Rockets apparently BRILLIANT!, getting Trevor Ariza $32M/4yrs

[benji]

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/11206 ... evor-ariza

The Houston Rockets are seriously pursuing unrestricted free-agent small forward Trevor Ariza, according to sources close to the situation, signaling that they are exploring their options for replacing Chandler Parsons.

The Rockets, sources say, also pursued free agent Luol Deng but appear to have fallen out of contention for the former All-Star, with Miami said to be making progress in its recruitment of Deng after losing LeBron James on Friday.

[JaoSming]

Sign Paul Pierce, trade Parsons for Rondo & Vitor, done. Rockets saved.

[Alpha_]

They'll end up signing Stephenson.

[JaoSming]

https://twitter.com/sam_amick/status/488072252886245376

The Houston Rockets have agreed to a four-year, $32 million deal with Trevor Ariza, @USATODAYsports has learned.

https://twitter.com/WojYahooNBA/status/ ... 0808629248

With a 4-year, $32M agreement for free agent Trevor Ariza, Houston could still match offer sheet for Chandler Parsons, source tells NLSC.

[The X]

Houston obviously wanted to sign someone with all that cap space but can't believe they got Ariza back after the last go-around.

[Kevin]

I just want to see Howard lose and suffer.

[Stress Fracture]

He was horrible the first time around, shooting bricks and that. Hopefully he'll do better this time.

[bowdown]

He is a solid player and is still only 29.

[Alpha_]

The Houston Rockets have agreed upon terms with Trevor Ariza on a four-year, $32 million deal.

Ariza's contract contains declining salaries of $8.6 million, $8.2 million, $7.8 million and $7.4 million, which helps the Rockets' flexibility for the summer of 2016.

[benji]

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=95818

[Alpha_]

Oops! I didn't see that.

[_Steve_]

I just want to see Howard lose and suffer.

There's nothing more to add.

[Nick]

I think it's a good signing. Ariza is the prototypical 3&D player, something every winning team needs. They need someone to cover for all of Har_en's defensive lapses. The contract is within reason too.

The thing that concerns me though is that Ariza's production last season was largely aided by John Wall. Houston don't have a PG like that, anymore...

[Alpha_]

THIS means bye-bye Parsons?

[Kevin]

yep.

[Nick]

Not necessarily...

[Andrew]

It's a decent signing. With Howard and Harden getting most of the touches and defensive attention, Ariza will likely be in a role where he can be productive, but not destructive. He's not the type of player you want to have doing too much or being too high up in the pecking order; he's not exactly on the 2009 Lakers here, but it's potentially a good fit all the same.

[Alpha_]

Rockets having a terrible off-season. They gave up Parsons, Lin, Asik, Casspi and a first round pick then pick up Ariza. lmao

[JaoSming]

Reddit knows all
http://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/2a ... ryl_morey/


I've noticed Daryl Morey catching a lot of heat both here on /r/NBA and also in the media for "screwing up" his offseason, for hurting his team's chances, etc. But, let's review what has actually happened this offseason for the Rockets, not what could have been (it isn't fair to fault Morey for missing out on Melo and Bosh while giving a pass to all of the other teams that could have signed those two and didn't) -

Jeremy Lin & Omer Asik

In 2012, the Rockets signed Jeremy Lin & Omer Asik to contracts with such bad third year salaries, that their own teams refused to match -
A team source tells ESPNNewYork.com's Ian Begley that the third year of the Rockets' offer -- worth $14.8 million -- makes it unlikely the Knicks would match. If the Knicks were to match the offer, they would also be subject to a luxury tax in the third year, bringing their total out-of-pocket cost for Lin to about $30 million in 2014-2015.

Now, a loophole in the CBA made it so that the deals were actually worse for the Knicks & Bulls than they would be for any other team. But, that doesn't change the fact that Jeremy Lin (about league average by most metrics at a deep position with one brief burst of all star level play) and Omer Asik (a career backup, although at a much weaker position leaguewide) were going to be paid almost $15 million each this season.

Set aside cap space and luxury tax, and remember that they were going to make $15 million of actual cash.

What is a draft pick worth, in dollars?
No one knows an exact answer to this question, but we can look at recent instances of teams purchasing picks -
Luckily, the Nets have a history of buying 2nd rounders that gives us a value for how much they're worth (you could even say this is the maximum they're worth, since the Nets were looking for someone to sell picks to them and likely had to pay up, rather than the opposite scenario where a cash strapped team is calling around the league desperate to sell picks) -

Of course, the Nets buy second rounders. In 2011, they spent $1.5 million to acquire Bojan Bogdanovic. In 2012, they bought two: Tyshawn Taylor for $2 million and Toko Shengelia for $750,000. They also were willing to buy the 60th pick that year. The Nets had traded it away in the Sasha Vujacic deal, but could have re-acquired it in return for $250,000 ... if the Lakers agreed. They did not and took Robert Sacre. In 2014, they spent $1.9 million to acquire three picks: Markel Brown ($1.1 million); Xavier Thames ($500,000) and Cory Jefferson ($300,000)

From this we can estimate that you can buy a late 2nd rounder for $250k-$500k, a mid 2nd rounder for ~$1.1 million, and an early 2nd rounder for $1.5 million - $2 million.

First round picks are a little trickier to outright purchase without other assets, since there are caps on how much cash you can send in a transaction (and now there's a cap on how much you can send throughout a whole year). Here's an example from 2009 (feel free to send me more recent examples to include) -

The Lakers sat out the first round for a second consecutive season, selling the 29th overall pick to the New York Knicks for $3 million. Then they sent the 42nd overall pick to the Miami Heat for $1.5 million. In both deals, the Lakers also received a 2011 second-round pick.

Since the Lakers received $3 million plus a future 2nd round pick for the 29th pick, we need to set a value for the future 2nd round pick. Teams generally prefer present day picks over future picks (no one would trade a 2015 first round pick outright for a 2019 first pick), so it seems fair to say that future 2nd round pick is worth at most $1 million, valuing the 29th pick at about $4 million or less.

What were the net changes to the Rockets with the Lin and Asik trades this offseason?

Rockets lose -

• One year of Jerremy Lin. Lin is highly redundant with James Harden, a superior player.
• One year of Omer Asik. Asik is highly redundant with Dwight Howard, a superior player.
• Omri Casspi (a replacement level player - you can get almost as many Omri Casspi level players as you want in free agency)
• An almost worthless 2nd round pick they acquired from the Clippers (the protections are -

L.A. Clippers' 2015 2nd round pick to Houston (via Toronto) protected for selections 31-50 and 56-60 (if this pick falls within either of its protected ranges and is therefore not conveyed, then the L.A. Clippers' obligation to Houston will be extinguished).

A highly protected 1st round pick that is lottery protected one season, then top-10 protected twice, then top-5 protected twice.
It is highly likely to fall into one of the protected ranges, and if it doesn't, it's still just a late 2nd rounder (worth $250k-$500k as mentioned above)

To get the Lakers to take on the final season of Lin's contract and its roughly $15 million salary, the Rockets also will send their first-round pick next season, unless it falls into the lottery. If they don't send the pick next season, it will be protected through 10 picks for two seasons. If they still have not sent the pick, it will be protected through five picks for two seasons.

Rockets gain -
About $30 million in salary reduction. Actual money going out the door - I'm not talking about cap space.
A better 1st round pick than the one they gave up (top 3 and bottom 10 protected, so it has to fall between 4-19, whereas the pick they gave up is going to be outside of the lottery or at least after the 10th pick)
A few marginal players of their own

Summary -
The Rockets gave up one year each of two highly redundant backups and swapped marginal players to upgrade a 1st round pick and gain about $30 million in cold hard cash that can even be used to buy draft picks in the future.

A lot of teams would take that kind of offseason in a heartbeat. Not everyone can have the best player in the world return to their hometown.
EDIT - I lumped Asik & Lin together since the situations are so similar and I didn't want this post to be unreadably long. Some people question the Lin move specifically, but lots of teams would give up a lottery protected pick in order to save $15 million (or $10 million if you want to assign $5 million as the cost of getting a decent replacement guard).

Chandler Parsons & Trevor Ariza

Did you know that Trevor Ariza is barely four years older than Chandler Parsons? Feels like more, doesn't it?
Or that their production this past season was roughly equal?
Or that Ariza will be making roughly half of what Parsons will be making over the life of their contracts? And Ariza's contract actually goes down each year?

I know that people are in love with Chandler Parsons (both figuratively and literally), but do you really want to be giving the max to a guy who so far throughout his career has produced box score stats (as measured by PER) at a league average rate? He'd better be the best defender in the league. And actually, it wouldn't be hard to find people who'd say Ariza is the better defender.

Don't forget that the luxury tax is a huge factor in today's NBA. You probably can't pay Dwight Howard, James Harden, and Chandler Parsons the max and then try to build a contender around those three (one of them doesn't fit with the other two, right?).

EDIT: A few people have correctly pointed out that I failed to mention that Morey could have kept Parsons around an extra year at a cheap salary. While true, this would have just delayed this exact situation by a year where they then have to go out and get next year's version of Ariza. So, you can call that a $7 million lost gamble on trying to get Bosh.

Summary -
I'm not saying Ariza will be the better player over the course of their contracts, but the fact that it's close makes it way more appealing to pay Ariza half the money you'd have to pay Parsons

Summary

The Asik & Lin transactions were fantastic for the Rockets. Losing Parsons sucks, but maintaining future flexibility by switching to Ariza and saving some money is a pretty good move. And yes, Chris Bosh would have been a nice addition (which likely would have led to matching on Parsons, because then they wouldn't have had the option to replace him with Ariza), but lots of teams would have liked to add Chris Bosh - he chose to stay with the Heat.
EDIT: I've seen a lot of people saying that Morey "swung for the fences and struck out". I'd say it's more like he swung for the fences and hit a single instead.

[benji]

The only problem I really have with the Ariza deal is that Morey bought on a good year from him before. I think Pierce (at the deal he got from Washington) may have been the better option there.