Houston Rockets: Sergio Llull Back In Play?

The day we’ve been waiting for the Houston Rockets is near!

Yes, the day when free agency opens up to all teams is right around the corner.

What’s that special date?

Well, thanks for asking, it’s July 1st.

This is the first date that teams will be able speak freely between prospective members of the franchise.

It’s going to be exciting as you know that the Rockets are always heavy players in the market.

Daryl Morey is none the exception — a general manager that sits on his laurels is of no use to a sports franchise and that’s far from the characteristic of his job performance.

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He’ll ride that horse until it has nothing left to give.

But an interesting development of a story has taken place in regard to one of our most coveted prospects.

Who would that be?

None other than the dynamic, play making guard in Sergio Llull.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the Rockets likely not signing Llull this season (click here) after Morey denied a report via an interview on 610 SportsRadio AM in regard to a three-year, $17 million deal.

But according to some chatter, that’s not so.

It’s no secret that the Rockets want him now and Kevin McHale even gone on record saying so.

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Marca.com’s Jose Luis Martinez — a popular Spanish hoops media outlet — has said that the Rockets are willing to offer as much as a three-year, $24 million deal to Llull.

That reporter has ear to the ground so I certainly trust the validity to this development.

Although Llull has continued to reiterate publicly his complacency with Real Madrid, the reigning Euroleague champs, he may be saying that to see if the Rockets up the rumored offer for him.

So it looks like the Rockets just did.

He is still considering playing for the Rockets and he has been talking with former teammate Pablo Prigioni about the whole situation as recently as last week over dinner according to Javier Maestro of Encestando.es.

Llull currently is on a multi-year deal through 2019 with Real Madrid so if the Rockets were make a coup of the guard, it’s going to cost them.

According to Chuck Myron of Hoops Rumors, his buyout will cost about $5.7 million and with a hard cap placed on how much the Rockets can spend to do so per NBA rules, they’d only be able to fork out $625,000.

That means the Llull would have to eat that remaining money himself if he has any aspirations of coming to the NBA and being a member of H-Town’s finest.

But here’s the deal, the Rockets won’t have the spending money to sign him outright to such a deal, so they must have to clear room in order bring him in.

With so many free agents available and with pulling of such a feat ranging in the high difficulty level, it remains to be seen how much of priority is this move for the Rockets.

But you never know, Morey has pulled a rabbit out of his hat before.