Didn't read much of this forum when the contract first failed.. but it's easy to see which posters were on which side.
See, this is just silly. Though funny. And I sympathize: this hysteria over House's performance must feel a whole lot like that Linsanity business, to old hands like Os and Shook. EDIT: Though my account is pretty old; I guess I never used it past a couple of initial posts back then. @Handles: there was no flexibility they were seeking. There never was going to be some great acquisition in the trade deadline or buyout market that didn't have cost cutting as the primary goal. They were lying to us when they fed tripe like that to the Feigens of the world. Or silliness like 'House should be grateful he even got an offer.' I totally buy that the negotiations went as the Tweet I cited. It would have made Morey et al look a lot better if he could have said, "Look, we offered him the MLE---all we could spend---and he still didn't take it. What do you want us to do?" But he didn't and the most reasonable explanation why is that he couldn't. I just don't like being lied to.
Is it not possible that the flexibility they spoke of is flexibility in coming years? I am fairly certain we are all aware that was the end game here. Unfortunately, House got caught up in it while he was filling a much needed role for the team. A role he will continue to fill for the remainder of the season and the playoffs, so that is a great thing. It is possible to see both sides.
Sure, what flexibility in coming years did this year's moves gain you? Besides not paying luxury tax this year? On the other side of the scales we have: 1) loss of Knight's expiring deal in 2019's Summer off season 1a) the draft picks it took to get rid of him and dump 3.8m by taking on Shump. 2) keeping House on the shelf for a bunch of games this year, with who knows how many losses and lower playoff seeding resulting 3) probably losing House this upcoming offseason, and if you do keep him with next year's MLE money---taxpaying or nontax---then you lose Rivers and Faried if they don't want come back for the minimum And so on and so on. How did those moves help flexibility in future years? They certainly lowered payroll for next year, when they let Shumpert walk, but that's not the same thing.
It is quite obvious that this year's goal is to stay under the tax. This is exactly why House was not converted earlier when we needed him with all those injuries. That's my beef about the whole House saga. But I understand why the Rockets didn't want to give him the MLE for three years. It was risky to sign an unproven guy that much for that long. It could become a dead weight and stifle future flexibility.
If we are gonna avoid the repeater tax we had to duck it one of the coming years, so by ducking it this year, theoretically you have more money you are willing to spend in the coming years. I feel like this has been discussed ad nauseam which is why it is so frustrating to keep seeing this being discussed.
It's frustrating from my end because it's a nonissue, even if you don't want the Rockets to pay the repeater escalator. Which would only kick in, even assuming the Rockets paid tax this year, at the end of the year which happens to be the year Chris Paul's contract expires. The tax worriers expect us to believe that Morey, if he were still here, couldn't dump what would be a 45 million dollar expiring contract? In an era where, to make a super team that all the kids seem to want to play on these days, you must clear out large swaths of cap room to make room for the giant deals you'll be signing your incoming stars to. Paul would be 36, and probably playing 15 minutes a game, if current trends hold. The point is, it would be child's play to get below the tax threshold that year, and therefore, worrying about the tax this year, three years ahead of time is a transparent ruse to cover for an overextended ownership group trying to avoid paying money for as long as possible, while still keeping the best player in the NBA from getting frustrated and asking to leave. Clearly you disagree.
I don’t disagree to what you have to say in principle. Sometimes it’s hard to look too far into the future and know exactly what you will have at that time. For example, you expressed concern about James leaving. We know who we have under contract but we don’t know what is going to happen for certain. I am just speaking to what actually happened and the situation we are in currently. Not gonna cry over spilled milk. There are people here that still wanna talk (cry) about Ryan Anderson...lets move on. We know the reasons for what we did and we are living with it...and playing well. Really well. I can live with that.
He played like absolute balls the end of 4th and overtime. Did not seem ready for the high pressure situation.
