mg wrote:inquisitive wrote:rockets don't have to be creative for cap space...they can move anderson or stretch him. lebron will take much much less $, so will CP3 so that they can keep the team pretty much intact. lebron is leaving to win, not for $. otherwise, he could just stay in CLE and get max.
LeBron already took less when he signed with Miami. He has openly stated he will not be willing to do that again.
Glance at a cap sheet before you start arguing, fellas.
1) Lebron might be willing to take a couple million less than a max but the Rockets need to clear up WAY more than that; to sign Lebron and retain Paul, they'd need to free up about $40m
2) Stretching Anderson only frees up about $11m this season, not close to a solution
3) They can't move Anderson for nothing (without taking back matching salary) unless there's another team that's $20m+ under the cap and willing to take on a mediocre expensive player--and those teams don't exist. The Rockets can sweeten that with Capela (who's about to be RFA and thus expensive) and future firsts, but don't really have another other assets left (they also already traded this year's 1st).
4) Also all of these things assume they would let Trevor Ariza and Capela walk for nothing.
It's still very possible to free up $ for Lebron, but it would mean gutting the team and giving up some future assets. Something like dumping Eric Gordon, stretching Anderson, trading Capela, letting Ariza walk, attaching a pick to trade Nene (and maybe PJ Tucker). Any way they do it, it means being left with CP3, Lebron, Harden, and maybe Zhou Qi and PJ Tucker if they're lucky.
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