Front Office Originals Rumors

The Rockets’ Path To Max-Salary Cap Room In 2025

August 23rd, 2024 at 10:44am CST by Luke Adams

It hasn't been all that common in recent years for would-be contenders to carry significant cap room into free agency, but the Sixers and - to a lesser extent - the Thunder showed this year that it can still pay off in a big way.

Philadelphia plotted for over a year to maximize its cap room for the 2024 offseason, putting off a contract extension for Tyrese Maxey in order to generate extra spending power by keeping his modest cap hold on the books and then going over the cap to re-sign him. That approach put the 76ers in position to sign Paul George, arguably the top unrestricted free agent on the market, to a four-year, maximum-salary contract and then to use their remaining cap room to sign complementary players like Caleb Martin and Andre Drummond.

Oklahoma City, meanwhile, didn't have maximum-salary room available and didn't go big-game hunting at the very top of this year's free agent class, but the Thunder used their space to give Isaiah Hartenstein a front-loaded contract starting at $30MM, outbidding the Knicks to land either the best or second-best center available (depending on how you feel about Nic Claxton).

At this point, there are hardly any teams that project to operate under the cap in 2025, and many of the clubs that could have cap room - such as the Nets and Wizards - are still very much in the retooling stage.

There's one potential exception though. The Rockets finished last season with a 41-41 record and appear poised to take another step forward this season as their young core (which now includes No. 3 overall pick Reed Sheppard) continues to grow. Houston also has the ability to create maximum-salary cap space next offseason.

However, the Rockets' path to maximum-salary room isn't quite as clean as the Sixers' was, and may require shedding one or two starter-caliber players. Let's take a closer look at the team's potential path to max space.

Houston currently has just two players with guaranteed salaries for the 2025/26 season, but that total could increase to seven once the team picks up several rookie scale options for '25/26 by the October 31 deadline. Here are the details:

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Offseason Observations: Yabusele, MLEs, Draftees, Trade Vetos, Swap Rights

August 16th, 2024 at 7:18am CST by Luke Adams

With the Lauri Markkanen situation resolved, the Paris Olympics in the books, and NBA training camps still about a month-and-a-half away, we're entering the quietest portion of the 2024 offseason.

However, that doesn't mean there's nothing worth discussing.

Here are a few of the summer subplots I've been keeping an eye on, ranging from how Guerschon Yabusele's buyout with Real Madrid impacts a potential move to the NBA to the new ways in which teams are negotiating draft-pick swap rights in trades.

How Guerschon Yabusele's buyout works

A former NBA first-round pick who has been out of the league since 2019, Yabusele had an impressive showing for the French national team during the Olympics and suggested on social media after the Games that he'd welcome another opportunity stateside. However, reporting from Marc Stein indicated that Yabusele's buyout with Real Madrid is worth $2.5MM.

At least one report has stated Yabusele would be responsible for paying the majority of that $2.5MM buyout, while another has suggested an NBA team that signs him would be on the hook for the full amount. The truth depends on your perspective. Here's how it works:

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Ten Minimum-Salary Free Agent Signings With Bargain Potential

August 9th, 2024 at 5:09pm CST by Luke Adams

The Suns' deal with Tyus Jones and the Bucks' addition of Gary Trent Jr. have been widely lauded as steals, with each contract coming in well below what the player was expected to earn on the open market.

But those aren't the only minimum-salary signings that could pay off in a big way in 2024/25. In fact, they're not even the only potential minimum-salary bargains on Phoenix's or Milwaukee's roster.

Listed below are 10 players - not including Jones or Trent - who signed for the veteran's minimum as free agents this summer and are in position to return surplus value for their respective teams. Let's dive in...

1. Spencer Dinwiddie (Mavericks)

The fact that Dinwiddie had to settle for a minimum-salary deal this offseason isn't a huge surprise, given that he's coming off a down year and finished last season on a minimum contract after hitting the buyout market in February.

But the veteran point guard is just one year removed from averaging 17.3 points and 6.5 assists in 34.5 minutes per game across 79 outings (all starts). He was also especially effective during his previous stint with the Mavericks from February 2022 to February 2023, posting an impressive shooting line of .466/.404/.788 while averaging 17.1 PPG.

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The Complexities Of The Lauri Markkanen Situation

August 2nd, 2024 at 8:15am CST by Luke Adams

On the surface, the Lauri Markkanen situation in Utah looks relatively straightforward.

The Finnish forward is a star on an expiring contract playing for a team very much still in a rebuilding stage. The Jazz will have to make a decision that lottery teams face all the time. Does it makes more sense to trade Markkanen now in order to bottom out ahead of the 2025 draft and ensure they don't lose him later for nothing, or to hang onto the 27-year-old and attempt to sign him long-term to make him part of the core moving forward?

It's not simply a matter of choosing one course or the other though. A confluence of factors, such as the Jazz's $30MM+ in cap room, Markkanen's contract situation (including an unusually low cap hit for a former All-Star), and a series of rules in the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement, create added complications.

The Jazz will have decisions to make beyond just whether or not to trade Markkanen. He, in turn, will face decisions of his own, as soon as next week.

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Possible Fits For The Remaining FAs From Our Top-50 List

July 26th, 2024 at 8:03am CST by Luke Adams

Of the 50 players we listed as our top free agents of the summer last month, 43 have signed NBA contracts. That leaves seven unsigned players from that top-50 list. They are as follows:

Tyus Jones, G
Isaac Okoro, F (Cavaliers RFA)
Luke Kennard, G
Precious Achiuwa, F/C
Markelle Fultz, G
Cedi Osman, F
Gordon Hayward, F

There aren't a lot of viable destinations left out there for these seven guys, as many teams around the NBA have filled their projected 15-man rosters and/or aren't in position to continue adding players due to their proximity to the luxury tax line or one of the tax aprons.

Still, it would be a little surprising if these players doesn't have an NBA home by the fall. So where might they end up? Let's take a closer look to see if we can come up with logical landing spots for each of them.

Tyus Jones

We opened up a discussion on Jones' best fit last week -- I made a few suggestions in our article and got some good feedback from readers in the comment section. One thing that struck me during that exercise was that many of the best fits for Jones - a good distributor and shooter who never turns the ball over - project to be some of the worst teams in the league.

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Offseason Observations: Apron Impact, Rockets, Spurs, Okogie

July 18th, 2024 at 11:52am CST by Luke Adams

The NBA's offseason is far from over. As we saw last summer, when Damian Lillard was traded to Milwaukee in late September and Jrue Holiday was flipped from Portland to Boston on October 1, the trade market stays open into the fall.

We also could still see impactful moves on the free agent market occurring much later in the offseason, as was the case a year ago when Derrick Jones and P.J. Washington - two key members of the Mavericks' team that made the NBA Finals - signed their respective contracts during the second half of August (Washington signed with the Hornets before being traded to Dallas later in the season).

Still, the pace of the offseason action has certainly slowed down since the start of July, giving us an opportunity to look back and reflect on all that's gone down in the last few weeks.

From one of the biggest storylines of the summer (the impact of the new tax apron rules) to some under-the-radar developments (like the structure of Josh Okogie's new deal with the Suns), we're taking a closer look today at some of the more curious offseason subplots.

Let's dive in...

Has the impact of the new apron restrictions been overstated?

The concept of the tax apron has existed in the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement for years, and a second apron was implemented in 2023, but the 2024 offseason is the first time all the new apron-related restrictions introduced in the current CBA have been in place. Those new restrictions affect the trade market most significantly, with teams operating over the first tax apron not permitted to take back more salary than they send out and teams over the second apron prohibited from aggregating player salaries.

While it's true that these rules have made it challenging for teams with high payrolls to make moves as easily as they used to, I think they've also become a convenient scapegoat for teams to justify certain roster decisions.

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How The Sixers Used Every Dollar Of Their Cap Room

July 11th, 2024 at 7:15pm CST by Luke Adams

It has been rare in recent years for contending teams to operate under the cap in order to pursue star free agents. In each of the four NBA offseasons prior to 2024, between four and eight teams opened up cap room, and the majority of those clubs were coming off losing seasons and weren't going after top-tier free agents.

Prior to 2024, the last time an All-NBA-caliber free agent changed teams using cap room was in 2019, when Kawhi Leonard headed to Los Angeles and Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving landed in Brooklyn. Both the Clippers and Nets were coming off winning seasons and viewed their free agent additions as moves that would help push them over the top, cementing their place among the NBA's top tier.

Despite the fact that no team had replicated that free agency feat in five years, Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey began heading down that path over a year ago. When word broke in June of 2023 that Philadelphia wouldn't be pursuing a rookie scale extension with rising star Tyrese Maxey, it became clear that Morey's front office was prioritizing 2024 cap flexibility in the hopes of adding another All-Star to the club's core.

Not only did the 76ers achieve that goal, but they cleverly made use of every single dollar of their cap space and their room exception to sign nine-time All-Star Paul George and three additional rotation players while preserving a possible trade chip who could help them further maximize their flexibility.

Let's take a closer look at how the Sixers have navigated the cap and made the math work so far this offseason:

The 76ers had 13 of 16 players from last season's roster become free agents on July 1, as RealGM's transaction log shows, meaning they entered the new league year with just three players under contract: star center Joel Embiid ($51,415,938), backup big man Paul Reed ($7,723,000), and 22-year-old guard Ricky Council ($1,891,857).

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