Free Agency Winners and Losers

Hi everyone! It’s been a productive offseason so far for many teams, so in light of all of the trades and player movement, I would like to give my thoughts on the winners and losers of free agency thus far, prior to summer league. For the most part, I am going to talk more about specific archetypes and players as opposed to the teams themselves, as I plan to write about my thoughts and grades of every team’s offseasons after summer league because I think there are more moves to be made, and I’d like to see how rookies and young players fare against comparable talent.

With that being said, let’s get started.

Winner: Nikola Jokic

Nuggets fans rejoice! Jokic finally has an active front office that is willing to make moves to add veteran rotation players. Free agency basically kicked off with the MPJ for Cam Johnson trade, a move that I think greatly improves Denver’s chances for title contention by itself, and Denver didn’t stop there. Shortly after, the Nuggets signed versatile defensive guard Bruce Brown and shooter Tim Hardaway Jr. to shore up Denver’s defense. To top it off, they traded away Dario Saric, who barely played for Denver, in favor of Kings center Jonas Valanciunas, who, after being publicly courted by the Greek team Panathinaikos Athens, now appears to be staying with the Nuggets and has a chance to be the best backup center to play with Jokic. These pickups are fantastic for the team, surrounding Jokic with depth, shooting, and defense, the major problems that plagued Denver last year. In addition, there have been reports that Jokic is very happy with the moves that the new front office has made. Overall, I think Denver has done a great job surrounding Jokic with talent and shoring up their issues, so Jokic needs to be really happy right now.

Loser: Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks

Giannis’ future with the Bucks might be in jeopardy. The Lillard trade was a mess from the first season, but after his Achilles tear, coming into the offseason, the expectation was that the Bucks were going to mostly run it back and wait for Lillard to be healthy. The Bucks let Brook Lopez walk, signed Gary Harris, resigned the rest of their free agents, including Gary Trent and Kevin Porter, and then suddenly, they signed Myles Turner away from the Pacers. When I saw that, I thought that the Bucks were going to have had a successful offseason. The reason that they’re losers, however, is what they did to facilitate the signing: waiving and stretching Lillard’s contract with about $100 million remaining. With this, they have $20 million in dead money every year for the next 5 years rather than $50 million this year and a $50 million player option next offseason. That amount of dead money is going to greatly hamstring this team for years to come and will limit Giannis’ and the Bucks’ chance of competing. Giannis’ handling of the Lillard news, where he said that he wasn’t happy about the Bucks’ handling of the situation, but then another report came out where he was happy about the move, is also pretty sketchy and looks pretty bad for him from a PR perspective.

Winner: Centers

If this year’s free agency has taught us anything, it’s that big men are an incredibly valuable position. Semi-starter-level centers like Kevon Looney, Luke Kornet, and Clint Capela each got good paydays to new teams. Brook Lopez and Deandre Ayton each got a chance to prove themselves on LA teams for decent contracts. Several big men, including Jaren Jackson Jr., Naz Reid, Jakob Poeltl, and Chet Holmgren each got big, long-term extensions. And, in an aforementioned move, Myles Turner got over $25 million a year to leave the Pacers despite struggling offensively through their playoff run. Centers are getting paid.

Loser: Guards

On the other side, many guards—especially point guards—went for a lot less than their big-man counterparts. Tyus Jones and Spencer Dinwiddie, who I view as solid 6th men, each got limited money on 1 year contracts. Tre Mann ended up getting $8 million a year, which could have been higher if he hadn’t gotten injured early this year. Restricted free agency has been rough for everyone (I almost gave it its own category), but especially for guards Cam Thomas, Josh Giddey, and Quentin Grimes. Giddey and Grimes are looking for somewhere around $30 and $20 million, respectively, though it currently appears unlikely that either will come close to that number. Older, productive guards like Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook still haven’t been paid, despite the former playing all 82 games and the latter having a solid year off the bench after struggles the prior year. The biggest loser here, though, is easily Ty Jerome; people were talking about him maybe getting somewhere north of $15-$20 million before the playoffs (whether or not it was realistic, I’m not sure), but after, he ended up making only $9 million annually. Talk about a dropoff.

Winner: Depth

If these last few playoffs have taught us anything, it’s that depth is the second most important part of a championship team, and we’ve seen more and more playoff teams prioritizing depth. The Nuggets, Rockets, and Hawks each added 3 significant pieces, while the Bucks, Knicks, Clippers, and Grizzlies each added a couple of meaningful players while re-signing or maintaining much of their existing roster. All of these teams have what I could see being an 8-10 man rotation, with all of their rotations being less limited than last season.

Loser: Agent Power

Early in the offseason, I didn’t think that this would be a very significant part of the offseason. As it went on, though, there were more and more issues involving player agents. It started out with Ace Bailey’s agent trying to force his client outside of the top 5, with the plan being to not work out for any team to make it so that Bailey went to a team where he could be the top option. By most accounts, he would have wanted to go to Washington, Brooklyn, or New Orleans. Instead, Danny Ainge picked him 5th for Utah despite the lack of workout. This sketchy tactic makes Bailey look like he thinks he’s good enough to choose his own team as a rookie, which could make him less desirable as an asset and just makes him look bad overall. Rich Paul is advocating for LeBron going to a competing team, which doesn’t work when his client picks up his player option and actively makes moving more difficult. The big other thing that made me include this was Jonas Valanciunas’ agent, who apparently promised a Greek Euroleague team that he could get Val out of his contract without talking to the team he was recently traded to, the Nuggets. This led to Denver digging in their heels, publicly stating that they intended to have Valanciunas play out his contract and were not considering allowing for a buyout. In the age of player empowerment, players and agents often think that they have all the power in team negotiations, which makes it more interesting to see when the teams stand up to them despite the possibility of negative press that could come as a result.

I’m Not Done!

This was just a fun little piece I wanted to put out there before (or slightly after, in this case) Summer League. I fully intend to make a full analysis of every NBA team’s offseasons; I just wanted to wait to write that until after Summer League in order to make a full evaluation of the play of the rookies and young guys. I also want to give teams time to make more moves before I officially grade each team’s offseason; I started writing that piece prior to the John Collins/Norman Powell trade, and that definitely impacts how I see both the Clippers and the Heat’s offseasons. Now we’re just waiting to see if anything else happens within the next couple of weeks. Hope you enjoyed, the basketball content will continue soon!