I think everyone that wanted LeBron on the Rockets was ultimately disappointed that he opted out of his contract and asserted that the Rockets are now most likely ruled out since LeBron didn't agree to an opt-in-and-trade since this appeared to be Houston's preferred path to acquire Lebron. I think that's true from a fan's perspective since we wanted Houston to trade for LeBron, re-sign all of our free agents at market value, and have ownership pay a massive luxury tax bill... because its not our money. What if ownership's (and by extension management's) preferred path is to sign-and-trade for LeBron, thereby subjecting Houston to the hard cap of approximately $129M for 2018-2019. This would result in more certainty for an owner that is not very liquid that his luxury tax bill for 2018-2019 would be approximately $7.5M at the very most at the end of the year (calc: ($129M - $124M) x $1.50)). I think there could be a scenario where the Rockets sequence everything in a way where they retain the core of Paul (UFA), Harden, James (S&T), Tucker, Capela (RFA) and have about $10-20M of margin left to fill out the rest of the roster via bird rights on existing players, cap exceptions (i.e., variants of the MLE), and minimums without ever exceeding the hard cap at any point after acquiring LeBron depending on the rates Paul, LeBron, and Capela sign at. We would probably lose Ariza and other key vets in this scenario along with a years worth of chemistry, but the "stripped down" version of the Rockets could still theoretically be better than any of his other alternatives from a talent perspective AND ownership would have a built-in excuse to save on the tax bill. What do y'all think?
Our cap hold is 85m. Cap is 101m. Could still unload contracts to free up max cap roon. So yes your post is true & very possible. Good Post.
I did a calculation awhile ago assuming a hard cap and signing LBJ S&T. We’d have to lose a number of key players to make it work + LBJ & CP3 would have to take cuts + we’d have to hope Capela doesn’t get more than $20m. But the biggest hurdle to over come is LBJ wanting to be here. So it’s possible, but not likely at all given all indications are he wants to go to LA. If he wanted to come here the better option would have been to opt-in and put the burden on the owner to pay the tax. The only reason why he’d opt out and still want to be here is if for some reason he’d want to take less money and help the owner save money. Which I can’t see why he’d want that. The only other possible reason would be that he wanted to field all his options in FA and then decide rather than opt in and narrow his options to Cavs and Rockets.
Would have to renounce all bird rights (expect for CC)... and trade away nene, gordon, and anderson..... could happen.... but..... its a long shot.
