NBA Free Agency Madness
Every professional sport has its periods of time where players leave their current teams for new ones. In European soccer they actually have two such periods. The king of offseason transaction periods however, is NBA free agency. The players over the past few years have garnered so much power over the teams they play for that any player can be moved at any time, just so long as they aren’t named Buddy Hield. He will be in Sacramento forever and ever. Amen.
NBA free agency is a time of chaos, teams going from contenders to mid playoff purgatory, utter crap to hopeful, and from “We think we can” to “We know we can.” This year has been one of the craziest first twenty-four hours of free agency that I can remember, and we barely had any stars in the pool. We saw giant contracts get handed to players that absolutely did not deserve it, players go flip to cross town rivals, and the Phoenix Suns might be contenders for a playoff spot. The ghost of Steve Nash’s wasted prime is happy. As much as I love waxing poetic about the bigger implications and the true brilliance of NBA free agency, this is going to be a long article as is, so let’s get to it.
Trades
Before we dive into the actual free agents, we have to discuss the trades, of which there were many, including one of the most confusing trades I think I have ever seen. The biggest one was the first one we found out about that went from a simple two team trade, to a massively complicated four team mess of asset swaps. I am of course talking about the Jrue Holiday trade. We first heard about this on the eighteenth or nineteenth of November and it was Jrue Holiday for a whole conglomeration of pieces from the Milwaukee Bucks. That trade is gone. The current trade, and I am going to type all of this out directly from Spotrac.com because even I’m not sure I understand what is happening, is as follows:
Milwaukee receives: Jrue Holiday and Sam Merrill
New Orleans receives: Steven Adams, Eric Bledsoe, unprotected first round picks in 2025 and 2027, and the right to swap picks with Milwaukee in 2024 and 2026.
Denver receives: RJ Hampton
Oklahoma receives: Kenrich Williams, Joshia Gray, Darius Miller, George Hill, Zylan Cheatham, a lottery protected first round pick in 2023, second round picks in 2023 and 2024
Are we all clear on what happened here? It’s a giant mess of people mostly getting what they want. Milwaukee and New Orleans immediately get better for next year, the Oklahoma City Prestis continue to Process the hell out of the next six drafts, and the Denver Nuggets get to move on from a pick three years from now to grab a rookie that can hopefully help them be more of a contender over the next three years. I think I like this trade for all involved. Jrue Holiday does not push the Bucks over the top but it does certainly aid their already great defense, and provided some mildly consistent scoring so long as Jrue can stay healthy, particularly come playoff time. Denver gets a piece for the future and possibly the present. New Orleans adds a big time center and two veteran presences in the locker room, both of whom can play big minutes come playoff time. Oklahoma City continues to hoard assets like the little draft goblins that they are.
Chris Paul got traded from the OKC Prestis (yes that is all I am calling them for the duration of this article) to the Phoenix Suns for a load of pieces that are no longer on the team. Ricky Rubio got flipped two days later to the Minnesota Timberwolves which is truly as funny as it gets. Kelly Oubre Jr. was sent to the Golden State Warriors four days after being a part of the Paul trade. Jalen Lecque was traded today, November 23, to the Indiana Pacers for TJ Leaf and a second round pick. The only player left standing on the Prestis is Ty Jerome and that first round pick they got. I love the trade for the Suns. Giving up Kelly Oubre Jr. is tough, particularly when he just ends up on a team that will be occupying a playoff spot next season, but they were always going to have to move off a decent asset with a solid salary cap hit to make a trade for a superstar. Chris Paul is thirty-six years old. He did things last season that no point guard older than thirty-five has ever done in a season. There has to be a decline coming, but being surrounded by young talent and solid coaching should make that decline a little less steep. On a side note, I love the Kelly Oubre Jr. trade for Golden State. He will absolutely not replace all that Klay could do, particularly on defense, but he sure does give them some more offensive play making.
Those were all the big trades. A couple more quick hitters that I liked were trades like Seth Curry and Josh Richardson basically being swapped. I think both teams get something they need from it. Philadelphia desperately needed more long range shooting to help space the floor, and the Dallas Mavericks needed wing defense help. The Los Angeles Lakers traded Danny Green to the Prestis for Dennis Schroeder which instantly upgraded their team, thanks Sam. In true Presti fashion though he immediately flipped Green to the 76ers for a first round draft pick in 2025. He also gets the privilege of eating Al Horford’s god awful contract. The Brooklyn Nets managed to get Landry Shamet which helps them a little, and Luke Kennard gets to be un-banished from the shadow realm that is Detroit’s black hole of a roster. Houston traded to get Christian Wood out of that very same horrifying existence, and in return (but not in the same trade) sent Robert Covington to the Portland Trailblazers.
Free Agents
That was just the trades. I thought with the lack of star power in this year’s free agency class it would be a relatively quiet free agency period. Then Friday night decided to absolutely wreck every sports related group chat I am in. As for breaking this down, strap in because I am going to have to do this in two sections. Section one will be praising the signings I loved. Section too will be mocking the teams that gave players ridiculous amounts of money for no reason other than, I guess, giggles.
The Winners
Fred VanVleet got a four year $85 million deal from the Toronto Raptors. They absolutely needed to keep VanVleet. He is a burgeoning star for them and very much the heir apparent to Kyle Lowry. This deal will go one of two ways: he will continue to grow and evolve as a player and by the end of this deal he will be getting the max from somebody, probably Toronto; or, he will stagnate and this deal will be looked on as a huge gaff by year three. Let’s hope for the Raptors sake it’s the former.
Jae Crowder signed a three year $29 million deal with the Phoenix Suns, and I continue to love what the Suns have been doing this offseason outside of the draft. The Suns had a young core that led them to being 8-0 in the bubble last season. They were the best looking team by a wide margin in that eight game pre-playoff span. The additions of veteran, playoff experienced vets like Crowder and Chris Paul only serve to aid that young core when it gets to the end of the season and they are the seven seed putting it to the two seed, whoever that may be. The Suns are one of the most exciting up and coming teams in the NBA right now.
The Boston Celtics signed Tristan Thompson to a two year $19 million deal. Al Horford may not have been anywhere worth the $25 million the 76ers paid him last year, but when he left Boston, a giant hole was left in that team. The Celtics had no answer for bigger teams. The Sixers gave them problems all year, when healthy, and they had no answer for Bam Adebayo in the Miami Heat series they would go on to lose. The Celtics needed size, and to be able to get it on the relatively cheap is a phenomenal decision for them. The addition instantly makes them a more well rounded team, and a bigger threat to a lot of the potential playoff opponents they could run into, the Lakers included.
Montrezl Harrell signed a two year $19 million deal with the Los Angeles Lakers and everyone was confused, yet not surprised. This signing seems to indicate Harrell is doing a bit of ring chasing and has little to no faith in Pandemic P, Paul George, come playoff time. The signing just further points the defending champions’ arrow up. Other contenders might be getting better, but so are the Lakers.
The “What the Hell Are You Doings”
Oh the god awful contracts you will see. In that last section I highlighted each signing and did a little blurb on why I like the signings. Here I am going to rattle off these fantastic overpays and roast the collective whole afterwards.
The Los Angeles Clippers gave Marcus Morris four years and $64 million. The Atlanta Hawks forked over three years and $61.5 million to Danilo Galinari. The Charlotte Hornets wasted four years and an outlandish $120 million on Gordon Hayward. The Detroit Pistons handed Jerami Grant three years and $60 million. Finally the Washington Wizards doled out five years and $80 million to Davis Bertans.
Do you notice one very important commonality between these five contracts? They are all for three years or more. For context on the Morris deal, his twin brother got one year and $2.3 million. One thing I guarantee is that Marcus, though the better brother, is not eight times better than Markieff. Why is Danilo Galinari making $20 million per year? I like him as a player. I think he will make this team better, but next year is going to be the most incredible time for free agents and for the Hawks to just drop this money when in all likelihood they still won’t be making the playoffs this year, makes no sense. Wait one year and try to get Trae Young a veteran superstar to calm him down and lower that absolutely ridiculous 35% usage rate.
Detroit, I’m not even mad. I’m just severely disappointed. Please trade Derrick Rose. He deserves better
Do the Wizards and Hornets enjoy giving out the worst contracts in the NBA? Are they competing against one another to see who can make a team account’s head explode first? You know what, neither of you are allowed to participate in free agency 2021. No, the decision is final, now go to your rooms. Please someone explain to me the thought process behind giving a guy in Gordon Hayward, that has had a run of injuries not seen since Derrick Rose from 2011 to 2014, $30 million per year. Hayward was a great player. He showed flashes of being that guy again at the start of the 2019 season; and then seven games in he broke his hand and it’s just been a nightmare since. As for the Wizards, they should know better. John Wall might have the worst contract in the NBA. I get that it has more to do with injuries than anything Wall has actually done on the court, but it doesn’t change the fact that Wall is still more untradeable than Russell Westbrook.
I apologize to the fans of the teams in the previous section, but you root for garbage front offices, and I should know, I’m a Bulls fan, *shudder.* However, that concludes my not-so-little free agency wrap up. Originally I was going to go over a lot of the quick hitters and signings involving guys we all know the names of but this is already a little too long and I can cover some of that stuff in my pre-season coverage which is approaching much sooner than most of us NBA fans expected just a month ago.