Report: Asik will meet with Rockets

The Bulls expected some competition for restricted free agent Omer Asik, and it didn’t take long to arrive.

Multiple reports out of Houston had the Rockets meeting with the Turkish center in Los Angeles late Saturday night.

The rules will help the Bulls. Teams are no longer allowed to make offers to restricted free agents that the current team can’t match. So the most any team can offer Asik is around $5 million per year for the first two seasons.

The Bulls plan to match any such offer, even though it will push their payroll to the luxury-tax level. An offer to Asik could balloon after two years, but that’s also when the Bulls will get some payroll relief when Luol Deng’s deal expires.

Asik, 25, has averaged 2.9 points and 2.8 rebounds in his first two NBA seasons, but established himself as an excellent defender. He played heavy minutes in the playoffs this year after Joakim Noah went down with an ankle sprain.