ATL the only team that can flat out sign 2 Max Players

[leo6287]

With the nba settin the cap to 58 mill (2013/2014) ATL has under 18 million committed next season there for the only team that can sign both Dwight Howard and Chris Paul ........

After that you can resign josh smith (bird rights) to the team with some like

Howard
Horford
Smith
? Louis Williams
Paul

A Few vets min and MLE you are looking right over luxury tax (72 73) ? ??


Having that team under 80 to 85 mill a year ... Have to be worth paying north of 25 mill a year to know that you very well may when title after title after title

[supertruck97]

No. To sign 2 maxes, you have to renounce Smiths Bird rights. So that means that you have holes at the 2 and 3 spot, and very little money to fill them.

[ATL Boy]

I don't think we can sign Josh if we sign Paul an Dwight to max contracts. We can't even sign the two to max contracts, we'd have to convince them to take a little less.

[leo6287]

My rookie mistake .. Well I think Paul & Howard would take less ... Them and horford and fillers is still a better team then has been in a while .. Would ATL have to renouce Teague RFA too ?

[Jamaaliver]

My rookie mistake .. Well I think Paul & Howard would take less ... Them and horford and fillers is still a better team then has been in a while .. Would ATL have to renouce Teague RFA too ?

We would need to renounce Teague.

But with 4 rookies, 2 second year players and MLE vets we wouldn't have much roster space or playing time for him anyway.

NOTE: The year MIAMI won the title (last season), their owner went on record as saying they still didn't turn a profit for that season. Could our owners commit to a winner that literally cost them money.

[ATL Boy]

My rookie mistake .. Well I think Paul & Howard would take less ... Them and horford and fillers is still a better team then has been in a while .. Would ATL have to renouce Teague RFA too ?

I think we'd S&T Teague for a draft pick if Paul and Dwight agreed to come to Atlanta.

[Jamaaliver]

Now there's this:

The Houston Rockets plan on pursuing Dwight Howard, but they will simultaneously go after Chris Paul as well.

"They are targets No. 1 and 1A," said a source.

Both Howard and Paul are free agents, but the former has expressed more interest in signing with the Rockets.

The Rockets need to complete a few moves to offer a max contract, something they feel is likely. Houston won't have enough cap space to offer a max contract to both players.

Paul is close to James Harden from their time together on USA Basketball.

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/228066/Rockets-To-Simultaneously-Pursue-Paul-Howard

Hey, if they get both players, we could probably fleece Asik/Thomas Robinson from them for draft picks.

[ATL Boy]

It's pretty obvious that they were gonna go after both, why wouldn't they? I don't think they can offer two max contracts though, they can't even off one and I don't see Paul and Dwight going there for $9 mil per year

[jagstang76]

Yeah, HOU needs help to get Howard let alone Paul. ATL is the only team capable of that right now. My feeling is HOU will try hard to make room for DH and then give him their best pitch. That will be the best they could hope for. They hate seriously hampered by the fact that both Asik's and Lin's contracts bump to about $14 mil each the next season. I don't know how they will honestly be able to get Howard unless they unload both of them too. I wouldn't mind having Asik's, but he'll be expensive down the road.

[Jamaaliver]

Yeah, HOU needs help to get Howard let alone Paul. ATL is the only team capable of that right now. My feeling is HOU will try hard to make room for DH and then give him their best pitch. That will be the best they could hope for. They hate seriously hampered by the fact that both Asik's and Lin's contracts bump to about $14 mil each the next season. I don't know how they will honestly be able to get Howard unless they unload both of them too. I wouldn't mind having Asik's, but he'll be expensive down the road.

$14 million...each?

I'm looking at ShamSports salaries. I don't see that. You sure about those numbers?

http://data.shamsports.com/content/pages/data/salaries/rockets.jsp

[jagstang76]

Hoopshype has Asik's going from $5.225 mil in 13/14 to $14.898 in 14/15. Lin basically has the same exact deal.

[Jamaaliver]

Hoopshype has Asik's going from $5.225 mil in 13/14 to $14.898 in 14/15. Lin basically has the same exact deal.

A wise man once told me, never trust salary info from Hoopshype. Maybe we can find a reliable third source...

[Jamaaliver]

ESPN has them each listed at $8.3 million for 2012-2013. Same as ShamSports.

[MaceCase]

Asik and Lin were signed under the Gilbert Arenas provision. To make it short, yes they are actually being paid 5 million each for this and the next season with a 3rd year salary of ~13 million but because the Rockets had the requisite cap space their cap hit is an average of the total salary they signed for.

[jagstang76]

Ok so both sites are correct, but the actual cap hit is the $8.3 mil. Even so, it still means they have very little room to sign one max deal let alone two.

[NekiEcko]

Actually Atlanta can signed both CP3 and Dwight, they can go close to the max if they renounced all contract status (RFA, Bird Rights, etc, etc)

[jagstang76]

Actually, we were talking about HOU trying to go after both guys. ATL is the only one that could do that without making trades.