NBA Free Agency Recap: Winners and Losers

No long intro for this one, we’re just gonna cut to the chase. Here are your Free Agency winners and losers.

Winner: Chris Paul and the Phoenix Suns

These two get lumped together by necessity, but the truth is they could be in separate categories. For Chris Paul, simply getting to this point is remarkable. Two years ago, Paul was considered washed up and was a distressed asset on a monstrosity of a deal. In fact, his value had cratered to the extent that the Rockets had to give Oklahoma City two first-rounders in a Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook swap. There was good reason for people to think this way considering he had already lasted longer than most players his size, and there was little to no precedent for someone of any size turning it around in that situation. The Thunder had planned to send him home and look for a trade like they did with Al Horford, but instead, Paul demanded to play, and along with switching to a plant-based diet, completely resurrected his career, leading to his move to Phoenix, and ultimate Finals berth. Instead of simply playing out his final contract, Chris Paul managed to play himself into another massive deal, giving his NBA career another chapter that seemed unfathomable. Chris Paul going from washed up at 34 to playing on a nine-figure deal until he’s 40 makes him a massive winner.

Meanwhile, this deal also helps the Suns in both the long-term and in the near term. For starters, the Suns now have their two stars locked down, with Deandre Ayton the only one left to go. By keeping the core of this group the Suns are ensuring that they will be able to run it back with the group that came within two wins of winning a title. And while they may have blown their best chance at a title and probably won’t be the favorites going forward, running it back with this group is still far and away their best chance at winning a title, so by bringing Paul back they crossed off priority number one. What’s more, the nature of Paul’s contract actually helps them in the short term. In order to sign the long-term deal, Chris Paul opted out of a $44 million player-option this year. While it is unclear exactly how the annual numbers will shake out in his deal because there are presumably incentives involved, the Suns opened up somewhere around $15 million in cap room this year. That allowed them to be more active in free agency, filling in a gaping hole at backup center (a position they just didn’t fill last year), along with bringing back Cameron Payne on a team-friendly deal. By taking a short-term pay cut to ensure long-term security, Chris Paul helped both his pocket-book in a manner that seemed unfathomable two years, while allowing them to do a better job of building around a group that is just coming off of a Finals appearance. While much of this was expected and not very flashy, the fact that every element of free agency so far benefits every party involved in both the short and long-term make the Suns and Chris Paul the biggest winners.

Loser: New Orleans Pelicans

While the Pelicans could be declared the losers of the past fifteen years, this article covers a smaller timespan, so instead, we’re just gonna focus on New Orleans’ baffling beginning to free agency. The Pelicans came in under the assumption that they were going to lose Lonzo Ball which is weird considering the fact that they had the ability to match Lonzo’s contract. While it would be understandable for them to not want to pay him nine figures, the Bulls wound up giving him only $85 million, a deal that any NBA team in need of a point guard would love. But even if they did not want to bring Lonzo back, agreeing to a sign-and-trade on a restricted deal is an absurd notion. The reason a sign-and-trade would normally be advantageous is if a team knows they are going to lose a player, they manage to get some assets back in order to make the salaries work. But with Lonzo as a restricted free agent, his move to Chicago was no foregone conclusion. New Orleans had every ability to match, and then shop Lonzo around to try to get a real haul back. Instead, they agreed to a sign-and-trade, something which in general is absurd to do with a restricted guy, and got back Thomas Satoransky, Garett Temple, and a second-rounder, a return that is baffling on its face, and becomes even more absurd when you consider that they had the ability to bring him back and shop him. What’s more, once they just decided to give themselves a gaping hole at Point Guard, they filled it by completing a sign-and-trade to bring Devonte’ Graham in on a 4 years $47 million deal which seems like a panicked overpay, while giving up a protected first in a sign and trade. Even if you were to say that you would rather Devonte Graham on his deal than Lonzo on his, the return still doesn’t make sense. From a pure numbers standpoint, how does it make sense that an $85 million deal is worth a second-rounder and a couple of throw-in players, while a $47 million deal of the same length is worth a first-rounder, even if it is protected? No matter which way you look at it the Pelicans have had a terrible free agency, one which followed two years of horrible and confounding moves. All of this is happening as they are in possession of a rare prize in Zion Williamson, a player that most of the league would kill to have. Their inability to build around Zion makes it increasingly likely that he will try to force his way out, meaning that in just over a decade they will have failed to build around Chris Paul, Anthony Davis, and Zion Williamson. The Pelicans are the biggest losers of this free agency along with the past decade of the NBA, and quite possibly the next five years as well.

Tentative Winner: Miami Heat

In terms of what they had to do this offseason, the Miami Heat are undoubtedly winners. Their number one goal was to get Kyle Lowry which they did, even if it was an overpay. On top of that, they brought back Duncan Robinson, extended Jimmy Butler, two moves that they had to do in order to retain this core. They also brought back Victor Oladipo on a small deal, a low-risk high-reward deal for a guy that is clearly betting on himself to get a bigger payday next year. But while the Heat did what they had to do, the question is whether it is a good thing that they had to do this. While the Heat were in a similar position to the Suns in the sense that they were so far in that their only choice was to build around their core, I simply do not have as much confidence in their group. The Heat probably overpaid a little bit for Duncan Robinson and will be paying Jimmy Butler over $50 million at age 36, while Kyle Lowry will be getting almost $30 million when he’s 38. They are tentative winners because while they had no choice but to put themselves in this box, I’m not sure whether it is a box that I would love to be in.

Loser: Los Angeles Lakers

The Lakers’ offseason has been pretty confounding so far. They came into free agency needing to restore their depth because they gave up some of their best role players in order to land Russell Westbrook in a move that will seemingly destroy the fundamental concept of floor spacing. In order to fill those holes, the Lakers made a flurry of moves that while making a lot of noise, may do more to help the attendance for Bingo Night at the Staples Center than the Lakers’ title hopes. Carmelo Anthony is obviously not what he once was, while Trevor Ariza hasn’t been a positive contributor to a playoff team since he left the Rockets in 2018. And on top of that, do you have any positive playoff memories of Wayne Ellington, Kendrick Nunn, or Kent Bazemore? And what has Taylon Horton-Tucker done to justify being brought back instead of Alex Caruso, on a larger annual deal at that? While the Lakers have made a lot of noise, they sacrificed defense to bring in a lot of guys who may very well underperform their reputation. The question is whether any of this will matter leading to…

Winner: Los Angeles Lakers

We’ve seen LeBron James and Anthony Davis be good enough to win a title by themselves before. Why can’t they do it again? What if all of this is just to bring in some friends to make LeBron happy? My guess is that it’s somewhere in the middle. The Lakers are going to be worse defensively and don’t make much sense together, but part of what made the 2020 team special was the way the chemistry of that team off the court. As long as LeBron is happy the Lakers should be happy, meaning that they may not have had any choice. So while the Lakers may have had a very weird and nonsensical offseason, the truth of the matter is that any team featuring LeBron James and Anthony Davis cannot completely be losers.

Time will tell: New York Knicks

The Knicks are the perfect example of why it’s better to write a column like this a week into free agency rather than in the first 48 hours. In my first draft for this piece, the Knicks were declared emphatic losers, due to what initially seemed like a string of overpays. With the initial numbers that were being reported on the deals, it seemed like the Knicks massively overpaid for a number of players that didn’t significantly raise the ceiling of their team, stripping themselves of the flexibility they had to build around this roster coming into the offseason. But as more details started to come out, it became clear that these contracts were not the monstrosities that they initially seemed. This often happens in the reporting of contracts, because when the agents leak it to reporters they want the number to look as big as possible, so they give the maximum that the player could earn. This seems to have happened with most of these deals because it soon became clear that the deals that the Knicks signed all included team options on the end, which both gives the team the ability to get out of these deals early and also makes the contracts more tradeable. What initially worried me was that it seemed like the Knicks were trying to quickly overpay a bunch of guys in order to get better in the short-term but would win up sacrificing their ability to trade for a superstar who gets angry (there always will be one) in the long-term. Instead, they signed a bunch of deals that should improve their team next year but are also easier to get out of if necessary, giving them the flexibility to clear up cap space should someone want to come for New York. The reason I am not ready to fully declare the Knicks a winner is that I still think they overpaid for Derrick Rose and Nerlens Noel, and even if only there are three guaranteed years, I still don’t love the idea of giving almost $20 million annually to Evan Fournier, a guy who is a career 37% shooter with an 8.1 PER in the playoffs. The truth is that it’s simply too early to judge these deals because their value will stem not from the production of the players as much as it does from the flexibility maintained in the attempt to pursue a superstar. Should that opportunity present itself, the Knicks will suddenly have a lot of tradeable short-term deals which will allow them to free up the cap space to bring someone in. If not, the Knicks will have simply overpaid for a bunch of decent players who do little to make them legitimate contenders for an NBA Title in the near future. As I said at the beginning, time will tell.

?: Chicago Bulls

The Bulls get a question mark because I love and hate their offseason at the same time. For every reason that I hated what the Pelicans did in giving up Lonzo Ball, I love what the Bulls did in order to get him. They used leverage that it didn’t seem like they had in order to get him for both a cheaper contract while not giving much up. On top of that, I love the fit with Lonzo and Zach Lavine. Lonzo brings a playmaking element that they never had in Lavine, while his shooting makes him a dangerous off-ball threat. The two seemed like a really good duo, who along with Nikola Vucevic, would provide the building blocks for a group with legitimate chances at contention going forward. And then they brought in Demar DeRozan. DeRozan has always been a weird guy because he’s an incredibly talented player whose skillset bears little relevance to today’s league due to his lack of three-point shooting and his inability to play off the ball. While Lonzo and Lavine seem like two guys who can truly play off of each other, DeRozan does not make sense in the context of what the Bulls are trying to do, which leads to the next problem with this deal. The simple question we all need to ask the Bulls is who were they bidding against? Who else was trying to give DeRozan $28 million a year, when previous reports talked about him taking the mid-level exception (even if that always seemed like a dubious notion)? Even among the teams with the cap space to sign DeRozan, the only one that reportedly showed any real interest was the Heat, who could only pay him $15 million annually before being hard-capped. The Bulls had no reason to sign and trade because they had no reason to give him that type of deal. Instead of possibly waiting it out and letting the market inevitably dry up before giving him a smaller deal, they instead massively overpaid for a guy who doesn’t necessarily fit their roster, while giving up two tradeable expiring contracts and a first-round pick. Instead of being a playoff team with room to build around their guys going forward, they instead guaranteed themselves a second-round playoff exit for the next three years at best. So while the Bulls did get better, they capped their improvement for no inherent reason, making them the most confusing team of Free Agency.