While the Bulls would love to pay every talented player on the roster what he deserves, the salary cap doesn’t always allow for that.

That’s why the Houston Rockets’ three-year, $24.3 million dollar offer sheet that center Omer Asik has verbally agreed to will be so hard for the Bulls to match. General manager Gar Forman has said all along that he would match any offer for Asik, that his decisions would be based on basketball, not finances, but that might change thanks to the odd nature of this contract, constructed as a third-year “poison pill” deal thanks to the Gilbert Arenas provision in the new CBA.

In the first year of the deal, Asik would make $5 million, followed by about $5.2 million in year two. That third year would pay the center over $14 million, however, which is what could force the team to balk. The loophole here is that the team offering the deal is allowed to average the cost over the life of the contract—$8 million a season in this case—but the team matching the deal has to count actual numbers against their cap. Chicago would be fine in years one and two, but year three would destroy them as repeat luxury tax offenders, which they could very well be by 2015.

via Joel Brigham of HOOPSWORLD