Rockets Amnesty Luis Scola

FRIDAY, 2:33pm: The Rockets have officially released Scola via the amnesty clause, tweets ESPN.com's Marc Stein.

THURSDAY, 8:57pm: Eric Pincus of HoopsWorld points out why Scola could actually clear the amnesty waivers and become an unrestricted free agent. An amnesty bid requires the incorporation of the non-guaranteed amount of the contract. While Scola was guaranteed $9.4MM and $10.2MM for the next two seasons, his final season was for $11MM with just $1MM guaranteed. A bidding team would have to account for the non-guaranteed $10MM over the life of the original deal (three years in this case), thus starting the bid at a minimum of around $3.3MM. Pincus mentions that teams won't have that kind of cap space to make such an offer, which increases the possibility that Scola clears waivers.

5:53pm: Wojnarowski tweets that while there is no imminent Dwight-to-Houston trade with the amnestying of Scola, the Rockets "will stop at nothing" to land Howard. Earlier, he briefly mentioned that the Mavericks will be aggressive bidders in the event that Luis is on the amnesty waiver wire. 

5:42pm: TNT's David Aldridge tweets that Houston has not made a final determination on using the amnesty on Scola, but that it could "potentially" happen on Friday. He also adds that "multiple factors" will play a role in their decision, especially if the team can find another way to add Howard  (Twitter link). HoopsWorld's Alex Kennedy thinks that the Rockets wouldn't amnesty Scola unless they felt a trade for Dwight was close. 

5:28pm: Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo tweets that the Rockets have decided to use their amnesty clause on Luis Scola and will file with the NBA on Friday (Twitter link). Scola is due $21MM over the next three years, and Wojnarowski tweets that Houston is clearing space in order to pursue a deal for Dwight Howard

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