1 Realistic Free Agent Every NBA Contender Should Chase This Offseason
Not even the NBA's best title contenders are finished products.
OK, fine, maybe a certain juggernaut in Silicon Valley is beyond completion. But the rest of the Association's championship hopefuls will be looking to improve during free agency. And even the basketball version of the Death Star will try to beef up its roster.
Adding to these teams is difficult. Barley any of them have cap space. The ones that do usually don't have much.
Significant acquisitions, in most cases, rest on veterans taking pay cuts or a squad's ability and willingness to create ample spending power. Potential targets will be provided with this in mind. Teams will not be linked to free agents who are outside their realm of possibility. We're on the prowl for gettable names who can noticeably elevate these roundball powers.
And since the NBA's contender circle is shrinking in the face of a predictable competitive landscape, we won't mince selections. Only the seven most qualified contenders are under the microscope—their inclusion determined by where each would stand entering next season if this year's roster remains totally intact.
Honorable Mentions
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Los Angeles Clippers
There's too much uncertainty hitched to the Los Angeles Clippers offseason for them to rate as one of the top-seven contenders.
Other teams like the Toronto Raptors and Utah Jazz have numerous key pieces entering free agency. But they're more worried about affording everyone's returns. The Clippers must be concerned about everyone leaving because, well, they don't want to come back.
Chris Paul already has eyes for the San Antonio Spurs, according to ESPN.com's Marc Stein. Blake Griffin is considered a bigger flight risk than him, per ESPN.com's Kevin Arnovitz. J.J. Redick is a prime candidate to leave for an annually salary the Clippers cannot reasonably match, as league officials told the Los Angeles Times' Broderick Turner. And Luc Mbah a Moute is an Early Bird free agent; there's only so much Los Angeles can offer him before dipping into cap space it won't have.
The outlook wouldn't be so bad if the Clippers had the means to make up for these exits. They don't. They won't have consequential cap space unless Griffin and Paul leave, in which case they would be screwed.
In the absolute best, patently unfathomable scenario, the Clippers re-sign everyone and convince a three-and-D wing to join their cause at a discount. And let's face it: They have a better chance of trading for Carmelo Anthony without forfeiting a member of their Core Four than they do of tapping into the generosity of potential ring-chasers who can shimmy into match better situations.
Washington Wizards
"We need to help our bench," John Wall told CSN's Chris Miller (via CSN Mid-Atlantic's Chase Hughes). "Just to be honest, that was our downfall in each series that we had in the [Eastern Conference] semifinals; our bench got outplayed."
Paging P.J. Tucker.
Adding a gritty wing defender goes a long way toward solidifying the Wizards' chances of making the Eastern Conference Finals. But rolling with them must come at the expense of the Boston Celtics or Toronto Raptors—neither of whom is poised to drop behind the Wizards without a mass exodus of depth.
Boston Celtics: Gordon Hayward (Player Option)
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Gordon Hayward was almost ineligible to be the Boston Celtics' finishing touch.
Robyn Hayward, the All-Star forward's wife, posted a since-deleted picture on Instagram of the couple's daughter wearing a "Go Green" shirt replete with a shamrock. She later clarified that it was a St. Patrick's Day-themed clearance item purchased out of convenience. But we know better. Al Horford announced his arrival in Boston with a shamrock-stuffed tweet. The Haywards are now clearly doing the same.
On the off chance they're not (because they aren't), the rumors won't go away. The Celtics are "really focused on" signing Hayward, according to The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski. And that should scare the heck out of Utah.
Although Stein heard whispers that the Miami Heat are in play as well, the Celtics loom as the more stressful threat. Hayward played for head coach Brad Stevens while at Butler, and Boston can carve out max space without cutting ties with Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder, Al Horford or Isaiah Thomas.
That last part is a biggie. Hayward isn't leaving a 51-win Jazz team for a lateral situation, let alone inferior digs. Joining Bradley, Crowder, Horford and Thomas makes for one of the NBA's most feared starting fives, and Boston, in the right scenario, can still have Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart and this year's No. 1 pick coming off the bench.
In essence, the Celtics would be subbing out Amir Johnson for Hayward. There's no way the resulting product doesn't become worlds better, even if it costs Jonas Jerebko and Kelly Olynyk.
Remember, the Golden State Warriors are the benchmark for all contenders. Attempts to recreate their model, piece for piece, are foolish, but the most serious title hopefuls need a collection of multifaceted wings to combat their gauntlet of versatility.
Hayward puts the Celtics on that level. He holds up against against 3s and 4s, along with some 2s, and he's the rare star who doesn't need a crash course in how to play off others. More than half of his made shots came off assists in 2016-17, the best year of his career, and he put down an instantly translatable 38.7 percent of his spot-up three-pointers.
Learning curves are part and parcel of every major free-agent addition, but the Hayward-to-Boston scenario gives the Cleveland Cavaliers something to worry about before the NBA Finals—particularly if the Celtics use their remaining assets to target Jimmy Butler.
Cleveland Cavaliers: Thabo Sefolosha
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Free agency alone will not help the Cavaliers cover the solar system separating them from the Warriors. They don't have the money. They'll begin the summer noticeably past the $121 million luxury-tax threshold, and that's before factoring in a new deal for Kyle Korver.
Brokering trades is their best shot at meaningful change—which is saying something, because they aren't blessed with that many expendable assets. Paul George-for-Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving-for-Jimmy Butler proposals are the most appealing hypotheticals, and assuming they're realistic, the Cavaliers have to weight how much better they'll be swapping out one star for another.
Luckily for them, they have LeBron James. He speaks to free agents in a way cap space doesn't. With him as the chief recruiter, the Cavaliers aren't just in play for ring-chasers; they're in a position to convert free agents into championship-chasers.
This year's taxpayer's mid-level exception is projected to hit $5.2 million. That's not enough to enter the fold for Joe Ingles, Luc Mbah a Moute or C.J. Miles, but it should open the door for a meeting with Thabo Sefolosha. And he's exactly the kind of player Cleveland needs—the wing to tackle defensive assignments Kyle Korver and J.R. Smith can't while also burying the three-point looks Iman Shumpert won't.
Sefolosha hasn't cleared 35 percent shooting from deep since 2012-13, as a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder. But his 34.2 percent knockdown rate from 2016-17 will explode on a Cavaliers team that placed third in wide-open threes generated per game.
Some defensive slippage is inevitable. Sefolosha is 33, dealt with groin injuries for much of this year and failed to crack the Atlanta Hawks' playoff rotation—despite being healthy. But his absence seemed to be more about head coach Mike Budenholzer's response to a personnel crunch than anything else.
A source intimated to NBA.com's David Aldridge those around the Hawks weren't thrilled with Budenholzer's approach. And who could blame them? Kevin Durant, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Andre Roberson were the only wings to save more points than Sefolosha on defense, according to NBA Math.
Imagine what the Cavaliers can do with that type of perimeter pest. Sefolosha might get bigger offers, but his age and topsy-turvy role in Atlanta work against him—potentially to Cleveland's gain.
Golden State Warriors: Zach Randolph
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The Warriors almost had to worry about striking gold in free agency this summer. Almost.
Re-signing Kevin Durant (player option) to a full-on max would force them to renounce the rights to Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston, their two most important reserves. That's no longer an issue. Durant will take a non-Bird max, which allows them to pay whatever it costs to retain Iguodala and Livingston, according to ESPN.com's Ramona Shelburne and Chris Haynes.
Above-market overtures for either could force the Warriors to flinch at their prospective tax bill. But Durant wouldn't be open to accepting a $4 million discount if they weren't prepared to stomach the cost of keeping this exact core intact.
In lieu of having to plug important holes, Golden State's only concern is maintenance—minor touch-ups that provide some end-of-bench polish to a rotation that doesn't really need it.
And yet, general manager Bob Myers might stumble into something more. The built-in appeal of super-duper teams calls to quality veterans on the back end of their prime who have yet to win a ring. LeBron James' teams have assembled entire bench rotations borne from that allure, and the Warriors employ Zaza Pachulia and David West because of it.
"Think other vets won’t follow suit?" The Vertical's Chris Mannix wrote. "The Warriors are the closest thing to an automatic championship ring. Take Zach Randolph. He’s 35. He’s played 16 seasons. He’s made $174 million doing it. Might Randolph, reinvented as a sixth man in Memphis, be interested in taking a pay cut to come off Golden State’s bench?"
Randolph is, indeed, the perfect ring-chasing candidate. And the Golden State might need him. Pachulia, West and JaVale McGee are all free agents. All of them should have the opportunity to earn more than the Warriors can offer.
If any one of them leaves, Randolph can slide in as the starting or backup 5. He won't supplant lost rim protection, but his passing, rebounding and general toughness are all things the Warriors have shown to value in their bit-role bigs. That he more regularly launched threes this past year, albeit inefficiently, only makes this a more enticing fit.
Houston Rockets: Luc Mbah a Moute (Player Option)
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Most teams in the Houston Rockets' position would enter the summer grappling with luxury-tax problems. They employ a host of impact players, and squads that finish with the league's third-best regular-season record aren't synonymous with flexibility.
Houston timed everything just right, though. James Harden is the only max player on the books; the Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon deals aren't backbreaking this side of the salary-cap eruption; Trevor Ariza, Patrick Beverley and Lou Williams are at the tail end of below-market contracts; and Clint Capela's rookie-scale pact won't spike until 2017-18.
Parse through the books with a fine-tooth comb, and general manager Daryl Morey can eke out more than $10 million in cap space. Offload any of the team's digestible contracts, and he'll have the green to orchestrate sit-downs with stars.
But the Rockets don't need to make a gigantic splash. They have a title contender in place. They're better off building on top of the unfairly stacked offensive armory with another feisty perimeter defender—someone who can lend a hand against the All-NBA scorers without torpedoing their ability to knock down three-pointers.
Mbah a Moute emerged as that guy for the Clippers this past season. He splashed in a career-best 39.1 percent of his threes and will get better looks with the Rockets. They not only fire off more deepies, but no team in the NBA manufactured more wide-open triples. They won't be worried about his postseason malaise leaking into the regular season.
And if it does, the Rockets still won't sweat. Mbah a Moute's defense is worth the trade off. He'll defend 2s and 3s without issue, survive against rangy 4s and switch onto the occasional point guard. Opponents averaged 0.61 points per isolation possession when being defended by him—the fourth-best mark among 113 players to guard more than 60 of these sets.
Best of all, it may not take more than the mid-level exception ($8.4 million) to poach Mbah a Moute. As an Early Bird free agent, he can't get more than 104.5 percent of the NBA's average salary from the Clippers, otherwise they'll need to use cap space. Even if the Rockets actually have to tinker with the books to create wiggle room, they can rather easily outbid them.
San Antonio Spurs: Chris Paul
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Yes, Chris Paul is a plausible target for the Spurs. Why else would the Clippers, per Stein, feel threatened by this very idea?
Getting Paul will prove complicated, most likely costing the Spurs two of LaMarcus Aldridge, Danny Green, Pau Gasol (player option) and Tony Parker. They don't typically clear the decks for one player, and the salary-cap gymnastics are exacerbated by their loyalty to Tony Parker, along with the egregiousness of dealing valuable players such as Aldridge and Green for cap space.
Still, Paul is "intrigued" by the opportunity to play under head coach Gregg Popovich and beside Kawhi Leonard, according to Stein. The Clippers' fear of losing him to the NBA's billboard for consistent dominance is valid. They won't stand up to the Warriors even if they re-sign all their own free agents. If anything, should Hayward return to Utah, the Clippers stand to fall further down the Western Conference's pecking order.
Sync up with Leonard, and it almost doesn't matter who else is around Paul. He'll have at least one of Aldridge and Green, and the Spurs are experts at unearthing unknown and underpriced gems. They'll also be in line to carve out more cap space in 2018, at which time they can flesh out the roster even further.
Next summer, in fact, is what legitimizes this scenario. Aldridge (player option), Gasol, Green and Parker are free agents after 2017-18. San Antonio shouldn't blush at parting ways with incumbents—namely Aldridge and Gasol—it'll probably move on from in one year's time anyway.
Left alone, the Spurs are the Western Conference's foremost threat to the Warriors. Add Paul to the equation, and their threat level gets real. They'll need to lean more on their youngsters and join the hunt for clearance-rack ring-chasers, but the two-way upgrade they'll get transitioning from Parker and Patty Mills to Paul is worth the gamble.
Toronto Raptors: Vince Carter
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Prioritizing a 40-year-old free agent doesn't say much about the Raptors' cap sheet, but this isn't just about the price. Nor is it about the feelz incited by bringing him back to Toronto.
Vince Carter can help this team.
As Bleacher Report's Adam Fromal wrote:
"According to NBA Math's total points added (TPA), only 39 players provided positive value on both ends of the floor while logging at least 1,500 minutes during the 2016-17 campaign. They range from Russell Westbrook's record-setting season to Kelly Olynyk's barely positive contributions on both offense and defense.
Vince Carter stands out for a different reason. Of those 39, only 11 were in their 30s. Just Dwyane Wade (age-35 season) and Pau Gasol (36) were on the wrong side of 35. Carter, however, was 40 and will celebrate his 41st birthday in January, proving he can still—if he decides to keep plying his trade—contribute while well outside his athletic prime."
The word you're looking for is "Whuh-oh."
Toronto needs a 37.8 percent three-point shooter who can still stick with some wings on defense. DeMarre Carroll isn't that player anymore. Tucker fits the bill, but he's due for a significant raise from the $5.3 million he earned last season. There's a good chance the Raptors will have to replace one of them on a beggar's dime.
Even if they bite the bullet, re-sign Tucker and retain Carroll, they need another wing to unlock some of their better small-ball combinations. Carter lets Tucker slide up a position and is a defensive upgrade over anything DeMar DeRozan provides at the 2 or 3. Opponents barely shot 30 percent against him in isolation during the regular season.
For what the Raptors can offer (a low-level exception at most), it doesn't get any better than Carter.
Utah Jazz: Milos Teodosic
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Utah is expected to be among Milos Teodosic's offseason suitors, per Eurobasket's David Pick. And while most will peg him as a capable George Hill replacement, there exists a scarier possibility.
The Jazz could sign both of them.
Teodosic, according to Pick, is looking for a three-year deal worth between $25 and $30 million. Offering the full mid-level exception puts the Jazz in that territory.
Granted, they must commit to having a year-end payroll under $125 million to burn through the entire mid-level. That becomes difficult after maxing out Hayward and re-signing both Hill and Ingles. But they can get there by cutting bait with two of Alec Burks, Boris Diaw (non-guaranteed) and Derrick Favors—players who they may look to move on from no matter what.
Inserting Teodosic into a rotation that still includes Hill would be a coup. He is a lethal shooter and dead-eye passer—seriously, watch the tape. He's not athletic enough to leave a dent on defense, but at 6'5", with a smooth catch-and-shoot stroke, he can spend time on the court next to Hill. Plus, with Ingles back and Rudy Gobert patrolling the paint, the Jazz wouldn't need him to be a defensive ace.
It's not clear if Teodosic is open to coming off the bench, but the guess is that won't be an issue. In a March blog for Eurohoops.net, he cited finances and "competitive ambitions" as his chief concerns. If the Jazz can make the money work, he'll latch onto a dark-horse contender that, when healthy, projects to battle for a top-three playoff seed.
Not to be lost in all this: Signing Teodosic wouldn't portend anything good for Dante Exum's future in Utah. But that'll remain true if Hill sticks around. Getting Teodosic lands the Jazz a glitzier offensive player who will end up being cheaper than Exum before long.
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. Team salary information via Basketball Insiders.
