5 Sneaky-Bad Moves from 2024 NBA Free Agency
Caution was the controlling sentiment in 2024 NBA free agency.
The penalties associated with the first and second aprons curbed spending and generally resulted in fewer risky overpays. In other words, there weren't nearly as many obvious mistakes as usual.
In fact, some of the more egregious missteps were made by teams who were too careful. The Denver Nuggets letting Kentavious Caldwell-Pope get away comes to mind.
Don't worry, though. The lack of bold spending actually works out well for this exercise.
Usually, it's easy to pick out a handful of blatant mistakes in free agency. Not so this summer. Here, we'll highlight the ones that come with solid surface-level justifications. It's when you look deeper that they get progressively less sensible.
DeMar DeRozan to the Sacramento Kings
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As the West got even more daunting around them, the Sacramento Kings had to do something. DeMar DeRozan is far from a perfect fit (more on that momentarily), but he might have been the best, most affordable talent upgrade on the market.
The Kings nabbed him in a sign-and-trade, juicing their offense with one of the league's top isolation threats and clutch scorers, all for a three-year deal totaling $73.9 million, only $58.1 million of which is fully guaranteed.
A third offensive initiator who doesn't overlap at all positionally with the Kings' incumbent pair—De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis—DeRozan's presence could get Sacramento back in position to lead the league in scoring efficiency. The level of offensive dynamism he provides as an individual bucket-getter, facilitator and savvy foul-drawer means the Kings can attack opponents from all sorts of new angles.
But building a coherent team isn't as simple as totaling up its players' points per game. DeRozan, a notoriously low-volume three-point shooter, isn't going to offer much off-ball value. And when the rock's in his hands, Fox and Sabonis can't work their two-man magic in the pick-and-roll game. DeRozan's presence also makes a weak defense weaker. If Sacramento's retooled attack isn't among the top five, it may not be enough to offset a defense that could rank near the bottom of the league.
If Fox stabilizes his career-long year-over-year inconsistency from deep, it'll help. If Sabonis can find a way to contribute something on D or as a spacer, the calculus changes. But in the end, DeRozan is definitely going to hamper Sacramento on defense and may not be as big of a help on the other end as some think.
Don't forget, the three-time All-Star is also entering his age-35 season. Decline should be the expectation.
This is a perfect "sneaky" bad move to start with because so many aspects of it are objectively good. You have to peek into the dark corners and get a little pessimistic to uncover the downsides.
But they're there.
Obi Toppin Bags $58 Million
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Obi Toppin played all 82 games last year, blew past his previous career high by hitting 40.3 percent of his triples and fit perfectly into the Indiana Pacers' uptempo offensive style. A legitimate postseason contributor who averaged 24.0 minutes per game in Indiana's surprise Conference Finals appearance, Toppin, entering his age-26 season, deserved his four-year, $58 million contract.
But should the Pacers have been the team to give it to him?
Indy also maxed out Pascal Siakam this offseason, and it has 2023 lottery pick Jarace Walker in the same positional group. Units featuring Toppin last year were 1.4 points per 100 possessions worse defensively than when he sat, and the lineups including Toppin and Siakam together were basically unplayable due to terrible defense in a small sample.
Indy kept Toppin using Bird rights. It couldn't have acquired anyone on the open market for more than the mid-level exception. It's also hard to fault the Pacers for leaning into their identity as a team that runs relentlessly on offense and accepts the tradeoffs on the other end.
But what about Walker? And what about the opportunity cost? If all it took to sign Simone Fontecchio was more than the two-year, $16 million deal he got from the Detroit Pistons, the Pacers definitely should have gone down that road instead. A better three-point shooter and more versatile defender, Fontecchio wouldn't have hurt Indiana on offense while shoring up a weakness on the other end.
Like all the other entries here, Toppin's deal has obvious upside. He should at least be tradeable if Walker grows enough to deserve more minutes. But it'll be hard to simultaneously give Walker room to improve while also playing Toppin. And if Toppin sees his role reduced, he'll only become harder to trade.
The Pacers could find themselves in the awkward position of rooting for Walker to seize a role at the expense of the guy they just handed $58 million.
Franz Wagner's Max Deal
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Franz Wagner was a key reason the Orlando Magic vaulted from 34 to 47 wins last season, and on some level, we should credit non-glamor markets for spending what it takes to secure their cores.
But what was the rush on giving Wagner his full max of five years and up to $270 million?
Yes, the 22-year-old is already a quality starter at a valuable position. It wouldn't be a shock if he got something more than fringe All-Star consideration as soon as next year. But Wagner is not and is unlikely to ever be the best player on his team as long as Paolo Banchero is around. While that status doesn't disqualify him from earning the max (most teams go that high for more than one player), it does make it seem like the Magic were hasty in paying him a full year ahead of restricted free agency.
Fellow 2021 draftees Scottie Barnes and Cade Cunningham got similar extensions, but both of those players are their teams' cornerstones. Both have also hit higher levels of production to this point in their careers.
Maybe Wagner will justify his new contract with a breakthrough season. But wouldn't it have been better for Orlando to wait and see if last year's terrifying dip to just 28.1 percent from long distance was the exception or the rule? Sure, it's one season. But that hit rate was dead last among the 108 players who attempted at least 300 triples in 2023-24.
If Wagner is really that errant from deep for another year, it's hard to imagine him having anything close to max-salary value.
The Magic could have waited for more information, retaining the massive leverage that comes with restricted free agency. But they didn't. They may come to regret their haste.
James Harden Returns to the Clippers
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First, the justification: The Los Angeles Clippers didn't have the flexibility to sign anyone of James Harden's quality in free agency, and losing him for nothing would have made the already iffy decision to trade two first-round picks and a swap for him look even worse.
Plus, how bad can a two-year, sub-max contract really be? Before the Clips know it, Harden will be an expiring deal. And in the meantime, he can keep them relatively competitive as they enter their new arena in 2024-25.
Enough of the devil's advocate stuff.
Signing Harden at an annual rate of $35 million was a blatant overpay—one made much more damaging in light of the Clippers losing Paul George over money.
How different might things be today for LA if it had rerouted $15-20 million per year from Harden's offer to George's? Or, better yet, what if the Clips hadn't retained Harden at all, and instead given George the four-year max he ultimately got from the Sixers?
There's no argument to be made that LA is better with Harden and Kawhi Leonard than it would have been with George and Leonard.
What's more, one else was going to give Harden what the Clippers did. LA was the only team willing to surrender anything of consequence to acquire him in the first place. Coming off a year in which he averaged 16.6 points and fell short of the All-Star game for the second straight time, Harden's value has only diminished. He'll turn 35 in August, which means decline is inevitable.
So, of course he also got a player option for 2025-26 in the bargain.
Wait, what?
Losing Harden for nothing would have been a bad look. Fear of that outcome must have been a major motivator. But it probably wasn't realistic because Harden has so few suitors, and it was definitely a miscalculation if it precluded the Clippers from keeping George instead.
Miles Bridges Re-Ups with the Hornets
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The final judgment on Miles Bridges' three-year, $75 million contract will come after the Charlotte Hornets eventually trade him.
Let's agree as a starting point that this has to be the idea here, right? Why else would a rebuilding team that refreshed everything over the last year—ownership, front office, head coach—want anything to do with a problematic holdover from the previous regime?
If the Hornets can flip Bridges for positive value, this move will end up looking just fine. But if they can't, it'll go down as a pretty substantial misfire.
Bridges was in line for a max extension before his no contest plea to a felony domestic violence charge in 2022 understandably changed his market and resulted in a suspension. It remains to be seen if trade suitors will think his current contract, while significantly cheaper than the one he might have landed two years ago, is still worth onboarding. Bridges' play early next year will obviously figure into that assessment, but the other factors are harder to weigh.
Will the passage of time make memories of his arrest fade? Is his reputation such that many PR-savvy teams won't want him at any price?
Setting those questions aside, it's also worth wondering how the Hornets determined Bridges was worth $25 million per year. At the time of his signing in Charlotte, only the Detroit Pistons and Utah Jazz had the resources to come anywhere close to that number.
It seems like the Hornets won a bidding war that had no other participants. If that's true, it suggests Bridges isn't currently viewed as a $25 million player. Unless that changes, Charlotte will have made a mistake.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
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