With Chris Paul officially signing his contract Saturday night and re-upping with the Houston Rockets for another four years, the focus should once again swing back to Clint Capela’s restricted free agency talks.
According to two people with knowledge of the negotiations, Capela’s initial meeting in Los Angeles with the Rockets didn’t go well. Capela took to Twitter, presumably after the conclusion of the meeting, to express himself:
The people stated that a major difference in valuation is the reason why a deal hasn’t been agreed on yet. The two people requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak on the record about Capela’s negotiations.
Capela was a major piece on the Rockets’ 65-win team, and feels he should be paid accordingly. Rudy Gobert and Steven Adams, two centers who, like Capela, are represented by Wasserman, secured tidy extensions on annual salaries of around $24 million. Capela values himself somewhere in that range, more than the four-year, $80 million offer sheet the Sacramento Kings signed restricted free agent guard Zach Lavine to, which Chicago immediately matched. Both sources said Capela was offered something similar to the four-year, $53 million deal that restricted free agent center Jusuf Nurkic agreed signed to stay in Portland.
From Houston’s side, they are in no rush to outbid themselves. All of Capela’s likely suitors have seen themselves taken out of the market for one reason or the other. Phoenix drafted Deandre Ayton with the No. 1 overall pick. Dallas quickly agreed to a deal with DeAndre Jordan in free agency. Atlanta is thought to be looking for bad contracts or “dead money” to take on this year, in exchange for picks and even more cap room in the summer of 2019, when most of these deals from 2016 will be off the books or expiring contracts.
But these negotiations can be tricky. Capela likely doesn’t prefer to take his $4.7 million qualifying offer, but if forced to, he would sign it and become an unrestricted free agent next summer. Houston wants to avoid that problem, wants to keep Clint, yet doesn’t want to overpay.
