Zhiba NBA

Chapter 10 ([-]) Careful Preparation

The league announced that the salary cap for the new season is $4250 million, which is a significant increase from last season.Wang Yuanfei also heaved a sigh of relief.

The current player contract status of the Rockets is as follows:
Player/Position/Age/Salary (US$[-])

McGrady/shooting guard/22/1086.5
Williams/Small Forward/31/500
Mobley/Defender/26/441.3
Maloney (retired) 254.4
Curry/shooting guard/37/210
Redd/shooting guard/22/150
Thomas/Power Forward/24/94.7
Olajuwon/Center/39/Expired, to be renewed
Turkoglu/Small Forward/22/124.5 (to be signed)

Jefferson/Small Forward/21/152.8 (to be signed)

Wallace/Forward/19/106.7 (to be signed)

Okur/Center/22 (to be signed)

Parker/Point Guard/19/86.6 (to be signed)

(Note: First-round rookies occupy salary space before signing, and their salary is marked in advance for ease of reading. Only first-round rookies such as Turkoglu who declared that they will not sign a contract last season will not occupy the team's total salary. Okur is a second-round rookie, and he does not occupy space before signing.)
Brad, who was in the Rockets last season, signed to the Hornets as a free agent, and Rodgers signed to the Pacers.

Obviously, after a year of work far away, the salary situation of the Rockets has greatly improved.There are only 6 players with existing contracts (and they are all major rotation players), and their total salary is only more than 2600 million. Even if the salary of several rookies is added, there is still a significant gap from the salary cap of 4250 million.In this way, the Rockets have a huge space to renew Olajuwon, and return the No.1 in team history to a decent old age.

Although Dameng is old, he still has the deterrent power at the basket, which has attracted many teams to bid for him.Among them, the most sincere Raptors offered a high salary of 3 million in three years.After many efforts by Yuanfei and Dawson, the Rockets successfully renewed Olajuwon with a one-year high-paying contract of 1700 million on August 8.At the same time, the team and Olajuwon have reached an agreement under the table. In the next two years, Olajuwon will accept a substantial salary cut to renew his contract, and the renewal contract next year will be 2 million and 1 million.Olajuwon's income under the three-year contract has not decreased compared with the Raptors' invitation. The form of decline makes the Rockets' available space more flexible in the next two years.It doesn't matter if you spend more money for the upcoming 1000-400 season. Anyway, the salary space is sufficient, and the goals are still poor.

The next job is to renew the rookie contract. Turkoglu’s support was negotiated as early as a year ago. During this year, COSCO and Tang Shuai had communicated many times. Tang Shuai believed that the team needed this Turk with comprehensive skills, so Turkoglu happily went to the NBA, which was a year late.Jefferson, Wallace and Parker also successfully completed the signing according to the provisions of the rookie contract.

But Dawson is still in trouble. Okur's agent wants Okur to follow the example of Turkoglu and continue to play in China for another year.Turkey's Efes Bison Club lured Okur to join with a high salary, and the Rockets only wanted to provide Okur with a basic salary contract in line with a second-round rookie, only a pitiful $33.3.

(Small knowledge: The NBA’s restrictions on first-round rookie contracts originated from Glenn Robinson, the No. 94 pick in 10. The star nicknamed "Big Dog" had just been selected by the Bucks. He asked for a huge contract from the poodle. In the end, his rookie contract was 6800 million knives in 94 years. In 1517.5, the salary cap was only 680 million, and the average value of this contract was 6 million, which was equivalent to almost half of the team's salary. The first-round salary, but there is no contract limit for second-round rookies. Another: The big dog appeared once in Chapter [-] of this article)
Of course, Yuanfei cannot accept Okur returning to China to play. In order to make room for him, the Rockets gave up Dalembert and Randolph and other insiders in the first round. Now the team has two centers, Dameng and Okur. If Okur does not come to the United States, the Rockets may be forced to sign a CBA-level backup center to play.The Rockets will have a good performance next season. Of course, it would be better for Okur to train in the NBA for a year in advance.So both preparations began. On the one hand, Yuanfei began to communicate with Okur's agent, and on the other hand, he asked Dawson to look for other young backup centers in the league to try to make a deal.But the latter has little hope. After all, the Rockets' young players are all treasures and cannot be sent out. It is too difficult to send Williams to replace the young center.

"Mr. Okur, please think clearly, you and Turkoglu will become the future pillars of our team, and you will also become the focus of attention of Turkish fans, which is far higher than your achievements in the domestic league. Fans all over Europe will pay attention to the wonderful performances of you two and Parker. The current small salary gap will be recovered in terms of your influence in the football market, and your advertising sponsorship contract will be a lot of money in the future." Yuan Fei is still trying to persuade.

But on the far side of the ocean, Okur gave Yuanfei a cold rejection in broken English.This time, Yuanfei's mouth cannon offensive also failed.

***
"What about Jason now? Why is there such a serious loophole in our team building plan?" Alexander questioned dissatisfiedly: "The problem now is very serious. The team simply doesn't have a backup center."

"That's right, boss." Yuan Fei calmly explained: "We didn't renew Rodgers' contract entirely to provide Okur with training and training opportunities. Although he is not selected high, I am very optimistic about his potential. I believe he will join the Rockets next season (in history, Okur did join the NBA a year later)."

"Then what else can we do? Let his compatriot Turkoglu try to persuade him?"

"I talked about it with Lao Te (in fact, he is just old), and he has no friendship with Okur. And in my opinion, Lao Te may be very happy about this. He has become the only new NBA favorite of Turkish fans." Yuan Fei sighed: "So I suggest that Mobley be replaced by a backup center."

"What? Use our No. [-] star to replace a substitute? Last year we used Fernando to replace a substitute for the Raptors. Fortunately, McGrady has played his worth. Now what is your goal?"

"I have the following goals. The rookies in the past two years have not played at a high level for the time being, so the value is not high. Let Dawson try it. Selling Mobley is to give Reid and Parker more opportunities to exercise. It is worthwhile. I believe their future achievements will be much higher than the old cat."

"This year's rookies: Murphy, Randolph, Haywood, Dalembert, last year's rookies..." Alexander felt satisfied after reading it, so he nodded and said, "I'll tell Dawson to do it now."

***
"Jason, I've almost finished negotiating a player on the list you gave me." Dawson said with some embarrassment, "But... this guy looks pretty bad. Are you sure he can be a good player?"

"which one?"

"Jamal Magloire, last year's No. 19 pick, is now playing for the Hornets. As a rookie last season, he averaged 4.6 points and 2.6 rebounds per game, which looks worse than the Rodgers we eliminated."

"Old man...forget that I told you to convert the data into every 36 minutes to look at the players?" Yuan Fei said helplessly: "He only plays ten minutes per game on average. According to his efficiency, if he plays 36 minutes, he can contribute 11+9. Not to mention the backup center, playing the main force of an ordinary team is enough. Besides, he was only 22 years old last season, so he must have improved a bit?"

"It makes sense!"

"By the way, how many people are involved in this transaction?"

"It hasn't been fully negotiated yet, but the Hornets are very interested." Dawson chuckled: "When I first proposed to trade with Williams, the other side had to hang up the phone, but when I mentioned Mobley, their attitude suddenly turned 180 degrees."

"Of course, after all, Mobley was much better than Magloire last season. The Hornets already have two good guards, Wesley and Davis. Will they give us one? Probably not, Wesley's salary is too high for us to accept, and Baron Davis is the core of their future plans."

"Yeah, so the sticking point right now is that there doesn't seem to be the right player to match Magloire to match the salary. Lynch? Taylor?"

"Although the fact that Okur will stay in Turkey has not been made public, people can guess. Almost all team managers in the league know that we have no backup center, so we will definitely be slaughtered. Don't feel bad about small profits. Ask Thorpe."

"Odis Thorpe?" Dawson was taken aback. "This is an old Rockets player. We are very familiar with him, but he will be 39 years old soon. It doesn't make sense for a rebuilding team like ours. And his contract with the Hornets has expired and he is about to retire (Historically, Thorpe retired after his contract expired in 2001)."

"Let the Hornets sign him back and trade with us by signing first and then trading with us." Yuan Fei picked up the calculator and calculated, "The old cat's salary this season is 441.3 million. According to the transaction ratio, the minimum salary they pay to players is 287.6 million. Subtracting Magloire's 104.8 million, let the Hornets and Thorpe sign a cheap contract with an annual salary of about 184 million."

"But why him?" Dawson wondered.

"First, he saves money compared to Lynch and Taylor; second, we don't have to worry about sending him away next year, just retire; third, he is an old Rockets player, has won a championship, and is a hero of the city. Now that we have left Hakeem, why not bring another hero home to retire? Fourth, if you are a Rockets fan and the old hero returns home, will you pay more to watch two games? By the way, there will be a retirement ceremony for him in the last home game of the regular season. The ticket price will be very high."

Dawson gave a thumbs up silently.This minority shareholder is worthy of being a businessman. He dares to fight for big things, and he is as shrewd as Alexander in small details.

***
From Odis Thorpe's point of view, he has feelings for Houston after he has played for the Rockets for 6 and a half years, not to mention that he has no ball to play, and it is a surprise that he got an unexpected offer contract.So he accepted it without hesitation (Odis Thorpe, who averaged 20+10 per game at his peak, is a good power forward. He and Olajuwon's inside partner helped the Rockets win the first championship in team history, and was subsequently traded to the Portland Trail Blazers).

Jamal Magloire is also very happy. Everyone knows that the Rockets' starting center is almost 39 years old and only plays more than 20 minutes per game.It's better to be a backup for superstar dreams than to be a backup for 32-year-old PJ Brown.

The Hornets' management was even happier. They replaced a second-tier star in the league with a backup center and an old man who was about to retire.Hornets execs might be throwing a party right now to celebrate the stupidity of Dawson for not taking an extra backup center in the draft.

After this transaction, the Rockets' roster expanded to 12 people (losing Okur and Mobley), and as long as they sign a substitute player casually, they can meet the league's requirement of at least 13 people.The old Dawson is still easy to do this kind of thing-Terry Brown, defender, 188cm tall, 22 years old, signed with a basic salary on September 9 (a real signing in history).The Rockets have at least one Parker backup.On the same day, the Rockets implemented Kenny Thomas' team option. The starting power forward will continue to play for the team until the 26-02 season.

After adjustments, the total salary of the team this season is about 3850 million, which was successfully compressed below the salary cap and saved Alexander money.But Ya Li (Alexander’s pet name), don’t be happy, there will be more days to spend money in the future.

The formation of the Rockets for the new season is complete!
　I made a clear form for the salary of the Rockets, but when it is uploaded, it looks very messy.Anyone who knows how to solve this problem please comment and tell me, thank you very much.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)