is all assuming Parson's is in their long term plans.

Agreed - HOU will want to get him locked in to be safe, and if they are going to be able to use cap space, it'll have to be this summer in that case.

HOU wants to clear Asik and Lin from their cap - if they drop them, they can decline Parsons' option, let him go to restricted free agency, use their cap space to sign a big name player (they're close to the cap now, and could clear up to 16M by dropping the two, as well as more like 30M in actual cost), and then re-up Parsons for whatever he wants.

So, since this coming season is going to be a bit of a holding pattern anyway, might as well help them out.

At the draft...
HOU sends:
Asik (8.4M), Lin (8.4M), 1st HOU 2014 [total 17.3M]

TOR sends:
Salmons (7.6M), Hansbrough (3.2M), Novak (3.75M) [total 14.6M]

TOR is close to the tax, so they can receive back their outgoing salary plus 25%, plus 100k.

So the deal works financially.

The effects:

HOU: Shed 16.7M in guaranteed salary this summer, take on only 5.75M in guaranteed salary. That's 11.0M in salary cap savings (assuming they waive TH and JS, which obviously they would), putting them 10.9M below the cap after extending Parsons his QO. Meanwhile, Novak's the sort of guy that would fit great on that team. Also saves them close to 25M in actual salary costs.

TOR: The opposite - take on 16.7M in guaranteed salary, while clearing Novak from the 2015 cap. That leaves TOR with 54.0M committed to 8 players, 1 draft pick, with 3 or 4 key signings to come. That means 20M before hitting the tax. Should be enough to get Vasquez, Patterson and Lowry re-signed. Can always go into the tax if need be. Very costly move in terms of actual dollars, but this is the sort of thing that deep-pocketed owners like MLSE can pull off that a lot of other teams can't.

Means no free agency moves, of course. Improvement on the wing would have to come from our two 1st rounders (possibly packaged for a move upwards?). PG would be stacked (you'd have to think a Lin trade would follow - Lin to LAL for Nash+pick?), and we'd have our backup C.

In the meantime, the Raps have 36M in expiring contracts going into next season between Asik, Lin, Amir, Fields and Hayes, for a potential blockbuster at the deadline. And if no move is made, even after re-upping Lowry, Patterson, Vasquez, they are looking at 20+ M in cap space in 2015.

[BobLoblaw]

I disagree with that, if you actually want the player you decline the option and unless some other GM does something stupid you match the 8-10M offer he'll get and you move forward. If you pick up the option you give him a year to hate you for keeping him poor and you give other teams an easier ability to throw lots of money at him.

Now this is all assuming Parson's is in their long term plans.

That's an interesting point. According to Morey, Parsons asked him for a raise a couple times. I'm not sure if it was a serious question or not at all, but Morey's response was that NBA rules made it impossible to opt out and give him a raise.
Now that it's finally possible to opt out, it's fair to wonder if Parsons is maybe hoping for a raise this summer.

[Primer]

I disagree with that, if you actually want the player you decline the option and unless some other GM does something stupid you match the 8-10M offer he'll get and you move forward. If you pick up the option you give him a year to hate you for keeping him poor and you give other teams an easier ability to throw lots of money at him.

Now this is all assuming Parson's is in their long term plans.

Yeah, you could be right here. Only getting paid $900K when you should be making closer to $10M has got to sting. Seems like we both agree Houston isn't letting Parsons go, so he doesn't make much sense for the Raptors.

[BallaBalla]

I don't know what the discussions are about regarding our offseason. The future, for the first time, is crystal clear, and it has nothing to do with draft picks.

We will probably sign lowry and over the next 2 years commit financially to DD, JV, KL and TRoss. Maybe Amir gets moved, but probably not.

We will be completely invested in the ability for these guys to improve over the next 2-3 years. So, our offseason (once lowry is signed) should be very uninteresting in my opinion. The only thing I want to hear about is how hard JV and these guys are working

[GLF]

I don't know what the discussions are about regarding our offseason. The future, for the first time, is crystal clear, and it has nothing to do with draft picks.

We will probably sign lowry and over the next 2 years commit financially to DD, JV, KL and TRoss. Maybe Amir gets moved, but probably not.

We will be completely invested in the ability for these guys to improve over the next 2-3 years. So, our offseason (once lowry is signed) should be very uninteresting in my opinion. The only thing I want to hear about is how hard JV and these guys are working

Couldn't agree more. I would add Vasquez and Patterson to that group as well. Hopefully we add a bigger wing player and a backup centre (as Masai said) and we're good. I don't think we should make any drastic changes and Masai pretty much said he won't be doing that. The focus seems to be on development and I'm loving it. People really underestimate chemistry and continuity.

[white men can't jump]

I don't know what the discussions are about regarding our offseason. The future, for the first time, is crystal clear, and it has nothing to do with draft picks.

We will probably sign lowry and over the next 2 years commit financially to DD, JV, KL and TRoss. Maybe Amir gets moved, but probably not.

We will be completely invested in the ability for these guys to improve over the next 2-3 years. So, our offseason (once lowry is signed) should be very uninteresting in my opinion. The only thing I want to hear about is how hard JV and these guys are working

There was a tweet already about JV's schedule. Something like...Working with Hakeem, working with a sprint coach, playing pickup ball, playing with national team, working out in Vegas....Not sure on the timeline, but I imagine the first three are in sequence. Basically work on game, work on body, practice new skills in low-intensity setting....The working out in Vegas thing I expect is actually before the national team commitments, and probably with the Raptors summer league squad where staff will be there to evaluate his progress. Not playing there though, just working out there and practicing with summer league team like some guys went to do last year and hopefully many team members do again. Then national team play, and take a breather after the World Cup before coming back to training camp.

Would love to know what Ross is going to be up to. Supposedly they want him to get stronger. And I imagine he could easily play for the summer league team again this year along with any rookie(s) they get.

And as has also been tweeted, DD and Patterson will also be working with Hakeem.