Live Thread: NBA Free Agency Midnight Madness 2016
2016-06-30
It’s that time of year again (no, it’s not quite Fourth of July… although technically it’ll be Canada Day for the Raptors). Instead it’s time to sit back and watch the NBA Free Agency fireworks to kick off another crazy summer of exploding cap space. As the clock counts down to midnight, and the calendar flips to the second half of the year, nearly every team in the Association and their fans will be on the edge of their seats keyboards and Twitter feeds awaiting the next Woj-bomb to fall… hoping it means good things for their franchise.
One team… in fact our team, the Cleveland Cavaliers find themselves in a much less stressful position as they continue to bask in the glow of the first championship in more than 50 years. The decisions this year don’t revolve around much of the core of this team (unless you really are needlessly worried about LeBron not re-signing for a few million more). Instead of drama surrounding Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson and when LBJ would re-sign, there are lesser degrees of concern about bringing the likes of J.R. Swish, Delly, R.J. and Moz back into the fold. In reality, though, the Cavs don’t exactly have many options outside of bringing these guys back, and possibly finding a ring-chasing vet to take the minimum.
Meanwhile, around the league, the biggest bombshells will be saved for where some of this year’s premiere Free Agents will land, with Kevin Durant set to light the fuse on the whole shebang.
We’ll begin to find out shortly as the fireworks and madness kick off Free Agency in a blaze of glory. Stay tuned for all of the breaking rumors, news and developments…
Delly: 4 years for $38M from Bucks. Not bad. We can probably match.
Yeah, we will likely match that.
RUMORS DION GOING TO THE KINGS TALK ABOUT A ” MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN “
VALID POINT HOT SAUCE—-GOTTA THINK THE CAVS COACHING STAFF IS ALSO AWARE OF THIS
Question: does everyone at least agree that if Delly leaves and is thrust into a bigger role on a team without LBJ he will not be as productive as he was here? Or do people think he will get better with a bigger role?
He will suck in a bigger role. The good news is that I bet Cavs match anything under $10 M
Al Jefferson took a paycut to go to the Pacers… 3 years/30 mil. Steal.
I really need someone to make me a copy of this.
They’ve also been showing Game 5 and Game 6 occasionally…
I bought this on iTunes so I can watch over and over.
Any chance DWade leaves Miami?
Doubt they get KD, so DWade probably winds up back there…
Contingency plan if we don’t get JR… c’mon GM LeBron! /s
I don’t understand the Blazer plan…
Bargain.
Cavs probably hoping this is more of the Delly range, but I think he’s more in the Lin range…
Its only going to take one team smart enough to see his value beyond scoring. I’d take him over Lin, and its likely 1 of 29 other GMs would as well.
Oh, I would also. It just depends what threshold they think the Cavs won’t match…
CBA opt out is going to be VERY interesting. Clearly, guys like Lebron would do much better with no cap or with a hard cap, because he could max his earnings. I mean, him being stuck to 7.5% increases and unable to get the max because he’ll turn 36, etc., these are all rules to save the owners from themselves. He’s been the most underpaid athlete relative to value added for probably 10 years. He is not going to be the highest paid in his sport this year, even though he is far and away the best player (see, Finals).… Read more »
I smell a work stoppage…
That’s fine as long as it doesn’t interfere with the playoffs. One way to keep LeBron’s and Kyrie’s minutes down!
Could be a good signing, or godawful. He was a bonafide idiot with the Kings, as pointed out by numerous Kings beat writers. Perhaps he’s (slightly) more mature now.
Hard to say… Heat probably thought it was better to pay him than pay Dwight or Horford…
Current voting on the poll Evil posted downthread:
Didn’t work. Maybe this will:
Not much doubt about it…
Prolly gonna snag a Moz Laker gamer this year…
The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me for the Celtics to bring back Jeff Green with a max offer…
This is nuts guys. Money is being thrown around like it’s candy at a parade. Boy do we have Kyrie on a bargain deal. Crazy.
Yep. We have Kyrie, Shump, Love, and TT all on bargain contracts now that the cap jumped. And they are still making a lot of money. Good job by Griffin.
Andre Drummond on the verge of a 5 year $130M deal…
And TT dominated him in the playoffs.
The official numbers on the Whiteside deal…
Gotta feel pretty good for that guy. Went from a nobody struggling to make it to extremely rich. Nice job Whiteside.
Probably took the Heat out of the Durant sweepstakes tho… and might have cost them DWade also… Although, I’d never bet against Riles to figure something out…
Also old news, but confirmed…
And yet… he still left without an offer or deal…
This was already rumored, but looks done…
Crazy.
Cavs are going to need a new big body for the regular season. Props to Mozzy for getting paid. We will always have Brew Garden…
Eh… they have TT, Love, Frye and Kaun who can all play the 5…
I was forgetting about Frye for some reason. I guess if Kaun can actually play some it will be OK. Still, I think they’ll get someone from D league or somewhere to help out in the regular season.
Bynum is tanned, rested and ready…
Hey I just realized that EG is up early.
Day off with the holiday weekend ;)
You start drinking yet?
Yeah, me and Jim Buss are still doing Jagerbombs…
Remember all the freaking out by unnamed people about the TT contract? And good old Cols told them to calm down because that was totally fine for him and would look great after the cap increase? Good times.
Also the freaking out about not being able to sign Mozgov?? Who was completely unplayable in the playoffs and wasn’t even used against Drummond? good time again.
Griffin knows what he’s doing.
Jeez, did you hurt your arm?
I love that Screamin A is annoyed on vacation…
That Mozgov and Noah contracts are awful. Just awful. Why do the Lakers and Knicks suck?
Let’s not bring up bloated salaries, SAS…unless you want to justify your own…
How’s that TT contract look now?
Seriously… like peanuts
Kyrie’s contract on top of that…. still 3 years left, correct?
And Curry for $11.7M ?
I’m sure Curry will love it watching Barnes toss up stinkbomb games while making a near max…but I’ll give him credit, I have never heard him complain about that contract.
For all the crap that barnes has been getting, Curry is a bigger reason the Warriors couldn’t close it out.
Haha but just for one more year before he starts making ~$30m/year
Linsanity probably setting the mark for Delly…
Delly is worth that for sho.
So Line 3/36. Looking even better for Delly around 8. I expect the Cavs to match Delly up to 8M/ year. And get JR for 3/45.
Delly >>>>>> Lin, so how do you figure?
Yeah. Nope
Yeah. You’re wrong. Thanks for playing!
And if Bazemore signs for $19-20M you can forget about JR at 3/45… more like 3/60
I’d still do that for JR. Top 7 shooting guard. Better than Danny Green last year.
You might… the question is if @CavsDan will…
They might match him up to 8, but he’s likely getting a better offer than that…
WOW -THIS CRAZINESS (MOZ FOR THAT AMOUNT ) MAKES THE KY/ LOVE/ T.T. CONTRACTS LOOK REAL GOOD EVEN SHUMP’S CONTRACT IS A STEAL–GRIFF KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING LAST SUMMER
Yep. Griffin is top 3 GM in the league behind only the dude who somehow convinces the Spurs HOFers to take n o money and maybe Pat Riley. But you can easily make an argument for Griffin to be #1.
So good to be champs with the important guys (except JR!) all signed up.