Ranking NBA's Up-and-Coming Free-Agent Destinations
Move over, San Antonio Spurs. Have fun scouring the bargain bin, Golden State Warriors. Enjoy the onset stages of your rebuild, Chicago Bulls and Dallas Mavericks(?). Stop hogging all the offseason headlines, Houston Rockets.
There are some new NBA free-agency destinations in town.
Or rather, there are about to be.
With the great spending spree of 2016 now set to go down as an anomaly, cap space means more than ever. And a handful of teams are uniquely positioned to enter (or re-enter) the primetime fray by next summer.
Above all else, these squads will have money to spend or a realistic path to joining those that do. But they're also nearing a sweet spot in their development. Proven youngsters and up-and-comers litter their rosters, arming them with assets that appeal to bigger, more established names, either as prospective running mates or the means to completing a blockbuster trade.
Once more: These teams are relatively new or completely foreign to the free-agency discussion. The Spurs should have mountains of flexibility in 2018. We don't care. They've been around this block a few times since 2015. The Minnesota Timberwolves are relevant again. Good for them. But they played their best hand this summer. They don't have an easy way to drum up significant cap space—not with Andrew Wiggins potentially nearing a five-year mega-extension, per ESPN.com.
Those who make the cut will be ranked by the expected depth of their pockets, current roster appeal and how likely they are to try flexing their muscles by 2018. Cap projections must be taken with a grain of skepticism, since situations can change over the next year. If all goes according to plan, though, these budding buyers should have the resources to contend with the usual offseason powerhouses.
Honorable Mention: Brooklyn Nets
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The Brooklyn Nets could just as easily be a real inclusion. They check all the necessary boxes—mainly cap space and favorable progress reports.
Leaving the roster untouched between now and next summer guarantees the Nets a clean crack at $25 million in negotiating scratch. They'll be able to leave $35 million in the dust if Jeremy Lin (player option) decides it's time to shuffle off elsewhere.
Latching onto a team that is paying Timofey Mozgov and only just regaining control of its first-round picks (2019) won't appeal to everyone, but the Nets' culture shock will speak to a couple noteworthy names. They've already made headway in that department.
J.J. Redick rolled with the Philadelphia 76ers, but he has since expressed fondness for what they're building, per Nets Daily's Anthony Puccio. Others around the league feel the same.
Here's the thing: The Nets don't operate as if they want to be a part of this list.
Taking on unwanted salaries and constructing offer sheets for restricted free agents under 25 has been their top priority under general manager Sean Marks. If that's the approach they've taken without control of their own first-rounders, when they have every incentive to win, it's unrealistic to expect a complete about-face once they regain possession of all their future selections.
Jump ahead to 2019, or 2020, and it might be different. The Nets could be more aggressive in their push to poach free agents from all walks of experience.
In the meantime, with their draft obligations to the Boston Celtics on the verge of expiring, they seem at least a year away from registering as a free-agency threat—but only by design.
5. Sacramento Kings
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Is this weird? Because it feels weird. And wrong. And oh so right. All at the same time.
The Sacramento Kings have long fancied themselves free-agency whisperers. They wouldn't owe a 2019 unprotected pick to the Philadelphia 76ers if they didn't. The difference next summer, and potentially beyond, is they won't be totally mistaken.
Bringing in Vince Carter, George Hill and Zach Randolph is a good stage-setter for 2018. Hill specifically could have gone elsewhere, to an objectively better situation, even amid the bursting point guard bubble. Getting him to sign a two-year guarantee with minimal assurance on the third season is a victory for Sacramento's optics.
All three veteran additions should steady a locker room and franchise that's never left quality impressions from the outside. Sure, their salaries prevent the Kings from mirroring the Nets and absorbing bad deals in exchange for picks and prospects. But they won't boost the win column enough to yank the team out of contention for a top-five pick.
Slap that type of prospect onto the Kings' incumbent youthful blend, sprinkle in what should be more than $20 million in space, and you've really got something. And Sacramento may wind up with even more.
Shedding Kosta Koufos and Garrett Temple—both of whom hold players options for 2018-19—affords the Kings closer to $40 million in maneuverability. And while that's not license to pitch every veteran with a pulse, it allows them to target timeline-fitting studs as something more than third-party leverage.
4. Milwaukee Bucks
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Giannis Antetokounmpo's transformation into a top-10 player would ferry the Milwaukee Bucks higher than this, perhaps to the tippy top, if the basis for their inclusion wasn't founded upon gargantuan assumptions.
Milwaukee won't have gobs of cap flexibility next summer as of now. Spencer Hawes and Greg Monroe will come off the books, but salaries for Matthew Dellavedova, John Henson and Mirza Teletovic act as buzzkills. They'll combine to make $30.7 million in 2018-19—which, when tacked on to Jabari Parker's $20.3 million free-agent hold (restricted), leaves more than $50 million in inconvenient hits on the ledger.
Still, this situation is more malleable than damning.
During a recent episode of The Basketball Analogy podcast, ESPN.com's Brian Windhorst noted that the Bucks would love to pawn off Dellavedova, Henson and Teletovic. Moving them is easier said than done, but none of these dumps will require Mozgov-esque compensation.
Henson should be tradeable without a sweetener. He doesn't turn 27 until December and still carries intrigue as a shot-blocking rim-runner. Baiting teams with Rashad Vaughn or a heavily protected first, meanwhile, should help find new digs for at least one of Dellavedova and Teletovic—especially leading into next summer, when another year has ticked off their deals. Who knows, by June 2018, maybe Henson himself is considered a good enough throw-in to wash off Teletovic's expiring pact.
Offloading all three of these contracts without taking back salary would give the Bucks eight figures of spending power while floating Parker's hold. That number climbs exponentially higher if they're ready to cut bait with Parker, who's working his way back from another ACL injury. Discarding him and any two of Dellavedova, Henson and Teletovic could open up more than $25 million in room.
Jettisoning Parker is not a decision to be take lightly. It's also not out of the question. The Bucks have Thon Maker and D.J. Wilson, and Parker will be lucky to ever be an even defender at the 4, let alone if he's matching up against wings.
However they do it, leaning into next year's free-agent market should rank among the Bucks' primary aims. They won't poach a Paul George or LeBron James, but a core of Antetokounmpo, Malcolm Brogdon and Khris Middleton gets them in the running for next-tier fits—needle-nudgers such as Avery Bradley, Wilson Chandler (player option), DeAndre Jordan (player option) and maybe even DeMarcus Cousins.
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3. Denver Nuggets
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Yes, the Denver Nuggets can easily be higher. And maybe they should be. But their cap situation, while not Bucks-like, is a bit wonky after drawing in Paul Millsap.
Mason Plumlee's uncertain future looms large here. Re-signing him to a long-term deal eats into the Nuggets' wiggle room. Extending or carrying a cap hold for Gary Harris does the same, as would any interest in bringing back Chandler and Will Barton.
Send Nikola Jokic into restricted free agency (team option), and the Nuggets complicate their situation even further. His cap hit would be peanuts until he signs a new deal, but the prospect of shelling out big money for him, Harris and Millsap might deter them from making another lucrative investment.
And yet, if Denver plays the cap-hold game, another major addition is well within reach.
Assuming Plumlee gets Kenneth Faried money (between $12 and $14 million per year), the Nuggets have to enter next summer with only one of them on the books. This isn't an unreasonable expectation. They can let Plumlee walk now if they want, and Faried is expendable no matter what given the superfluous number of wings and forwards on the depth chart.
From there, the path to an impact name is straightforward. Renouncing Chandler alone slingshots them past $15 million room. Doing the same with Barton should drive them above $20 million. They'll be within sniffing distance of $30 million if Darell Arthur leaves (player option).
There are so many options to consider for the Nuggets. They can even pay both Faried and Plumlee while dredging up $15-plus million in space if Arthur, Barton and Chandler are all shown the door. Creating a large slush fund isn't an issue.
Nor is grabbing the attention of top free agents. The Nuggets already reeled in Millsap, and Chris Paul was supposed to meet with them before his infatuation with the Rockets went supernova.
Denver will be subject to the usual small-market bias among megastars, but objectively speaking, who turns down the opportunity to join Harris, Jokic, Millsap, Jamal Murray and a fairly stocked supporting cast without thinking twice?
2. Los Angeles Lakers
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Could the Los Angeles Lakers really be ranked any lower than No. 2 after team president Magic Johnson's impassioned speech following the franchise's summer league championship? As he said afterward (h/t Uproxx's Ryan Nagelhout):
"We strive for excellence. We wanted to talk about doing things the right way. We wanted to talk about winning and building a winning tradition. And it started with these young men tonight. Winning the Summer League.
"Then it has to carry over to our summer workouts and into training camp, exhibition season and into next season. So the Lakers are back, we’re going to try to build and grow. We’re going to have a great year but also build toward having sustainability so we can have a lot of great years."
This is...hyperbole. But Johnson wasn't kidding. And he wasn't necessarily wrong.
Lonzo Ball already has as many MVP awards as Russell Westbrook. The prospect of playing with him and Brandon Ingram, another superstar-level project, will resonate with high-profile names smart enough to sign somewhere they can compete now and later on, three to 33 years down the line, when the Golden State Warriors have presumably loosened their death grip on the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
And if the open-ended window doesn't do it, the Lakers' cap space should.
They will start off next summer with more than $30 million to burn if the plan is to renounce Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Brook Lopez. That number mushrooms to $50 million or more if they find a taker for Luol Deng's deal. And that number explodes past $60 million if they opt against re-signing Randle.
There is a feasible, if likely, scenario in which the Lakers hit free agency with two max slots. Heck, if they dump Deng and Jordan Clarkson and pass on Randle, they can try re-signing Caldwell-Pope with the non-bird exception and still have more than $50 million to dole out.
Indeed, the Lakers have plenty of hoops to jump through and if-then hypotheticals to actualize before enjoying unbridled flexibility. But as Johnson showed by using D'Angelo Russell, a top-two pick, to deep-six Mozgov, he'll do what it takes to step out on this limb and bank on the Lakers' rebounding mystique to take care of the rest.
1. Philadelphia 76ers
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Joel Embiid, Markelle Fultz and Ben Simmons have played exactly zero games together, but the Sixers are already on the free-agency map. Newly signed J.J. Redick corroborated as much in his documentary for Uninterrupted (via Liberty Ballers' Kyle Neubeck):
"I was able to have a really good conversation with Brett Brown about some actions we could run next year, it was just a really good conversation, I was sort of overwhelmed by the atmosphere. One of the things I told them in the meeting is I wanted to be around a good group and good people, and that’s sort of what they were preaching to me. It left a good impression on me. ... I think ultimately I ended up in the perfect situation."
Getting a one-season deal worth $23 million in a market that wasn't kind to multiyear-contract seekers no doubt swayed Redick, but his interest in Philly at all marks a turning point. Next summer will reinforce that—particularly if the Embiid-Fultz-Simmons trio stays healthy for most of 2017-18.
Negotiating extensions for Embiid and Robert Covington would crimp the Sixers' spending power. Ditto for however many first-rounders they end up with in June (max of two). Regardless of how this plays out, though, they can essentially sleepwalk their way to $30-million-per-year offers.
If signing Embiid this fall costs more than his $18.3 million cap hold for July, the Sixers might as well wait. And if they extend Covington for around $12 million annually, they can renounce Nik Stauskas' $11.4 million hold to offset the difference.
Let Covington's contract situation leak into the summer, and the Sixers eke out more than $40 million in room by ditching holds for Redick, Stauskas and Amir Johnson. Basically, no matter how you slice it, they'll be well-positioned to peddle max money.
Is premium flexibility, a possible Big Three-in training and plenty of other assets enough for the Sixers to woo anyone they please, up to and including LeBron James? Simmons' choice of emoji on Twitter suggests he thinks so. And you know what: He's not wrong.
Maybe James doesn't bite. He probably won't. But someone else probably will—if not next summer, then soon. Very, very soon.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale) and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast co-hosted by B/R's Andrew Bailey.
Stats courtesy of Basketball Reference or NBA.com. Other salary information via Basketball Insiders and RealGM.
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