One of the stories lost in the chaos of the Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James and Chris Bosh free agency rumor mill is where the next tier of free agents will land. Until the marquee free agents sign, teams will be saving their cap space in hopes of luring a big-name. This leaves guys like Chandler Parsons in a very interesting situation. The forward is a restricted free agent, meaning the Rockets can match any offer sheet he signs, however his team is waiting for the chips to fall with Anthony, James and Bosh before making a move on signing him.
This leaves a window for teams with cap space to aggressively pursue the forward and put Houston in a tough situation deciding on what they want to do with Parsons. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, the Dallas Mavericks are trying to take advantage of the Rockets limbo by signing Parsons to an offer-sheet quickly.
Mavericks pushing on an offer sheet agreement with Houston restricted free agent Chandler Parsons, league sources tell Yahoo.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) July 7, 2014
This is actually a great move by Dallas. By signing Parsons to an offer-sheet, the Rockets hand is forced. Once Parsons signs an offer-sheet with any team, Houston has three days to match the restricted free agents deal otherwise they lose their forward. With Houston still waiting to hear from Melo or LeBron, while also aggressively pursuing Chris Bosh, matching a big offer-sheet for Parsons that will take them out of the running for one of the bigger FA’s is something the team may not be prepared to do.