RealGM

if houston is able to land Dwight AND a marquee PF, lets say Josh smith, would they need to clear any cap space to make this happen? if they could get both guys to commit to sign but needed to clear cap space could you see them dumping asik's contract to a team that could absorb it? he's been playing very well this year but, if it came down to it, I would imagine houston would move asik to bring in dwight and smith. there are a number of teams that would be willing to take on his contract obviously. I say this because the blazers could really use him and I believe they will have the cap space to make it happen.

Depending on the final salary cap number, the Rockets will have somewhere in the 15-20 million dollar range in cap room. Using my estimations and last years cap number (58m) the Rockets can have 18.6m, not including any draft picks or Parsons/Smith who will likely be kept. If the number rises to 60 or 62m as has been reported, they could be as high as 22.6 million. The assumption here is that Garcia, Delfino, Honeycut and all other options / non guaranteed are dropped.

Best case scenario, the cap is near 62m and the Rockets will have just enough to offer Dwight his max number without having to dump Parsons or Smith. Knowing Morey, he probably has just enough to get it done without having to maneuver.

Once Howard is on board, the Rockets would have to do a sign and trade if they wanted to add any other pieces such as Smith. This would have to involve moving either Lin or Asik to comply with the CBA.

Frankly I don't think Morey would move Asik for Smith, because Asik at 8m is better than Smith at max. I could see Lin being moved in such a deal, because he is easily replaceable.

Heck, I wouldn't even mind trying to play Howard alongside Asik. I find it much more likely that the Rockets would hold onto their trade chips and wait till Aldridge or Love become available. Unless Smith wants to play for 8-10 million, I doubt the Rockets are interested.

Sadly, the time to get Kevin Love is probably past. That was 2 years ago. They finally caught on that he's really, really good.
Like, easily the best PF in the game good.

Stupid 26ppg cluing them in....

it would be interesting to see if howard played PF with Asik as C of course...like others have said, there isn't enough room for those 2 on the court simultaneously, but it sure would be a nice try.