The best remaining unsigned free agents
September 4th, 2018
The bulk of the NBA’s offseason business is done. The big signings are done, the second-tier players are almost all off the table as well, and for the most part, rotations for next season are set. That said, there are always a couple of players who, even at this relatively late stage, are still unsigned. With the bulk of NBA places gone, so too now are the bulk of the EuroLeague and Chinese league places, the two next best-paying leagues in the world. Those who remain unsigned therefore have limited spots to fight over, and might be fighting each other. Here, then, in absolutely no order whatsoever, are some of those remaining who could still potentially help a an NBA team. Jamal Crawford Crawford opted out of a $4,544,400 contract with the Timberwolves, as his one year with the team was not a happy union. He had the third-lowest points per game mark of his career (and the lowest since the first two years of his career), a joint-lowest assists per game mark, and a career-worst DBPM of -4.0. He still make a lot of tough shots off the dribble, as is his way, but he was ineffectual defensively, and measured out as an overall net negative. Nevertheless, Crawford’s ability to save plays should still get him another contract somewhere. It is however surprising that now, in the first week of September, he still hasn’t got one. – Joe Johnson After playing well in a part-season at a new position of power forward on the minimum salary for the Miami Heat down the stretch of the 2015-16, Johnson signed for big money the following summer to do the same for the Utah Jazz. In the first year with them, he did so, being a productive half court offensive player via a […]
How the Oklahoma City Thunder saved money – and whether they might have to save more
August 31st, 2018
The early days of NBA free agency saw the Oklahoma City Thunder go big early. In a move that was known to be happening long before it happened, they agreed to re-sign 2018 NBA All-Star Paul George to a four year maximum value contract, and within hours also agreed to re-sign key reserve forward Jerami Grant to a three year, $27.35 million deal. This was both somewhat surprising and distinctly strong from a team that entered the offseason in a state of flux. In acquiring George and Carmelo Anthony in the summer of 2017, the Thunder strove to make a big stride back to the postseason and to relevance after the departure of Kevin Durant the previous summer. But to do so meant piling on the payroll, and to not take a stride backwards in 2018 meant piling on even more, keeping George and Grant on raises with a payroll that was already hefty without them. Immediately after those moves, reports came out about how, once luxury tax calculations were factored in, the Thunder were looking at a $300 million total commitment for their team this upcoming season. The reports of a $300 million total payroll were accurate enough at the time. However, they were normally taken out of context during their aggregation and sharing. That figure came about because of the heavy amount of repeater luxury tax that the Thunder were facing. Historically not a taxpaying team, the franchise has now paid luxury tax in the last three seasons, triggering the more punitive repeater tax rates for this upcoming season. The 2011 CBA created greater deterrents for teams crossing the luxury tax threshold; whereas before teams would previously pay a simple dollar-for-dollar tax on any amount they went over by, there are now various thresholds over which the amount increases (much […]
With a deadline coming up, the Luol Deng situation could soon be resolved
August 29th, 2018
In the summer of 2016, the L.A. Lakers, armed with cap room, tried to make a free agency splash. They signed centre Timofey Mozgov from the Cleveland Cavaliers to a four year, $64 million contract, and followed it up with signing Luol Deng from the Miami Heat to a four year, $72 million deal. They then almost immediately changed plans. Both players got out to slow starts and then never really sped up; in their first seasons, Mozgov averaged only 7.4 points, 4.9 rebounds and 0.6 blocks in 54 games (52 starts), while Deng averaged 7.6 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 56 games (49 starts). Designed to be veteran help alongside D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram and Jordan Clarkson, the pair both struggled to get going throughout and recorded career-worst years. The Lakers shifted their direction pretty much immediately after this. They revamped the structure and personnel of their front office, and opted to up their standards when it came to the players they were pursuing. In the midst of an uncharacteristically long playoff-less streak, the team decided, explicitly, to target only the game’s very best in free agency. No more Mozgovs. It worked this summer when they signed LeBron James as a free agent. But to do so again next year may require freeing themselves of Deng’s contract. Earning $18 million this season and $18.81 million next, Deng’s contract vastly outweighs his performance. Indeed, as of last season, there was no performance. After starting him in the first game of the season but playing him for only 13 minutes, the Lakers had another quick rethink and benched Deng for the young forward quartet of Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Julius Randle and (until the trade deadline) Larry Nance Jr. Despite being ostensibly in good health, Deng never […]
The Bulls should trade for Andrew Bynum
January 5th, 2014
This article was due to run on Monday on another site. However, it seems as though there can be no delay. Andrew Bynum’s time in Cleveland is all but over. After a poor first few months on the court, in which he has looked awful at times in trying to recover from serious knee problems, a recent suspension for off-court behaviour has seen him essentially placed on gardening leave, while Cleveland tries to find a new home for him and his contract. And they likely will. Cleveland signed Bynum for two reasons. Firstly, to potentially land themselves a quality player at a position of weakness – Bynum’s interior game on both ends once made him one of the best big men in the league, and based on age alone, he should still be short of his prime. And secondly, for the value – even at $24.6 million dollars over two years, Bynum nevertheless represented value if he didn’t work out on the court, based on the nature of his contract. Primarily, though, they wanted him to produce. Bynum, however, has not been able to produce. Save for a couple of strong outings, he has mostly looked like a shadow of his former self, still playing in severe pain and looking just as painful as he is said to be feeling. His inability to play through the kind of severe pain that would lead to most of us taking several months work has unfortunately led to ugly (and apparently open season) speculation about his ‘love’ of the game, for it is always easier to blame someone for things, yet whatever we think of Bynum’s commitment to the game, one thing seems apparent by this time – the former Andrew Bynum, the second best centre in the league, is not coming back. […]
Ben Gordon finally commits to Great Britain national basketball team
May 8th, 2010
Excellent news. The only way you would not know that I am British is if you: a) have never been to this website before today, b) have been here before but understandably don’t read any of the words I write, or c) know so little about vexillology that you didn’t even realise that the site’s logo had a flag in it. Because of my nationality – English rather than British, but we’ll worry about that later – it is inevitable and sensible that the state of British basketball will get some coverage here. And with the news of Ben Gordon’s commitment to the national team still moist astride our lips, today is no different. There follows a lengthy breakdown. Basketball in Britain is still so fledgling that even the term ‘fledgling’ sells it short. The standard of the British Basketball League is so far below its European peers that almost any Division I NCAA starter could get a starting spot there. Worse still, the league damn nearly went bankrupt at the turn of the century, which isn’t something top tier leagues should be doing (although it has happened elsewhere on the lower rungs). Beyond the professional game, basketball itself is not fairing much better. While the sport is played in many schools these days, it’s not played in all of them; we didn’t play it in mine, for example, and as a result I’ve never played a game of basketball. To say that basketball trails behind many other sports in this country is an understatement on a par with calling the Vietnam conflict ‘feisty;’ it just doesn’t do it justice. (The local council did eventually install a hoop in my childhood village after much petitioning, but when I say they “installed a hoop,” I actually mean that they put a […]
Kirk Hinrich’s Singing Voice
April 14th, 2009
od invented the internet so that we could feel more closely acquainted to professional athletes. It’s the reason they have online chats, it’s the reason they have their own websites, it’s the reason we try and become their Facebook friends, and it’s the reason that their team contractually obligates them to humiliate themselves for the sake of a few YouTube videos. For this, we must give our eternal thanks, because God never fails to satisfy us. And nor does Joakim Noah. During a Bulls game last week, a halftime segment aired that showed Noah, Derrick Rose, Tyrus Thomas and Luol Deng participating in a ‘Name That Tune’ style challenge. The four players paired up, and one player had to sing whatever tune was playing in his headphones, with the other player charged with guessing which song it was that they were butchering. The girl’s job was to guess which team won. The whole debacle was caught on camera. A closer inspection reveals that this isn’t the first Bulls players karaoke segment of the season. Three other officially licensed videos exist, showing the same players (as well as Kirk Hinrich, Aaron Gray, and the now-departed Drew Gooden and Thabo Sefolosha) taking part in a singalong to various TV theme tunes. The tunes range from seminal to forgettable, yet they are, to a man, bludgeoned. If anyone emerges from this with any pride, it might be Drew Gooden. Gooden – whom we already know to be always up for a tinkle – demonstrates, if nothing else, a semblance of a sense of rhythm, humility and personality, although he does appear to struggle with the difference between a saxophone and a piccolo. Hinrich continues his galvanising makeover from the shy and retiring elfin-like creature of his rookie year to the matured and forthcoming […]
Preview Sort Of Thing: Chicago Bulls
October 23rd, 2008
The Bulls are, quite possibly, the hardest team in the league to gauge right now. Every one of their significant players is a question mark. Other than predicting Larry Hughes will shoot a pull-up 18 footer on 85% of the fast breaks that he’s involved in, there’s nothing that you can say with any conviction about this current Bulls roster. It’s a poser. Theoretically, they could be great. This is still, essentially, the same 49-win second round team of the 2006/07 season, with only a few changes. The corpse of P.J. Brown has been replaced by Joakim Noah. The corpse of Ben Wallace has been replaced by Drew Gooden. And Chris Duhon has been replaced by Derrick Rose, which may or may not be an upgrade. (Sarcasm!) So, with those three upgrades, along with the return of Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Andres Nocioni and Kirk Hinrich, plus the overdue-but-genuinely-forthcoming breakout of Tyrus Thomas, the Bulls should easily be able to usurp that 2007 team. Shouldn’t they? Well, no. The other change between then and now is the entire coaching staff. As outlined in the Milwaukee Bucks preview, Scott Skiles’s coaching jobs seem to always have a shelf-life, but until it goes wrong, he can make teams overachieve. The Bulls achieved what they did in 2007 despite having only the NBA’s 20th-best offence, purely because they had the best defence in the league. Skiles was directly responsible for that. However, after he lost the team last year – and after his replacement Jim Boylan proved to be about as much use as a surfboard with handlebars – the Bulls defence regressed to being middle of the road, and the offence was no better. It’s not known what new coach Vinny Del Negro will try to do, and it’s futile to guess. […]
Do NBA Players Ever Actually Accept Their Qualifying Offers?
April 16th, 2008
If your team didn’t agree to an extension with its starlet young player this past offseason – such as is the case with the Atlanta duo of Josh Childress and Josh Smith, the Chicago duo of Luol Deng and Ben Gordon, amongst others – then you’ve probably experienced a modicum of conversation as to whether that player will take the one-year qualifying offer this offseason rather than the security of a long-term deal, leaving the distinct possibility that your team will lose a key player and important asset, for nothing in return. Talk of this possibility happening is particularly widespread in the case of Gordon, who hasn’t done much to deny it. Let me try and set your mind at rest – it’s really not that likely. Or rather, it should be really unlikely. It might happen, but history suggests that it shouldn’t. This is a list of all the rookie scale players to have accepted the fifth-year qualifying offer in recent times, and how that went for them. Melvin Ely Season before free agency: 9.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, 51% shooting Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 3.0 points, 1.8 rebounds, 36% shooting Season after that: 3.9 points, 2.8 rebounds, 47% shooting Melvin Ely has had one year of average NBA production in seven attempts. That one season was, conveniently, the final one of his rookie contract. Never justifying his draft position, that one year gave Ely the chance to make a bit of money, especially given that it was probably his only other chance at a multi-year contract. (Ely was 28 at the time, after joining the league at age 24. Ely took Charlotte’s one year QO of $3,308,615 (which may or may not have been the only contract that they offered) in preference to taking Phoenix’s multi-year offer, […]
30 teams in 36 or so days: Chicago Bulls
September 23rd, 2007
Chicago Bulls Players acquired via free agency or trade: Joe Smith (two years, $10 million) Players acquired via draft: First round: Joakim Noah (9th overall) Second round: Aaron Gray (49th overall), JamesOn Curry (51st overall) Players retained: Andres Nocioni (re-signed, six years, $45 million) Players departed: Malik Allen (signed with New Jersey), Michael Sweetney (left unrestricted, unsigned), P.J. Brown (unsigned), Andre Barrett (made restricted, unsigned, may yet return), Martynas Andriuskevicius (left unrestricted, signed in Spain) Some words: (The following entry may well be written with a small hint of bias. Or, alternately, it may be written with huge seething dollops of it. I’m a Bulls fan, just so’s you know.) Has anybody ever told you that you need a dominant post scorer to win a title? If not, then you’re not a Bulls fan. Since the dawn of time (or since the Eddy Curry trade, whichever), this edict has been hurled at Bulls fans and management alike by people of all backgrounds and IQ levels, and never more so than in the immediate aftermath of the Pau Gasol trade-that-never-was at the last trade deadline. Forget the fact that Detroit managed this supposedly impossible feat just three years ago: these people remain steadfast in their opinion. And why shouldn’t they? People say it on the TV, after all, so it must be true. After General Manager John Paxson did not pull the trigger on a deal for Gasol due to the excessive demands of Grizzlies GM Jerry West and the continued breakout of Luol Deng, talk of the Bulls’ need for a ‘dominant’ post scorer continued. “Experts” then shifted their attention to Kevin Garnett, ignoring for a moment the fact that such a move was never realistically possible due to the Bulls salary cap position. After […]
