Last roster spot speculation

That wasn't a misspell for once. I typed it in.

 

Dunno. How could anybody know that? I see significant improvement in his game.

 

Disagree. He's better than a lot of 12-15 men in the league. And it matters to me. We are also rans unless we get one more key guy. Is it likely that we can get the guy we need at this late hour? No, it's not likely. But..... what if we could????

I'm willing to discuss this subject because I want to win a championship and I'm looking for any means by which we're could have a chance. Gary Clark, Faried, Nene, Capela ain't gonna get it done against the Warriors. Sorry. So this is the only thing I'm looking forward to at this point. Seeing if we can catch magic with one more roster addition. And also seeing if we can use a piece of our MLE to get a guy locked to cheap throughout the rest of Paul's contract. We need at least one key contributor on a budget contract for the next 2-3 seasons after this one.

 

I wouldn't mind that actually. I still believe Qi has DPOY potential.

 

Ok. So let's take a look at it, shall we?

Forget spotrac. Let's use Pincus. I think @BimaThug is ok with him. Eric simply has not updated his numbers to include House Jr. and Chiozza's latest deals. And he's missing one other key component of the luxury tax calculation for us too.

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Here's the link for Pincus:

http://www.basketballinsiders.com/houston-rockets-team-salary/

Eric has us at $123,073,677 not including the House Jr. and Chiozza deals.

He has Capela at $15,293,104. This includes the two "likely" incentives, $1 million for making the WC finals and $500k for achieving 30% defensive rebounding rate. Capela's actual base is $13,793,104. So his two likely incentives are included in Pincus' current number.

So let's add House Jr and Chiozza deals. Both are prorated minimum salary deals. And both are counted against the cap as the minimum salary of a 2-year vet playing at the minimum. The 2-year vet minimum is $1,512,601. And it starts prorating from the first day of the season. And the season this year is 177 days long. So that's $8545.80 per day that it prorates. We signed House Jr. with 29 days left in the season and we signed Chiozza with 19 days left in the season. So that means, House Jr.'a number $247,828.20 and Chiozza's number is $162,370.20.

So, add that to Pincus' number (which already includes the previous 10-day numbers and House jr.'s previous deal and Capela's deal with the likely incentives) and you've got a total of:

$123,483,875.40.

That's $249,124.60 below the tax line.


But.........

But Capela isn't going to earn $500,000 of his likely incentives for reaching 30% defensive rebounding percentage. That's impossible at this time. So there's an extra $500,000 of salary before the luxury tax. So we're now up to $749,124.60 below the tax line.

And..............

There is one more salary deduction unaccounted for in terms is the luxury tax calculation. And that is the small matter of Chris Paul's suspension earlier in the season. That suspension cost Paul $491,782. Half of that amount, $245,891 is deducted from the computed salaries for luxury tax calculations. So we can add it to the previous $749,124.60 to get a grand total of $995,015.60.

So, even if Capela does make his "unlikely" FT incentive we are still below the tax line by almost 500k. And I suspect I'm probably off a day or two on house jr and chiozza's deals, which would push us a full million under the tax line. I have House Jr being converted on March 13 and chiozza converted on March 23.

The key here is nobody seems to be accounting for Paul's suspension. Plus there is confusion regarding the cap hits for Chiozza and House jr. Plus there is continued confusion about Capela's incentives.

I don't believe Capela is going to achieve either incentive, which will leave us, by my calculations, right at $1 million or slightly under to spend on April 10 without being in the luxury.

It's up to you to disprove what I wrote. Otherwise let's discuss possible roster additions here.

Edit 1: After looking House Jr. up, I suspect he was converted on either the 14th or 15th of March instead of the 13th when it was announced. That would mean an extra $8.5k - 17k added to available salary under the cap, based on my math above, which would put us at a little over a million to spend on April 10, provided Capela misses both the rebounding and FT incentives.

Edit 2: It appears there is set off from Troy Williams contract that I also did not include here. Because I'm not sure how to determine it. But I think it's there. Williams signed with the Pelicans a minimum salary deal and earned $34+k. And he's also on a two-way contract with the Kings. Both those contracts qualify for set off. I'm just not sure what amounts to use. But, I'm pretty sure there's a set off amount. And I THINK it was TRIGGERED when Williams signed with the Pelicans. Coon says setoff occurs with the SIGNING, not the actual "earnings". However if it is actual "earnings"...then Williams has earned in excess of $125,000 this season. Should be a setoff. I'm just not sure how to calculate it.

 

I'm calling @BimaThug (and his sacred spreadsheet) wrong here. I know that's very brave. Because he's won every tug-of-war I've engaged him in regarding the cap. But I think he's wrong here. And it appears to me he's either very busy working or he's lost interest in this bbs. I hope its the former. We need more input from him. @Clutch should threaten to Melo him if he doesn't play better defense than this. I mean come on already. We didn't even get cap updates from his this year.....

 

Zhou Qi

As far as I know, Zhou hasn't caught on anywhere. Couldn't play in CBA. And didn't take a g league or euro offer.

Oh, additionally, he signed a very team friendly deal last year. 4 years with different guarantee dates. No NBA agent would have advocated signing that deal without a trust factor. And not making good on a deal line that sends a message while making good on a deal like that sends another message. Just FYI, Qi's agent (octagon, Sartsis, Austin) is Giannis' agent....and others. Doesn't make sense to me that Morey would get Qi on a 4-year deal with flexible guarantee dates...and then not make him whole.

Qi can shoot it, he can get up and down, and he'd a defensive menace in the paint. And he knows our system He's a legit candidate for signing.

 

Dunno. I like both. I guess I suspect Qi is more possible. Because he's been here. And I question us signing him to a 4-year deal, then cutting him. That just doesn't happen. Guys don't sign 4-year deals that are second rounders or undrafted. Agents usually want them on shorter deals so they can have their free agent freedom to go out of the NBA, etc. That's why I am suspecting there's possibly more here than meets the eye. Not to mention, Qi simply WAS NOT THAT BAD a player. He was actually a positive in RGV. Nobody else even picked him up on a two-way. And he didn't sign with another g league team. Not to mention Eurocup, etc. He went straight back to China and "signed" with a team that he couldn't play for. There's no way he's so bad that nobody else offered him a deal worldwide that was better than basically practicing in China for the last few months.

So, all that doesn't make sense to me. I think there's something else going on. That's why I've got him in discussion.

I really like what Bennett has done with his 3-ball. He's made it to where he has to be defended by a smaller guy or he simply lights up the old school big. His release is too good. And he's got the handle to get by a big if they try to close on him. Then when they go with a smaller, quicker guy, he has the post skills to beat them. I think he's a great fit here. Don't know about his defense. Not sold. But in a switching scheme where he's defending a smaller big man.....might be ok.

I'd actually like to drop Clark (screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech...) and sign both guys. But that's not likely.

 

Jarrod Uthoff

Yes, Jarrod Uthoff...again. We were interested in him previously. He was here for a period of time. We bought his contract. And we kept his contract when we could have traded it in the CP3 deal. Released him at end of July, 2017 before he was guaranteed money and to give him opportunity to get guaranteed money elsewhere. He's got the skills to be a small-ball 4/5 in our system. Can shoot it with anybody. Handle. Good passer. And can switch. Uthoff was trying to get a better deal money-wise and failed. And he's failed to land a solid deal since. Basically wasted two years when he could have been over here doing something. I know we were interested before. I can see the possibility of signing him.

 

Agreed. But Clark is already signed and we can't go backwards. My thoughts on Clark if we drop him he might not be picked up and we could re-sign him in July. He's not going to get more than the minimum. Hasn't shown enough to earn more than that. So I think we could drop him and get him back. And I'm convinced he's not ready for the playoffs, won't help us.

 

I do think Clyburn could be a solid rotation NBA player. And I think he'd fit here well. But they're in their playoffs. Just don't see him being available. Same thing as Anthony Randolph.