Surveying the Landscape

by Austin Peters

Since the new CBA has been implemented in 2011, there have been two things that teams have coveted.  I wrote a while ago about how teams covet first round picks more today and how hard it is to get first round picks because of the fact that teams value them highly. The draft is by far the cheapest way to build a team because rookie scale contracts are the cheapest in the NBA aside from veteran minimum contracts. Would you rather overpay Jodie Meeks this offseason at $6+ a year or pay Gary Harris around $1.5 this year to do essentially the same thing? This is a big reason why you don't see teams trading first round picks willy nilly anymore like they used to.

The other coveted thing is cap space. With harsher luxury tax penalties and increasingly difficult ways to build a roster while going over the cap (just ask Pat Riley about it), cap space has been the other premium along with first round picks. Think about how many deals were made these last couple offseasons to create cap space... The Rockets attached a first round pick just to get rid of Jeremy Lin. They also traded Omer Asik for an insanely protected pick. The Nets and Cavaliers both gave up assets to the Celtics (including a first round pick) so they could get rid of contracts and create some financial flexibility.  Teams are always chasing after that star to put them into contention and the best way to do that is by creating cap space and believing that you have a chance to sign them.

Let's back track for a moment.... There were approximately 9 teams that were clearing cap space and trying to make this the offseason where they sign a big name free agent: the Rockets, Mavericks, Lakers, Suns, Bulls, Cavaliers, Heat, Hornets (still weird to say), and Hawks. The Rockets spent the last two summers making countless moves to try and bring in superstar free agents; they brought Dwight Howard in last summer and were darn near close to creating another super team until Chris Bosh decided to play them and stay in Miami. This also effectively pushed Chandler Parsons to Dallas while the Rockets had to settle for Trevor Ariza as a consolation prize. The Mavericks, Lakers, and Bulls, along with the Rockets, were trying to use their cap space to lure Carmelo Anthony. After Melo decided that he had 124 million reasons to stay in New York, they had to pursue other free agents a tier below them. The Mavericks gave Parsons that lucrative offer sheet to try and get Houston not to match (it worked), the Bulls focused on Pau Gasol, and the Lakers struck out on everybody (more on them later). The Cavaliers hit the home run of free agency when LeBron decided to return home. He didn't necessarily leave the Heat in shambles, however, because they were able to use the cap space to bring back Bosh, Wade, and sign Luol Deng. The Hornets went after guys like Deng and Ariza but ended up getting a guy with potentially more upside than all of them in Lance Stephenson (THE 8TH GRADER!!!!). 

Ultimately, the Suns, Lakers, and Hawks were the only teams walking away from this summer with nothing to show for it, forcing them to give bloated contracts to guys like PJ Tucker, Jordan Hill, and Nick Young (SWAGGY P!!!) to fill the cap space.  The reason we saw guys like Meeks, Tucker, Hill, Chris Kaman, and Ben Gordon get such egregiously high contracts is because of the amount of cap space and money floating around on the market. Teams feel they have to overpay guys if they want to get them because a lot of other teams could just as easily offer that player a similar deal.  Factor in the rule that players can't sign contracts for more than four years under the new CBA, and there really isn't any bad contracts anymore. This offseason especially showed that if you attach another asset, any contract is movable.

The teams that missed out on the higher quality players in this free agency will be set back another year but will be perfectly content with rolling that cap space over into next summer. The Lakers essentially repeated what they did last summer by signing guys to one or two year deals so that they will have financial flexibility next summer and the summer after that. Same goes for the Suns and Hawks who both pursued Luol Deng really hard before coming up short.

In the case of the Suns, they were really hoping to get another high caliber player to go along with their dynamic point guard duo of Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe. Bledsoe is a restricted free agent and up until now, the Suns had made it clear they were going to match anything for Bledsoe. With the market dying down and hardly any teams left to offer Bledsoe a max, the Suns low balled him with an offer he didn't like and so now they are playing a game of who blinks first. Phoenix also went out and signed Isaiah Thomas at a cheap price, one of the few value contracts of this free agency.  They've made it clear with the Thomas signing and letting Channing Frye walk, they won't fall into the trap of overpaying role players that eat into their cap space. If they feel that the max is too much for Eric Bledsoe, they will probably let him sign with someone else and try and get assets out of some sort of sign and trade. There aren't too many teams that could create the requisite max cap space it would take to sign Bledsoe, so that's what is making it hard for Eric and his agent Rich Paul to have leverage for that max offer. He is worth every penny of a max; he is a great two way player in a league that doesn't have many two way players to begin with. How many guys become free agents that young who can't just run your team but are also ball hawks on the defensive end? Bledsoe is miles ahead of Steph Curry, Damian Lillard, John Wall, and Kyrie Irving defensively and you wouldn't think twice about giving any of those guys max contracts (Kyrie and Wall just got their max extensions this summer).

2015
Back to the Lakers... Last summer they signed a bunch of guys to one year minimum contracts and ended up tanking their season. After missing out on Melo and others, they did essentially a combination of what they did last summer and what Dallas did last summer; they signed guys to one year contracts but also signed guys to two year contracts so that they won't just have a completely barren roster again next summer. The Mavericks did that last summer and were able to have cap space to sign Parsons this summer while keeping their same core intact. The Lakers will try and replicate that same thing while chasing next summer's big name free agents.

Speaking of next summer... The list of guys that will be free agents (or have the option to be a free agent) next summer are as follows: Rajon Rondo, Kemba Walker (RFA), Ricky Rubio (RFA), Reggie Jackson (RFA), Tony Parker, Goran Dragic, Klay Thompson (RFA), Monta Ellis (Player Option), Eric Gordon (Player Option), Iman Shumpert (RFA), Manu Ginobili, Danny Green,  Arron Afflalo (Player Option), Alec Burks (RFA), Wesley Matthews, Paul Pierce (Player Option), Jeff Green (PO), Jimmy Butler (RFA), Rudy Gay, LeBron James (Please don't do it to us again LeBron), Kawhi Leonard (RFA), Thaddeus Young (ETO), Tristan Thompson (RFA), Kenneth Faried (RFA), David West (PO), Kevin Love (PO), Tim Duncan, Paul Millsap, LaMarcus Aldridge, Marc Gasol, Omer Asik, Roy Hibbert (PO), DeAndre Jordan, Tyson Chandler, Al Jefferson (PO), Enes Kanter (RFA), and Pero Antic (RFA).

Holy cow that's a long list. A lot of those guys are going to fall off the board because of what they decide with their player options. Expect Monta Ellis, Eric Gordon, Paul Pierce, Jeff Green, LeBron (dear God I hope so), Kevin Love (more on him later), David West, and Roy Hibbert to stay under contract because they won't be able to get what they're making now on the open market. Then again, we saw this offseason that anything can happen. Also note that some of these guys will more than likely work out extensions with their teams in the offseason. I could make some guesses as to who that will be, but restricted free agency is weird so we will have to stay tuned. The only lock to get an extension I would say is Kawhi Leonard because Spurs.

I made a list of the teams below that could potentially have lots of cap space and how much they could have free:

Atlanta Hawks - $29.1 million
Boston Celtics - $26.6 million
Los Angeles Lakers - $24.7 million
Memphis Grizzlies - $31.8 million
Milwaukee Bucks - $18.9 million
Minnesota Timberwolves - $27 million
New York Knicks - $25 million
Orlando Magic - $31.8 million
Philadelphia 76ers - $48 million (completely ignore this team)
Phoenix Suns - $25.6 million
San Antonio Spurs - $41.5 million (SOMEBODY STOP THEM. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. REPEAT. THIS IS NOT A DRILL)

There is a lot of assumption in this. The cap is expected to go up to around $68 million and we don't know a lot of the fine details to some of the contracts for free agents this summer yet. The point is that a lot of teams every summer are going to have gobs of cap space because of how important they think it is in building a team.

2016
I eluded to the upcoming NBA explosion in 2016 a little bit at the end of my last column. Teams upgraded their rosters this summer while also keeping financial flexibility for the summer of 2016. The Wizards, Raptors, Heat, and Lakers all signed free agents while still managing to keep cap room for that summer. I have been keeping track of all the offseason movement and if you click on that link, you'll notice a lot of two year contracts that teams signed players too. The cap is expected to sky rocket with the new TV rights deal that the NBA is going to get from ESPN and Turner, and early projections are around $80 million.  That will give just about everybody cap room and the NBA will have to re think their restrictions on max contracts to maybe make them bigger.

Just for fun... The list of the top 2016 free agents are as follows: Mike Conley, Deron Willams (ETO... no way he is opting out but still), Joe Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Danilo Gallinari, Chandler Parsons (PO), Nicolas Batum, LeBron James, Kevin Love (again, more on him in a bit), Al Horford, David Lee, Ryan Anderson, Joakim Noah, and Dwight Howard.

See why everyone is freaking out about 2016?

Kevin Love saga continues
It was reported yesterday that both the Warriors and the Cavaliers are finally caving and willing to give up their prized young guys in a Kevin Love trade. I don't know why it took the Warriors so long to make Klay Thompson available. If you're the Warriors and you had to choose whether to give Klay the max next summer while also paying David Lee OR trade for Kevin Love why wouldn't you do that? You would save yourself about $15+ million in payroll AND have one of the 10-15 best players in the league on your team. You can't tell me Klay's agent saw what guys like Hayward and Parsons got on the market this year and isn't going to demand anything less than a max.

I have said many times before in conversation that if I were the Cavaliers that I would trade Andrew Wiggins in a heartbeat if it meant getting Kevin Love. The more and more I think about it, however, I am starting to believe that it wouldn't be such a good idea to trade him. Think about this... No matter how you feel about Wiggins' offensive game and where his potential is with that, everyone believes that he will immediately come in and be one of the best wing defenders in the league. His instincts are off the charts. Add in his length and athleticism and you have another Paul George on that end of the floor.  LeBron is already the best on ball defender in the league. Could you imagine having LeBron and Wiggins on the wing guarding dudes and ripping the ball from them at half court? I am not exaggerating when I say that it would be like MJ and Pippen all over again. That's what you're getting at the very LEAST with Wiggins. You don't think that playing with LeBron is going to be the perfect scenario for that dude? For all the knocks on Wiggins offensively (he isn't assertive, he floats and drifts through games, isn't versatile), he still led a team in scoring that was the best team for the best conference in America. For all the deficiencies that everybody claims he has, that is still pretty darn good.

Sorry, I didn't mean to turn this into an Andrew Wiggins rant. The Cavs as it stands right now have a couple problems on their roster. I talked about them in my last column in detail. They have done a good job of getting shooters like Mike Miller and James Jones (stay tuned for Ray Allen) so that will make it better. Kyrie still needs to improve in that area seeing as he was the second worst spot up shooter in the league behind Michael Carter-Williams statistically. They also need help defensively in the paint and on the ball because of Irving's lack of effort on that end as well.  If you trade Wiggins for Love, not only are you taking out one of your very few good defenders, but you are also adding another defensive liability in Kevin Love. Trading for Love may improve their rebounding drastically but it would hurt them defensively a ton. And if they insist on them taking back Kevin Martin's contract, then you sealed the deal for worst defensive backcourt in the league.

It is also really hard for the Cavs to make a deal for Love. Wiggins hasn't signed a contract so the amount of salary he would be able to contribute to a trade is $0. They don't have any trade exceptions they can absorb Love's salary into so that means that they would have to include one or both of Anderson Varejao and Tristan Thompson. Varejao is LeBron's buddy and Thompson shares an agent with LeBron so you can guarantee those guys won't get traded. Waiters + Bennett + Wiggins + other picks isn't enough salary wise to line up with Kevin Love.  They would have to get another third team in there and do you think anyone is going to help the Cavs get Kevin Love? Probably not.

The other key thing here is a lack of any sort of commitment from Kevin Love. If he doesn't put pen to paper and commit to an extension, Minnesota loses a ton of leverage. He has an opt out for next summer or could just stay locked in until 2016 but even that probably isn't long enough for a team to feel comfortable. Seeing as players aren't signing extensions nowadays because they know they can get more money and years in free agency, it makes sense for Love to be a free agent. It just diminishes any sort of leverage Minnesota thinks they have.

Who knows what will happen. It's the NBA. We learned this summer that anything can happen.