What is a possibility we haven't reall elaborated on is both players being willing to take less to make it work. We know they are buddies and have wanted to play with each other for sometime. For all we know there are contingencies involved like Parsons as in he gets max but is willing to take less if we can get Howard too.
I am a big Ed Davis fan. He's bounced around the league a bit because his services are valuable, but circumstances like us having a shot at Howard means he has to go. Wherever he's been, he's been a solid contributor. I'd love it if we could manage to keep him.
Yes, I think that's a given but we'd still have to clear salary for Howard even if both Parsons and Howard take a bit less.
Varejao's dead money is factored in on the calculator. Look at the image--it's right there. I agree that it wouldn't make sense for them to do it, but since everyone's talking about the idea of S&T'ing Leonard to Houston for Dwight, I thought it prudent to actually use the salary figure that would be required if the trade put us over the cap (which it would have to if we're not clearing all the space by renouncing everyone and dealing Davis or Aminu).
So to us, trading Meyers would account for 50% of his salary off our cap. For Houston (hypothetically) it would account for 100% of his salary on their cap. So the trade wouldn't work because we would only be sending out 50% of Meyer's deal and receiving 100% of Dwights.
S&Ting Meyers for Howard is so much more difficult than finding a team willing to give a protected pick for a value contract like Davis and Aminu.
ONLY if Portland is over the cap in signing Meyers. If they stay below - then Meyer's outgoing salary counts as 100%.
My bad, I didn't see it. It might be more appealing to Houston to trade Howard to us for Aminu, Leonard, and Davis. Leonard at $7M or higher.
the scenario I outlined here, for example. Of course, as I noted, if Dwight's and Leonard's salaries aren't within $5M of one another, the point is completely moot.
We're $24M under before we sign Parsons. The order of the deals matters. We'd have to clear $22M worth of space to sign Parsons still.
We don't have to sign anyone, really. Let the Rockets extend Leonard. The three are $21M in cap space on the books as is.
