The Waive and Stretch: Fred VanVleet's Team Option, Rookie Scale Extensions EPV, More GM Interviews

Welcome back to another edition of The Waive and Stretch Newsletter. A quick shameless plug to note that I am looking to work in basketball in any capacity and would love to connect with anyone in the industry or trying to break in. Please feel free to share this with anyone who you think might find it interesting. Let's get into it!

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What Caught My Attention This Week

The Rockets Push Back Decision On Fred VanVleet’s Team Option
Houston and Fred VanVleet have agree to push back the deadline to decide on FVV’s team option all the way to June 29th, the day before teams are able to officially start negotiating with free agents from other teams. This gives the Rockets even more flexibility heading into an extremely pivotal offseason. The FVV team option really is the launching point into what route the Rockets want to go this offseason, whether that is maintaining continuity with this group or going star chasing this offseason.

As things currently sit and assuming the Rockets end up with the 9th pick from the lottery (their most likely outcome) this is what Houston’s cap sheet looks like.

They are about $1.4 million under the first apron for next year, with 13 players under contract, though can clear up an additional ~$13 million by waiving both Jock Landale and Aaron Holiday. They have Steven Adams up for unrestricted free agency and extension negotiations coming up for both Jabari Smith and Tari Eason this summer and Amen Thompson next summer, putting the team in line for a very expensive future. This brings us to the FVV team option and the flexibility it affords Houston. Most signs point to the Rockets wanting to keep Van Vleet around long-term, regardless of what decision they go this summer. EPV pegs his value at ~$150 million value over four years. The below are the different options that the Rockets can structure a 4 year, $150 million deal this offseason.

As you can see, there is an $11.5 million band in which the Rockets can start FVV’s salary next year. If they are planning on running it back, it might make the most sense to opt him into his team option and do a descending extension on top of it. This takes the biggest cap hits next year and the year after, preserving cap/tax space in the out years for the extensions coming for their young guys. The first year of that deal would be 29% of the cap, with the last year being only 15.5%. If the Rockets decide to make a big splash trade for a star this summer, they are probably better off opting him out and signing him to a new ascending deal that preserves the most tax/apron space next year and maintaining his salary at around 21% of the cap through the life of it, as they will almost certainly be hard-capped at the second apron due to aggregating contracts in any potential trade, or the first apron if they don’t match at least dollar for dollar in a trade. Regardless, the Rockets have a ton of team building flexibility this offseason with this team option, and I am interested to see how they maximize it.

Rookie Scale Extension EPVs

With the 1st round of the 2022 NBA Draft class up for their rookie scale extensions this summer, I’ve added back the Rookie Extension Eligible EPVs to Ducking The Tax. Same as the free agent EPVs you can toggle the years to change the number to whatever you’d like to see and the EPV amount will change. I will update with the actual amounts compared to the EPVs as the extensions start to roll in later this summer.

More GM Exit Interviews

With more seasons ending, we’ve gotten more general manager exit interviews. I’ve added ones for the Miami Heat, Houston Rockets, Detroit Pistons, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, and Orlando Magic. I believe the only outstanding team that has had their season end that I have not seen is the Milwaukee Bucks. You can find the Youtube Playlist here. Some more quotes that caught my eye.

Pat Riley, Miami Heat on the repeater/luxury tax

You don’t want to be in four years in a row or four out of five. Otherwise it gets pretty punitive financially… I think we will try to get out and get back in to re-set it.

Rafael Stone, Houston Rockets on weighing continuity vs star trade

We’re in the business of people, they are unpredictable. If we trade for a player, assuming that player will be the same player in our environment than they were in the last one, that’s not always the case. You always have to make the best choices you can, but I would say that Plan A has always been to develop our current group and hope that we can be good enough within it.

Trajan Langdon, Detroit Pistons on team building

I think for us, as I’ve always said, is stay patient. I’m not going to change in that regard. We’re going to listen to calls, we’re gonna see opportunities. We’re always going to look at avenues to get better. That we think makes sense for us to improve. And then at the end of the day with everything presented to us and the options that we have, we have to make the right decision for sustainable success. That’s one thing that we want to have here and I think we have a group of guys that we can do that with. At what level? Right now, we don’t know. But a big thing for this summer will be developing the young guys that we have… and if those guys take steps we get better. I think that’s what we’re focused on. And again, putting people with those guys that can make them better. I thought it was a pretty good formula this year.

Jeff Weltman, Orlando Magic

I think we’re ready to kind of walk into the next phase of our team. The next stage of our team and its more of a win now philosophy, a win now approach, I think. And so with that, I think maybe to be less protective of picks and future assets to look at what we can turn into winning now.

Rob Pelinka, Los Angeles Lakers

We know this offseason one of our primary goals is going to be to add size in our front court at the center position and that’s going to just be part of the equation… We know we have a lot of work to do on the roster and it’ll look different next year for sure.