Ben DuBose

And it's hard to blame those teams because they have at least some money guaranteed for next season.

And similar to the Rockets and DFS, like there's value in having an expiring on your books for the offseason.

It gives you more options.

So, yeah, it's easy to sit here and say, why don't the Pelicans do Kamon Looney a solid?

Well, you know, they've got to look out for themselves and they might want that expiring contract on their books this offseason to give them more options.

So we know who is and isn't available.

And, you know, I won't say that a buyout is impossible.

Like it's possible that maybe the Rockets are interested in someone like a Chris Boucher and they wanted to see if maybe someone like a Gabon Looney became available as well.

And then they could compare the two.

Now they know who's out there and perhaps they pivot back to one of the original names.

But it could also be that they were waiting for someone like a Looney, like a DeRozan to come available that just never did.

And so now maybe they think the best option is to convert one of their existing guys on the two-way and keep them around for maybe three or four years.

You can get them on a cheap deal and make it multiple years, which could help as this team gets more expensive.

So...

I'm curious your thoughts.

If you eventually convert Reed to a starting lineup spot and you use a man a little bit more off ball, although there's certainly value in having both of them out there and able to have two ball handlers, does it maybe make it a little more important to raise that limit for JD Davidson?

That's just a thought that I've had running through my head the last couple of days.

And also for future years and planning out what the payroll looks like moving forward.

To me, there's potentially a lot of value if you believe in Davidson or Crawford and locking them up for three, four years at the minimum or close to it.

I think the Rockets do have a portion of their non-taxpayer MLE still available, so they could give like a four-year deal if they wanted to.