2013 NBA Free Agents Who Will Turn Title Pretenders into Contenders

Free agency is one of the ways teams can turn their fates around. It’s how the reigning champion Miami Heat were built—by signing two superstars.

It’s also how teams can sometimes add a needed piece or two, even if they aren’t a superstar.

In some cases, it’s just having the right role player or contributor that can make a massive difference between being a contender and being a pretender.

Of course, having that All-Star is usually what puts the team over the top.

Here are some available free agents who can make a difference either as superstars or role players with the right team. They are ranked according to how great their impact would be.

9. O.J. Mayo

O.J. Mayo has a player option on his contract that he isn’t likely to exercise, considering he’s just due $4.2 million and he can get a bigger check than that by hitting free agency.

There are rumors that the Utah Jazz are interested, as are the Minnesota Timberwolves.

He isn’t going to be the primary scorer or the superstar on a championship team, but he certainly has the ability to be a major contributor, particularly on a team that already has a lot of talent and are just looking for a guard to stretch the floor.

Last season with the Dallas Mavericks, particularly over the first half of the season, he showed that he has more potential than he displayed with the Grizzlies.

Over the second half of the season, he gave teams pause as to whether or not he can be relied upon down the stretch.

Through the first 41 games, he scored 18.2 points per game and averaged 4.1 assists and 3.8 rebounds per game. Over the next 41 games, he averaged 12.4 points, 4.7 assists and 3.3 rebounds. His shooting fell from .457 to .440.

If he can be the first-half Mayo for an entire season and end up on the right team, such as the Los Angeles Clippers or another in need of a good scoring guard, he could be enough to push them over the top. 

8. Tyreke Evans

Tyreke Evans is the only restricted free agent I have on. Restricted free agents typically get their contract offers matched, particularly when they are former Rookie of the Year winners.

However, since his fantastic rookie season, Evans has consistently declined and has fallen out of favor in Sacramento. That—coupled with the Kings' inability to figure out which position he should be playing—has left him as the most-notable rookie with an expiring contract to not be extended.

The Kings not locking him up early is a strong indication that they aren’t ready to pay full price for him, and it’s likely that someone else will be willing to give him what he wants. Ergo, he probably won’t be with the Kings next year.

Evans is a flat-out terrific finisher and a flat-out horrible jump shooter. Actually, horrible might give him too much credit. Over the course of his career, his field-percentage outside of the restricted area is .305 (based on calculating this data from basketball-reference), and from deep he’s a paltry .276.

Depending on where he goes, he could make a difference. For example, it’s been talked about that the Pacers might be looking to trade Danny Granger, as Paul George has emerged as an All-Star and is actually better than Granger at this point. They could use a penetrating point guard who can drive to the rim, as they already have a guard who can shoot in George Hill.

Evans would make a nice addition to the Pacers, who would have plenty of money to both keep David West and give Evans all the money he wanted if they were to make such a deal. 

7. J.J. Hickson

J.J. Hickson finally started to realize some of his potential last season as he averaged a double-double with 12.7 points and a career-high 10.4 rebounds per contest. He played center with the Portland Trail Blazers, but he wants to play where he can fill his natural position of power forward.

There are certainly a few teams who could use the services of a strong big man like Hickson. If there was a way for the New Jersey Nets to obtain him, he would be a perfect fit. Reportedly, the Nets were interested in him before the trade deadline. And it was also reported the interest was mutual.

Hickson’s problem is finding a team looking fill the right needs. Most teams now have come to look for defense and rebounding from their centers, and then look to their power forwards for the scoring. Think Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah for the Chicago Bulls, David West and Roy Hibbert for the Indiana Pacers or Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol for the Memphis Grizzlies.

(That’s not to say that Noah, Hibbert or Gasol can’t score, but that schematically, the power forwards are the first inside option).

Part of the reason for that is that there just aren’t many centers who can score, and you need a big who can score inside in order to win. Hickson is not a good enough scorer to power an interior, but he’s a capable defender and terrific rebounder.

What the Nets have in Brook Lopez is a marginal defender, awful rebounder and a great scorer. The Nets have been trying various pieces to compliment him, but Hickson would be the best fit.

The snag is that starting this summer, tax-paying teams aren’t allowed to work sign-and-trade deals, so they’d have to convince him to take the mid-level exception, which is a possibility. 

6. J.R. Smith

The good news for the New York Knicks is that J.R. Smith validated their trust in him and had an absolute monster of a season. Per basketball-reference, Smith racked up the fourth-most points off the bench since 1985-86.

Needless to say, that was enough to win him the Sixth Man of the Year Award.

The bad news for the New York Knicks is that Smith validated their trust in him and had an absolute monster of a season.

The Knicks own his early Bird rights and are expected to offer him a four-year deal starting at $5 million, which is more than anyone over the cap could pay him. However, any team under the cap could bid higher for him.

Smith might have played himself out of what the Knicks can really afford to pay him. 

If he struggled in the playoffs because of fluid in his knee or because of a hangover is in question, and the answer to that question might determine how much he is worth and/or offered on the open market. You figure that someone must think he’s worth more than $5 million if a player like DeMar DeRozan is getting paid twice that. 

5. Paul Millsap

Either Paul Millsap or Al Jefferson—but not both—are going to come back to Utah next year.

Millsap has had an interesting ride on the “rating roller coaster.”

First, he was vastly underrated, then he became so well known as being underrated that he actually became overrated, but when he did, everyone stopped talking about him to the point that he’s probably underrated again. Got that?

He's one of 10 players who have averaged 16 points on at least .500 shooting and pulled down seven boards over the last three seasons. Eight of the other nine have been to the All-Star game. The only one who hasn't, ironically, is the man who he replaced in the staring lineup in Utah: Carlos Boozer. 

A really interesting place for Millsap to land would be San Antonio, who will have a lot of cap space this summer. The Spurs only have $41 million on the books, which is utterly crazy considering they are in the Finals.

Adding Millsap, who has a nice history of doing whatever he’s been asked—which seems to be the primary prerequisite to being a Spur—would give San Antonio a pretty lethal pair of bigs. Tim Duncan and Millsap together would make for an intimidating force.

We are talking about a team currently in the NBA Finals that will essentially be staying the same. Adding a player of Millsap’s stature would just be surreal. 

4. Josh Smith

Josh Smith is an enigma. He’s not quite a power forward and he’s not quite a small forward. He’s not really a combo forward or a tweener forward, either. He’s just a Josh Smith.

He’s not big enough to do the things you want to really see from a power forward, and he’s not a good enough shooter (although you can never convince him of that) to do the things that you want from a small forward. 

But as a small forward he does things that no other 3's can do, and as a power froward he's so much quicker than other 4's. 

He does so many things extremely well. He rebounds, scores in the post, blocks shots, gets steals, passes. He’s too good to not want on your team and too ill-fitting to want on your team.

His problem playing with the Altanta Hawks is that he’s always been playing with a “center” who is also undersized in Al Horford.

The key will be whether he can go to a team where his versatility can be maximized, but where his weaknesses can be hidden.

Such a team does exist in the Houston Rockets.

In James Harden, Jeremy Lin and Chandler Parsons, the Rockets have plenty of perimeter shooting, so Smith wouldn't have to worry about that.

Harden is also terrific at driving the lane. The only thing they need is a man they can feed the ball in the middle and watch him go to work, and Smith could be that man.

Nothing tells the tale of Josh Smith as well as these two stats.

According to basketball-reference, of all the players who missed at least 400 jumpers from outside the restricted area, only Andre Iguodala had a lower field-goal percentage than Smith’s .312.

On the other hand, only two players with at least 200 field goals made had a higher field-goal percentage inside the restricted area than Smith’s .764: LeBron James and Blake Griffin, a couple of players that, you may have heard, are pretty good at the rim.

Pairing Smith with Omer Asik defensively would be a nightmare for teams, with Smith being able to guard the area in the  paint, but away from the rim, and Asik being able to dominate by doing what he does best, which is secure the rim.

Smith and the Rockets would be perfect complements. He brings everything they need, and where he’s weak, they don’t have any needs.

It might even be the case that Smith is a better fit for Houston than even Dwight Howard. 

3. Al Jefferson

Why can’t Al Jefferson get any love? Want to know the most shocking stat of Jefferson’s career?

His career All-Star Game scoring average is 0.0 points and 0.0 rebounds per game. Know why?

Because he’s never been to one! (I’m trying to be professional here, which is the only reason that’s not in all caps.)

He has career averages of 16.4 points and 9.0 rebounds per game. Even in 2009, while with the Timberwolves and averaging 23.1 points and 11.0 boards per game, he didn’t get any All-Star love.

There are 42 players in NBA history who averaged at least 16 points and nine boards for their careers (500 game minimum). The only one who has never been to an All-Star game is Jefferson. So, the next time you think about underrated, think about that. Jefferson is in competition with Andre Miller to be the most underrated player in history.

Part of the reason is that he’s always played with marginal to less-than-marginal teams, through no fault of his own. He can change that this year as an unrestricted free agent, and he may very well be just as worried about going where he can win as a pay day.

An intriguing landing spot for Jefferson would be the Dallas Mavericks. If they strike out again with the Dwight Howard sweepstakes, they will probably go after another big-name center, and the next best center available is Al Jefferson.

And really, if the idea of a re-motivated Dirk Nowitzki alongside Al Jefferson doesn’t intimidate you, you’re probably a Dallas fan who is rubbing your hands like Mr. Smithers in front of a pile of money. Mark Cuban has seemingly been in search of a true center his entire adult life, and Jefferson would be far and away the best center in the Cuban/Nowitzki era.

A frontcourt like that would be enough to vault Dallas back to contender status. 

2. Dwight Howard

It’s become popular lately to knock Dwight Howard. So let’s take a reality check here, shall we? This year Dwight Howard was the only player in the NBA to average 17 points and 12 rebounds per game. Last year, only he and Kevin Love accomplished that.

In the three-point era, he’s the only player to do it seven straight seasons. In fact, he’s the only player in the three-point era to do it seven times, period.

So while people want to entertain the debate that Roy Hibbert, who averaged 11.9 points and 8.3 rebounds per game this year, has surpassed Howard, let’s step away from the Kool-Aid and think with our brain for a second.

Howard is still, hands down, the best center in basketball. It’s surreal that there’s even a question about it. So, yes, he makes any team a contender, unless that happens to be a team that was as horribly run as the Los Angeles Lakers were this year.

You don’t get two square pegs (Howard and Steve Nash), match them with a triangle peg (Kobe Bryant), then get a coach (Mike D’Antoni) that tries to squeeze them all into round holes, all while ignoring the other rectangular peg (Pau Gasol) and then blame it on the pegs!

If Howard goes where the basketball IQ of the organization (Jim Buss) is greater than that of an actual basketball, then he will make them a contender. 

1. Chris Paul

Ah! The Los Angeles Clippers! Just when things looked like they were about to go right, they zigged instead of zagging and now their hopes of keeping Chris Paul might be sagging.

According to Chris Broussard of ESPN, it seems Chris Paul is perturbed that the Clippers let it be floated that he was the reason Vinny Del Negro was fired. To be fair, Donald Sterling didn’t exactly say anything to lead us to believe otherwise.

As noted in this article by Los Angeles Times writer T.J. Simers, Sterling pretty much said as much without exactly saying it. Here’s the whole exchange:

"

"The coach is a wonderful man, and I'm sad about the whole thing," Sterling said.

"Was this done," I asked, "just to hang on to Chris Paul?"

"I always want to be honest and not say anything that is not true," Sterling said. "So I'd rather not say anything.

"But you know, the coach did a really good job. I think he did. And I liked working with him. There are just factors that make life very complicated and very challenging."

"

So the Clippers are trying to hang on to Paul.

There’s something I like to call “Clippers Law” which stipulates that given enough time, the Clippers will muck things up, and it’s looking like they’ve done so.

The only “excuse” you needed to fire Del Negro is Del Negro. The man can’t coach. That’s it. That’s the only reason you need. It's apparent when the Clippers get to the postseason and his "Just throw out Chris Paula and Blake Grifin" strategy only gets them so far. Ultimately, to get somewhere, you need to make adjustments, and Del Negro doesn't do that because he doesn't even have enough of a system to adjust. 

Why go around hemming and hawing about Chris Paul? If you want to keep him, doesn’t it dawn on anyone that throwing him to the wolves might not be a good idea?

Even if Chris Paul came to you and said, “Fire him or I’m gone,” and you capitulated, you don’t have to tell the world that’s what happened. Even if that’s what happened, you shot yourself in both feet because a) you caved and b) you then sabotaged the very reason you caved!

There must be stupid in the water fountains at the Staples Center because the amount of stupid coming out of those two franchises is paradoxically hard to comprehend.

So, that’s enough of my diatribe. Chris Paul is the best point guard in the league, and wherever he goes the team will be a contender—just so long as Del Negro isn’t coaching there.