According to The Athletic's Shams Charania, the Houston Rockets have signed a contract extension with Aaron Holiday, a backcourt player who played for the team last season, and Holiday has been offered a two-year, $10 million contract from the Rockets. According to further information from The Athletic's Rockets correspondent Kelly Iko, Holiday was offered a two-year, $9.57 million contract, including $4.67 million in the first year of the contract and $4.9 million in the second year of the contract, but with a team option. Although there is no specific news leaking, judging from the contract amount, the Rockets should have used the biennial exception in their hands to give Holiday this contract.
In the NBA regular season this season, Holiday played a total of 76 games for the Rockets, averaging 16.3 minutes per game, averaging 6.6 points, 1.6 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 0.5 steals and 0.1 blocks per game, shooting 44.6% from the field, 38.7% from three-point range, and 92.1% from the free throw line. Holiday has been pretty good this season, and as a base-paid player, he's still playing to his ability on the offensive end, and his projection is really good. However, due to the limitations of his size, it is indeed difficult for Holiday to have the ability to help the team more in other aspects.
According to previous news, the Rockets are unlikely to make an offer to Holiday due to the fact that the number of players in the roster is indeed relatively large. In addition, the Rockets used the probe pick in their hands to choose Reed Sheppard, who is very similar in height and position to Holiday in the previous NBA Draft, which also makes everyone feel that the chances of Holiday returning to the Rockets are getting lower and lower. However, it seems that the Rockets still recognize Holiday enough for his performance last season, and they should also believe that renewing Holiday is an insurance policy for the team. If Shepard can't adjust to the pace of the NBA anytime soon, Holiday could quickly take his place, just as he did at the start of last season.
After completing Holiday to renew his contract, the Rockets currently include 14 players on standard contracts, and the team's current salary is about $158 million, which is about $16 million away from the luxury tax line, which means that they can still use the full mid-range exception in their hands to sign another player, and even then they will not be a team that has passed the luxury tax line. However, considering the number of players who can play in the Rockets' current lineup, the team is a little more, I don't know if the Rockets will do a few for one to streamline the team's current number of players.