Here's What You Missed During NBA Free Agency If You Went To Bed Early Last Night
July 1. NBA Hanukkah around these parts. Fans of not only the NBA, but utter chaos, have been anxiously awaiting this date for a very long time. When the clock struck 12:01 the best time of the basketball calendar kicked into high gear. We all knew going into this offseason that NBA contracts were going to make absolutely zero sense. Unheard of money for role players that must make every retired player want to kill someone. Well, we were not disappointed. If you went to bed and didn’t stay up way too late refreshing Twitter, here is what you missed during the opening hours of free agency
Our first deal of the night came just five minutes in. Honestly I appreciate the Knicks for making me chuckle to help calm the nerves. I’m not sure Phil Jackson gives a fuck anymore. Not only does this deal end Knicks fans pathetic dreams of Durant (full disclosure: I share these same dreams), but it’s also completely OUTRAGEOUS to give Joakim Noah that many years and that much money. I was on board with Noah as a second tier FA option for the Celts, on short years and lower money. The fact that this is what he got was just a sign of what was to come.
Next up came word about Bradley Beal. Safe to say this wasn’t really a surprise. He’s a max level talent when healthy, and since they aren’t getting Durant, this is a no brainer. At 23 you make this bet and pray he grows out of his health problems, sort of like Steph Curry. There certainly aren’t any two guards of his caliber on the market that you would rather replace him with, so Washington didn’t really have any other option. How nice is it to be Beal right now? Well, coming off a season in which he played just 55 games, he more than tripled his salary. Not terrible. Seeing as how he was a restricted free agent, chances were he was always going to stay, which sucks because as a player he’s probably the best shooter of the class.
And just like that, Phil Jackson was let off the hook. If the general consensus was that Noah’s deal was terrible, try this on for size! $16M a year holy shit. I’m not sure who to kiss first. On one hand we have the Knicks shitting the bed, and on the other hand we have the Lakers doing shit like this. What a time to be a Celtics fan. Some will argue this is what the market dictates, and while I agree, that doesn’t exclude it from being a bad deal. Similar to Noah, take the money out of it, the years is what stands out to me. There were rumors the Lakers could have had a Gasol return, and instead went this route. I know they had to replace Hibbert, but man. This means a couple of things moving forward. One, Dwight Howard is not taking a short year low money deal. That’s out the window. Two, Jared Sullinger’s agent cummed himself to the moon.
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The Lakers weren’t done though, later in the night things got even better for Celtics fans
lets not forget the reports that they are also in on Tyler Zeller. It’s OK you can have a minute, we can celebrate together
We got this news super late. Like 2am late. Another tough blow for Laker Nation. When the hometown kid decides to staying Canada over taking max money to join your dumpster fire, you may as well just close up shop. It was widely speculated that given the chance, DeRozen was almost a shoe in to play in LA, but I guess market isn’t everything? This is also pretty telling for Boston, because history doesn’t mean shit to these guys. It brings me great pleasure that the Lakers pretty much had the worst night ever. Beg for a meeting with Durant to start the day, end it with Mozgov, maybe Turner, maybe Zeller, and no DeRozen. So great. Luke Walton doesn’t regret his decision I’m sure.
Other than these moves, no other deals really happened. We got a bunch of reports that talked about guys like Al Horford taking meetings starting in the morning, that no matter what POR is going to match any offer for Allen Crabbe, and that if GS doesn’t get Durant, they plan on matching offers for Harrison Barnes. Also, apparently Kent Bazemore was going to hold meetings starting July 5th, but instead the Rockets got in late last night for an emergency meeting. Reports have him being around a $20M player, and to that I say good God. But overall, last night was mostly boring. There were no giant Woj bombs, something that would have lit Twitter on fire, and I think a large reason for that is everyone is waiting to see what Durant does. We got no official offer news for Horford, or Whiteside, or even Andre Drummond which surprised me.
From the Celtics perspective, I can live with no early splashes. I’m glad they didn’t panic and give out an early Parsons max just to get “a guy”. Right now Plan A is still in effect, and while I would have liked to see them have the option of falling into a Mozgov/Noah much later in free agency for much more reasonable deals, I think we saw why Ainge decided to guarantee Amir Johnson at $12M. However, if Horford is in fact the play, a max deal is all but assured.
Basically don’t plan on getting one bit of work done today, there’s Twitter refreshing to do.