Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Salary cap expert Yossi Gozlan reacts to all the moves at the start of free agency and makes sense of all the moves from a cap perspective.
HoopsHype’s salary cap expert Yossi Gozlan is providing updates and reactions on each major event at the start of free agency.
“We’re extraordinarily lucky for that to be a non-issue, because not every organization is in that spot,” Stone said. “But we are.”
In an introductory press conference, new Rockets GM Rafael Stone pushed back on critics of owner Tilman Fertitta, whose spending habits with regards to Houston’s roster have recently been called into question.
Stone, who was the team’s No. 2 basketball operations executive last season after Daryl Morey, said some moves were misconstrued as being about cost-cutting, when they were actually about something else.
In response to a reporter’s question on Thursday regarding Fertitta’s willingness to spend this offseason, here’s how Stone responded:
I actually think that’s a bit of a misnomer. To be clear, I’ve always been in the room, this entire time. I’ve been in on every conversation that’s been had between Tilman and Daryl, or Tad, and everybody. Tilman has never once said that he’s not willing to spend, if spending results in winning. That’s been consistent.
He reiterated to me upon being hired that his priorities were winning first, second, and ad nauseam. Money, not so much. I do think sometimes that on the personnel side, we have rules within the NBA. The salary cap and luxury tax, if you’re in them… they actually limit your flexibility. I think sometimes people think that you don’t want to be in it because of cash, when often times, it’s because it results in being hard-capped and limits your flexibility at the trade deadline, or something else.
I know that to be a non-issue for this organization. We’re extraordinarily lucky for that to be a non-issue, because not every organization is in that spot. But we are, and we always have been. That’s the honest answer.
Previous media reports stated that Fertitta has authorized the Rockets to spend the taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (MLE) in this upcoming offseason, which started at an annual salary of approximately $5.7 million last season. (This year’s levels have yet to be finalized.)
While there is a larger non-taxpayer MLE (worth over $9 million last year) potentially available to above-the-cap teams, such as Houston, the usage of that MLE would trigger a hard salary cap. Stone’s comments suggest that the rigidness of a hard cap concerns the Rockets, which is why using the taxpayer MLE appears to be their plan this offseason.
Thursday’s press conference can be viewed in its entirety below.
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