OT: Morey doin work

[boomann21]

omir asik 8 million per.....

he is a terrible gm

i have no idea what they're doing.

It's actually 5 per in the first two seasons and then becomes a nice 15mm expiring in year three.

[cgmw]

Ummm, remember those 10 pages earlier in this thread where I defended Morey? Yeah, about that....

[Knicksfan20]

Asik is a great defender/shot blocker/rebounder. Im curious to see what kinda player he can be with starter mins. 8/9 with 2bpg in about 28mpg. Add the great D and 7 feet anc he is a bargain at 10 mil for first 2 years.

Lets see if he steps it up.

[TKF]

Asik is a great defender/shot blocker/rebounder. Im curious to see what kinda player he can be with starter mins. 8/9 with 2bpg in about 28mpg. Add the great D and 7 feet anc he is a bargain at 10 mil for first 2 years.

Lets see if he steps it up.

yea, the bulls are going to miss him.. the guy has some offensive potential, but defensively and on the boards is where I think he really can be a very, good player... not bad for the rockets... big men tend to get paid..

[ORANGEandBLUE]

Doesn't DeAndre Jordan make over $10m?

Asik might be the better player.

[Grinditout]

Asik is a great defender/shot blocker/rebounder. Im curious to see what kinda player he can be with starter mins. 8/9 with 2bpg in about 28mpg. Add the great D and 7 feet anc he is a bargain at 10 mil for first 2 years.

Lets see if he steps it up.

That's pretty much where this deal will be judged. So far his production has looked good in minor minutes, but that doesn't always translate when they increase it to starter level minutes.

[Knicks_Fan2]

Asik is a great defender/shot blocker/rebounder. Im curious to see what kinda player he can be with starter mins. 8/9 with 2bpg in about 28mpg. Add the great D and 7 feet anc he is a bargain at 10 mil for first 2 years.

Lets see if he steps it up.

yea, the bulls are going to miss him.. the guy has some offensive potential, but defensively and on the boards is where I think he really can be a very, good player... not bad for the rockets... big men tend to get paid..

It's not even as bad of deal as many are making it seem. Paying 5 mm a year for two years is clearly a good deal and then the deal goes up to 15ish for year 3 and is a nice expiring they can unload.

[cgmw]

Balloon expiring seems kinda brilliant actually. Risk management. Asik's agent did a helluva job.

[ComboGuardCity]

Asik played 15mpg last season. You don't pay anyone that much who has only played 15mpg

[gmoney411]

Hollinger Analysis

Winning this match game
Rockets GM Daryl Morey uses 'Gilbert Arenas rule' to maximum advantage

In the current CBA, it's known as the Gilbert Arenas rule. In the next one, it might be known as the Daryl Morey rule, because the Houston Rockets GM just drove a Mack truck through every one of the provision's current loopholes in agreeing to a three-year, $24.3 million offer sheet with Chicago restricted free agent Omer Asik.

Let's set aside whether Asik is actually worth $24 million over three years for a moment -- we'll tackle that further down -- and just ponder the evil genius of the structuring of the contract and how it gives the Rockets a huge advantage in prying him from the Bulls.

Under the "Gilbert Arenas" provision of the league's collective bargaining agreement, a player like Asik -- a second-round draft pick coming off his second season -- can be offered only a maximum of the midlevel exception in free agency for the first two seasons, but can be offered any amount up the maximum in years after that.

Houston took advantage of this provision by limiting his offer to three years, rather than the maximum of four, and offering the maximum eligible salary in Year 3. It's so damaging because of how the league assigns the salary cap and luxury tax hits for the respective sides. In Houston's case, the amounts are averaged over the three seasons, requiring the Rockets to have a little over $8 million in cap room to consummate the deal.

No biggie for Houston; they happen to have exactly $8 million lying around if they renounce their rights to Marcus Camby, cut Shaun Livingston, Greg Smith, Courtney Fortson and Diamon Simpson, and either waive Jon Leuer or use the stretch provision on Jon Brockman. Houston could also get there by renouncing its rights to restricted free agent Courtney Lee, but that seems more unlikely.

And looking ahead, the Rockets are still in pristine shape going forward. An $8 million cap charge for Asik in 2013-14 and 2014-15 simply isn't going to hurt them.

But Chicago? Holy hell, this is going to hurt. The league calculates the cap charge differently for a team matching the offer sheet, using actual salaries instead of the average. So the Bulls get off easy in the short term; a $5 million cap charge for Asik this year and next should have been in their budget to start.

But then in 2014-15, it jumps up to about $14.1 million. And it's not clear how the Bulls are supposed to handle that, especially given their aversion to the luxury tax and the fact they may be subject to the repeater penalty by then. Between Asik, Derrick Rose, Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah, they have $61.6 million committed and that's without paying Taj Gibson, retaining Luol Deng, or adding any free agent or draft picks.

They're almost certainly a tax team, in other words, and in fact they're likely to be deep into the tax, even if the league's tax level rises a few ducats by then. Which makes the effective cost of keeping Asik that season closer to $30 million than $15 million. And as much as I may admire his defense and rebounding, it's inconceivable that Asik is worth anywhere near $30 million.

Houston will hope Asik can improve on that prognosis by upping his offensive production to slightly less pathetic levels, with the tutelage of Kevin McHale, but even so his defense justifies the contract.

Are there ways around this? Yes, but the medicine is worse than the disease. If in 2014 the Bulls were to use the amnesty clause on Carlos Boozer, who would be on the final year of his deal, that would cut $15 million from their cap number (and likely from their luxury tax bill) that year, but they would still have to pay Boozer, which would still make Asik's effective cost $30 million -- except in that case, it's $30 million and a starting power forward.

Alternatively, Chicago could use the stretch provision on Asik prior to Year 3. That would cost them $5 million a year in 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17, possibly saving them from a luxury tax in all three seasons.

But doing so only would give them two years of Asik, while still paying the entirety of the deal, which means they'll have signed him to a two-year deal for $24 million. Which is about as bad as the effective cost of three years, $39 million that we're presenting as the alternative. (You can also count the tax hits in years 1 and 2, but they're the same in both alternatives so we'll ignore them for now.)

Basically, there's no easy way out for Chicago, which is why they're unlikely to match Houston's offer sheet. They still have Gibson, who is an absolute defensive beast and is extension-eligible this summer -- presumably on far better terms than Asik's deal. Meanwhile, Chicago can shorten its frontcourt rotation to three men -- Boozer, Noah and Gibson -- while using Luol Deng as a small-ball 4 in stretches.

Thus, in all likelihood, Houston is going to end up with Asik. I have to admire their cleverness in pulling this off, but I also have to shake my head that the CBA allowed this.

When they get around to the next one, maybe they'll realize that it's crap to count the tax and cap hit in the year it hits for the matching team, while allowing the offering team to only offer one year at the higher level. Houston drove a truck through this loophole, but in the future requiring four-year deals for Arenas contracts will at least require teams to offer a more genuine maximum deal. Doing so in this case would have made it a four-year, $39 million deal from the Rockets, required nearly $10 million in cap space (and requisite harder decisions from the Rockets), and likely pushed them to a different alternative.

So congratulations, Houston -- it looks like Chef Linguini is likely all yours.

On to the next question: Is he worth it?

That's a bit of an eye-of-the-beholder question. Asik's advanced stats support the subjective viewpoint that he's one of the five or 10 best defensive players in basketball, and defense in general tends to be wildly underrated in the free-agent market (although weirdly, not in the draft). He is also, objectively, a monstrous rebounder, with his 20.1 Rebound Rate ranking sixth in the NBA last season.

Asik is a terrible offensive player, however, with bad hands, poor touch and a proclivity for illegal screens. Advanced stats seem to indicate that he takes away almost as much with his offense as he does with his defense -- but that overall he's a plus, even compared to the league average.

And that, in the big picture, makes him a second-tier starting center. And you know how much those are worth? About $8 million a year. Houston should know; they just paid nearly the same amount to the departed Samuel Dalembert.

Houston will hope Asik can improve on that prognosis by upping his offensive production to slightly less pathetic levels, with the tutelage of Kevin McHale, but even so his defense justifies the contract.

It also helps that Houston gets somebody under lock and key before re-signing its own free agents. The cap holds for Lee and Goran Dragic are low enough that it behooves the Rockets to use the cap space first, and then rebuild their backcourt.

From there, Houston can go in any number of directions, depending on Dwight Howard's availability and the market for Kyle Lowry. But first they took care of the most urgent need if the Bulls don't match, the Rockets will have a real starting center this year, and they won't be overpaying for him.

[j4remi]

Big men ALWAYS cost ridiculous amounts. That total on the contract is UGLY but how else do you get a real C these days? Tyson Chandler's contract is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

[Knicks_Fan2]

Thanks for posting that Hollinger article. It was a decent move by Morey.

[Knicksfan20]

Asik played 15mpg last season. You don't pay anyone that much who has only played 15mpg

first 2 years are 5 mil per year, thats a bargain. He played great when Noah was injured. Yes he averaged 15 mpg, but he also shared mins with Noah, Gibson and Boozer. All 4 are starting material.

[CrazyKnicks]

Overpay for stone hands Asik

Blueprint, great job Morey.

Asik is a great defender/shot blocker/rebounder. Im curious to see what kinda player he can be with starter mins. 8/9 with 2bpg in about 28mpg. Add the great D and 7 feet anc he is a bargain at 10 mil for first 2 years.

Lets see if he steps it up.

yea, the bulls are going to miss him.. the guy has some offensive potential, but defensively and on the boards is where I think he really can be a very, good player... not bad for the rockets... big men tend to get paid..

What?

He can barely catch a pass, has no footwork or touch. Don't see where the offensive "potential" is because he has nothing he can build on.

He's great on the defensive side of the ball, but let's see if he can do it playing a bigger role.

[howe070523]

Morey's been high on Asik for almost 2 years. Some of you don't know Asik as a player, heres some breakdowns.

During Noah's injury, where Asik was given major minutes, his Drtg was a ridiculous 92, making him the best defensive player in the league. During that stretch he also had a better trb% and blk% than Noah.

Not saying he's better than Noah, but with that kind of production and potential (he's only 25), 8 mil a year is a bargain.

[gmoney411]

Morey's been high on Asik for almost 2 years. Some of you don't know Asik as a player, heres some breakdowns.

During Noah's injury, where Asik was given major minutes, his Drtg was a ridiculous 92, making him the best defensive player in the league. During that stretch he also had a better trb% and blk% than Noah.

Not saying he's better than Noah, but with that kind of production and potential (he's only 25), 8 mil a year is a bargain.

It is a bargain and it's only for 3 years. It is a very low risk move.

[howe070523]

Morey's been high on Asik for almost 2 years. Some of you don't know Asik as a player, heres some breakdowns.

During Noah's injury, where Asik was given major minutes, his Drtg was a ridiculous 92, making him the best defensive player in the league. During that stretch he also had a better trb% and blk% than Noah.

Not saying he's better than Noah, but with that kind of production and potential (he's only 25), 8 mil a year is a bargain.

It is a bargain and it's only for 3 years. It is a very low risk move.

Thats right, and its a heavily back-loaded contract --- if Asik somehow didn't pan out, the 14.8mil expiring is a huge trade bait.

Morey isn't perfect, but this signing is his trademark "high reward low risk flexibility" move.

[Rasho Brezec]

Asik is a great defender/shot blocker/rebounder. Im curious to see what kinda player he can be with starter mins. 8/9 with 2bpg in about 28mpg. Add the great D and 7 feet anc he is a bargain at 10 mil for first 2 years.

Lets see if he steps it up.

yea, the bulls are going to miss him.. the guy has some offensive potential, but defensively and on the boards is where I think he really can be a very, good player... not bad for the rockets... big men tend to get paid..

No. Just no. This is a backup center with no offensive potential. This is a guy who faked an injury to get himself subbed out of a game once when he was supposed to shoot two clutch free throws.

[seren]

Biggest highlight of Asik's career is the world championship back in 2010. In the closing minutes of the semi-finals he was fouled going to the basket. The whole bench shouted him to fake an injury so that he can get out of the game and let someone else shoot it. He did. One of the funnier scenes that I hav witnessed.

[thebuzzardman]

Morey will get involved to facilitate Dwight to the Nets, and he'll come away with Broke Lopez.

Why? Because Morey seems to be involved in much dicking the Knicks, not intentionally, but just works out that way.

Why? Because we are Knick fans, and for the first time, the team is "ok", only to have a team just as good that will be more hyped right in the backyard, causing years of irritation from johnny come lately "Brooklyn" fans, a boro becoming fastly populated from people not born and raised there and I don't mean Russians and Caribbeans.

Then we'll whiff on Nash, Camby will follow the money to a non contender, Miller is gone, Kidd goes to Brooklyn because it' would be the most annoying, douchebagiest thing I can think of, and that is generally what Kidd does.

Then, Grant Hill signs with Nets on the cheap side finally landing in NYC, but not for the Knicks.

Net's then sign Illoysova (sp), forcing Milwaukee to overpay for a 3pt shooter, so they counter by overpaying Novak, who leaves for the bigger $$$$ and to be close to his midwestern roots.

Smith, whose eyes (and those he's in debt to) suddenly got much bigger of the complete overpay of Nicholas Batum, flees to some other team who decides that paying 6 million per year to a guard who could start on 1/2 the NBA and be first or 2nd guy off the bench on the rest, isn't so bad after all.

Knicks go to fill out rest of roster with the dregs of the NBA.