Realistic Landing Spots Top NBA Free Agents Should Avoid
NBA free agents have options.
Some are better than others. Those aren't the ones that have our attention.
Instead, we're identifying the realistic landing spots for our top five free agents—ranked on everything from talent and production to potential and ease of fit—they should avoid at all costs. From mismatching timelines to ill-fitting rosters, let's get to where each player should stay away from and why.
5. Danilo Gallinari: Charlotte Hornets
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The Hornets have money to burn and need a power forward boost to their scoring punch. So, you get why they might like Gallo, although given their timeline and his as a 32-year-old, he almost certainly isn't their first choice.
But what about them could possibly interest him? A case of Air Jordans and season tickets to the Panthers?
Charlotte doesn't have the league's worst roster, but it might be the least threatening in terms of star power. Its best player for now is Devonte' Graham, a 6'1" guard with athletic limitations who shot 38.2 percent this season. Its best building block is PJ Washington, another non-elite athlete with a ceiling that tops out at solid starter.
None of the Hornets have a strong gravitational pull on defenders, meaning Gallinari wouldn't have much room to operate. Even his off-ball movements would be closely tracked by the opposition, which might mute the strongest area of his game (41.8 percent on catch-and-shoot threes). Charlotte also can't supply the kind of versatile stoppers who mask Gallo's shortcomings at basketball's less glamorous end of the floor.
Save for a straight money grab, it's almost impossible to envision Gallinari bouncing to Buzz City this offseason.
4. Montrezl Harrell: New York Knicks
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Look, there are worse ways to live than playing your home games at Madison Square Garden and sleeping on bags of money in some posh New York City property every night. The same things that theoretically appeal to every notable free agent about the Knicks could attract Harrell, too.
But if this is a basketball decision, the worst move he could make would be joining the Blue and Orange.
He's a devastatingly explosive pick-and-roll finisher (82nd percentile), and he wouldn't have a dance partner in the Empire State. The Knicks might have been basketball's worst passing team this season (which makes sense when they've been searching for a point guard since Walt Frazier stopped lacing them up). They finished 26th in assists, 30th in secondary assists, 25th in potential assists and 28th in points created by assists.
New York had the second-worst scoring rate for pick-and-roll ball-handlers, managing a meager 0.78 points per possession on the plays they finished. The rollers fared better (87th percentile), though much of that success can simply be traced to Mitchell Robinson (98th percentile), whose lack of range clogs the middle and would shrink Harrell's attack lanes.
Moving to the Knicks would put Harrell in the spotlight, but is his game equipped to handle a featured role? If it's not, his presumably colossal contract and the expectations tied to it would create a feeding frenzy among the New York media, which can be a tad bit harsher than, say, Charlotte's press corps. Even if Harrell had legitimate reasons for his struggles—like the dearth of spacing between him, Robinson and RJ Barrett—he'd be an easy target for critics.
3. Fred VanVleet: Detroit Pistons
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VanVleet has a number of intriguing options in free agency.
He could stay north of the border, start for an Eastern Conference contender and maybe even team with Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2021. VanVleet could book it down to South Beach, keep himself in the conference race and have a shot at running with Giannis in 2021 there, too. VanVleet could try his hand at being Trae Young's running mate in Atlanta or Devin Booker's in Phoenix.
VanVleet could even collect whatever absurd amount the Knicks will pay to try to solve their perpetual point-guard problems. And if Leon Rose can heal what's been ailing the organization, VanVleet could get a legacy boost for being a culture-changer for one of basketball's most storied franchises.
All of those sound tempting for different reasons. Here's an option that doesn't: playing for a Pistons team with a broken present and next-to-nothing stored for the future.
Whatever good vibes come from reuniting with coach Dwane Casey would be immediately washed out with one glance at the roster. VanVleet's top two teammates would be a pair of 30-somethings with terrifying injury histories in Blake Griffin and Derrick Rose. Oh, and those two do their best work with the ball in their hands, so coexisting could be complicated.
Once Griffin and Rose head off into the sunset, VanVleet is left with Luke Kennard (whom the Pistons nearly traded away), Sekou Doumbouya (and his 6.2 player efficiency rating), maybe Christian Wood (an unrestricted free agent with roughly a month's worth of high-level production) and a pair of specialists (defender Bruce Brown and sharpshooter Svi Mykhailiuk). No thank you.
2. Brandon Ingram: Atlanta Hawks
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The very second free agency opens, Ingram should be staring at a full five-year max offer from the Pelicans. If he's not, he should immediately turn his attention to the external max offers surely awaiting him.
It doesn't need to get that far, as New Orleans should've seen enough from the Most Improved Player award winner to put max money on the table.
"From people I speak to, [Ingram] has been viewed as a maximum-level player," Shams Charania reported for The Athletic. "... The Pelicans plan to re-sign Ingram in the summer and have maintained dialogue all season with his agent, Jeff Schwartz."
If Ingram finds himself fielding outside offers for some reason, one is most assuredly coming from the Hawks. They're almost ready to take flight, but Trae Young and Co. need one more difference-maker on the wing. For them, Ingram makes all the sense in the world.
But it's not mutual.
Even after Young's emergence, Atlanta is at least a tier behind New Orleans. The Hawks are still finding themselves and figuring out if John Collins and head coach Lloyd Pierce are long-term keepers. If Collins stays, that would limit Ingram's minutes as a small-ball 4, his primary position this past season. If Collins goes, Ingram would only have Young, a complementary center in Clint Capela and a host of young wings who are learning on the fly.
Moving from New Orleans to Atlanta would be a downgrade almost across the board: worse roster, worse contract, worse culinary scene. Ingram can do better.
1. Anthony Davis: Chicago Bulls
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Free-agency prognosticators may overhype the homecoming narrative—it's a big draw for some and not appealing to others—but Davis is responsible for attaching it to his own situation.
"It's nothing like playing at home," Davis told a group of young basketball players during a November charity event at his alma mater, Perspectives Charter School, per ESPN's Eric Woodyard. "I don't know. ... I mean, I am a free agent next year, but we'll see. It's a possibility."
The Bulls don't have Brow money right now, but if he signaled a willingness to come back to the Windy City, they could surely create the space to make it happen. Thaddeus Young ($13.5 million) and Tomas Satoransky ($10 million) both seem movable at their salaries, and even Otto Porter Jr. ($28.5 million player option) might interest someone who thinks he's fully healthy as a plug-and-play veteran with a massive expiring deal.
So, Davis to Chicago probably can happen, but it shouldn't.
First off, why would he even want a change of scenery when staying put means championship-chasing with LeBron James in Hollywood? Imagine having the King as your costar and deciding you'd rather run with Zach LaVine. Impossible—no matter how much you're craving deep-dish pizza or an Italian beef sandwich.
If Davis did want to leave, why wouldn't he just head to the Heat to team with Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo? Davis could fit right into the salary slot Miami had been saving on the fingers-crossed hope of Giannis Antetokounmpo coming that way next summer. Davis would even get more star power in Atlanta (Trae Young) or Phoenix (Devin Booker) than Chicago can offer.
If Davis wasn't from Chicago, would it even be mentioned as a possible landing spot? Almost certainly not, which says everything you need to know about all the ways this wouldn't make sense.
All stats courtesy of NBA.com and Basketball Reference unless otherwise noted. Salary information via Basketball Insiders.
Zach Buckley covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @ZachBuckleyNBA.
