Houston to Match Cleveland’s Offer for Kyle Lowry
The Cleveland Cavaliers’ off-season woes continue. While certainly not as painful as LeBron James’s decision to depart for Miami, Cleveland has been rejected once again.
After the Cavaliers made an offer to restricted free agent Kyle Lowry, the Houston Rockets decided to immediately match. Cleveland offered the Villanova alum a three-year, $24 million deal that included a fourth option year. Almost immediately after Cleveland's offer, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey made a counteroffer to the 24-year-old point guard.
Lowry has been a consistent and smooth backup point guard to Aaron Brooks. Last season the 6-foot tall Philadelphian averaged 9.1 points, 4.5 assists, and 3.6 rebounds per game. Although Morey had a week to match the Cavaliers’ offer, he decided to act as soon as possible.
"He's a big part of our team," Morey said in a phone interview. "He did a great job off the bench and we also like he and Aaron [Brooks] playing together. That's very big for us to get him back."
Morey added: “We like to let the player know as soon as possible, just so he doesn't start thinking about playing for another team.”
Lowry’s agent, Andy Miller, confirmed Morey’s actions though he seemed dissatisfied with the general restriction process. "Daryl called me and told me he intended on matching Kyle's offer sheet and my response to him was obviously he's your restricted free agent and you are entitled to match," Miller said, according to the report. "We preferred to have a negotiation in earnest, rather than the marketplace shaping Houston's value of Kyle."
Realistically, Miller might want to be thankful for Cleveland’s desperation creating a larger salary for his client than the marketplace would have. Cleveland now has a $14 million trade exemption and owner Dan Giblert is desperate to rebuild the now skeletal roster.
In addition to the departure of James, the Cavs are losing 14-year veteran centre Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who said he will be following LeBron James to the Miami Heat.
Most of the other top free agents from this summer have signed somewhere and Cleveland will be overbidding heavily for any bodies that are remaining. Lowry should be thankful that Cleveland made an offer that would average $8 million per year for a backup point guard.
With the market cleared of most of the top talent, the future looks extremely grim for the Cavaliers. Although Dan Gilbert promised to win a championship before James, the current Cavaliers roster would barely qualify for the play-offs in the traditionally weaker Eastern Conference.
Cleveland will likely overpay for mid-level talent in a desperate attempt to bolster the line up, but success is nearly impossible in the short-term for the Cavaliers. The team is simply to used to relying entirely on LeBron James and will have to adjust to a different system under head coach Byron Scott.
The only upside to this is that Cleveland’s entire system previously consisted of allowing LeBron James isolations so most of the players will be fairly clean slates in terms of learning plays.
As for the Houston Rockets, they seek to retain the rest of their roster by re-signing restricted free agent Lois Scola as well. The power forward averaged a commanding 16.2 points and 8.6 rebounds per game and is a main priority of Morey.
Referring to Scola’s re-signing, Morey said: "Hopefully, that's not too far off. We're going to bring him back, that's been the plan all along."
If the Rockets do retain both of their restricted free agents, they will be in good shape to make the play-offs out of the more competitive Western Conference. Houston’s main issue has never been its roster, but rather its roster’s ability to stay healthy. If that occurs, then the Rockets may finally see some play-off success.
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