Why Free Agency Is Such a Dangerous Way to Rebuild in the NBA

To some, watching the Miami Heat oust the Oklahoma City Thunder from the NBA Finals in five games was a nauseating experience, and not necessarily out of some misguided indignation toward LeBron James.

Rather, for the Chicken Littles and Mayan calendar followers who double as basketball fans by night, the fact that the Heat won a title with a team thrown together via free agency is a slap in the face to the purity of building a championship the old-fashioned way (i.e. with draft picks and trades, with the occasional free-agent addition). It signaled the emergence of a new world order in The Association, wherein patience and planning is defenestrated in favor of "microwave" contenders and instant gratification.

But that's not the case at all...and I may or may not have overstated the prevalence of Heat haters who aren't primarily anti-LeBron, if only for rhetorical purposes.

If anything, the Heat are the exception that proves the rule regarding rebuilding on the fly through the open market. After all, it's not every summer that so many perennial All-Stars hit free agency, and rarer still is the occasion that a single organization has both the cap space and the persuasive wherewithal to sign the best three available.

Far more common are the cautionary tales, particularly those of teams that saw their cap space consumed by high-priced free agents gone bust. Just ask the New Orleans Hornets, whose ability to construct a contender around Chris Paul was crippled by Peja Stojakovic's five-year, $64.5 million deal in 2006. Or the Cleveland Cavaliers, who subjected themselves to a similar folly a year earlier when they spent $70 million (over five years) to convince Larry Hughes to be LeBron's sidekick. Or the Washington Wizards, who spent a combined $161 million in 2008 to keep Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison in DC, only to see Agent Zero's proclivity for concealed armament blow up in their collective face. Or the New York Knicks, who set the standard for free agent failure when they handed Allan Houston a six-year, $100 million contract in 2001 and compounded their problems by splashing cash at Stephon Marbury, Jerome James and Eddy Curry.

The list goes on and on, and (surprise, surprise) is comprised almost entirely of teams that aren't even within bullhorn-shouting distance of the title-contending conversation.

Almost as bad are the situations of those whose best-laid plans have gone belly-up when they were bypassed by potential employees of some repute. The Brooklyn Nets put all their eggs in the free-agent basket of 2010, came up empty (i.e. with Anthony Morrow, Travis Outlaw, Jordan Farmar and Johan Petro), traded for Deron Williams in 2011 and could wind up with nothing but a terrible roster to show for their efforts if D-Will darts for Dallas.

And if the Nets are successful in their courtship, then it'll be the Mavericks who are left to look like fools for banking on free agency. They essentially decided to pass on defending their 2011 title when they let Tyson Chandler, JJ Barea and DeShawn Stevenson walk last summer, presumably to save room for D-Will, a Dallas native, on their roster. The Mavs might still be able to contend without Williams if they can convince Steve Nash to get the band back together with Dirk Nowitzki, but will still be without a star in his prime to carry the franchise forward.

Which, at some point down the line, could land the Mavs in a dubious position near the top of the draft for all the wrong reasons.

Meanwhile, the team that lost in the 2012 Finals to the result of the greatest free-agent frenzy in NBA history—the Thunder—appears poised to contend for titles in the years to come. OKC's blueprint? The same one that GMs have typically stuck to for decades.

That is, with draft picks and trades. Thunder GM Sam Presti struck gold with Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Serge Ibaka in the draft and brought Kendrick Perkins and Thabo Sefolosha to the Sooner State by way of the trade market. The Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers and Philadelphia 76ers may well make a similar leap in the near future after exercising similar patience and prescience over the long haul.

And, for the last 15 years, the San Antonio Spurs have won game after game after game by building around Tim Duncan and coming up roses in the draft, with late picks turned stars like Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, along with the occasional fringe free-agent pickup. 

Of course, none of this is to say that signing pricey free agents is always the wrong way to go, or that the draft-and-trade strategy always yields positive results or even that the two approaches are mutually exclusive. The Los Angeles Lakers erected one dynasty with a remarkable draft-day trade (for Kobe Bryant) and the biggest free-agent signing in NBA history (Shaquille O'Neal) and propped up a second by re-signing Kobe, drafting Andrew Bynum and trading for Pau Gasol.

Nor is there any suggestion that what the Heat did was "wrong" on some other level. Pat Riley's coup is of the sort that comes around once in a generation, if not less frequently than that.

Frankly, any organization that hopes to win titles at any point needs a massive dose of luck, regardless of how the front office goes about acquiring its players.

The key, though, is whether to put faith in young players and prospects, who may need time to mature on their own and develop together but are less expensive overall, or to throw huge sums of money after older, more established stars who may not be long for the top of the basketball pyramid.

The Heat opted almost exclusively for the latter, which has worked tremendously, but may soon yield a collective flame-out as D-Wade's knee grows balkier and the league's salary cap constraints grow ever more troublesome. The young Thunder, on the other hand, are just scratching the surface of greatness and, if they play their cards right with Harden and Ibaka, could dominate the NBA for the foreseeable future.

Just as so many of the greatest and longest-standing championship squads before them have.

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