As teams began courting free agents Wednesday, two of the NBA's rising stars kicked things off by agreeing to max deals.
Moments after the league's free-agent negotiating period opened at 12:01 a.m. ET, Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans agreed to a five-year extension that could be worth $145 million, league sources told CBSSports.com. Just as quickly, the San Antonio Spurs reached agreement with defensive player of the year Kawhi Leonard on a five-year, $90 million max contract, sources said.
Davis' deal begins in 2016-17, the first year of a massive salary-cap spike induced by the NBA’s $24 billion broadcast and digital rights agreements. There was never any doubt Leonard would leave San Antonio. Even though he locks into his max deal before the cap increases next summer, Leonard, 24, will still be in his prime when he hits the free-agent market again in 2018 or ’19.
As the free-agency floodgates opened Wednesday, here’s the latest from executives, agents and others in the know:
Aldridge begins meetings, Lakers first: The Lakers were the first team to meet with LaMarcus Aldridge in Los Angeles early Wednesday, with six more sitdowns to come. The Mavericks are third in line, and also were meeting early Wednesday with Clippers free agent DeAndre Jordan and Blazers free agent Wesley Matthews, sources said.
Bucks covet Tyson Chandler: Keep an eye on Tyson Chandler and the Milwaukee Bucks, league sources say. Chandler and coach Jason Kidd won a championship together in Dallas and were teammates in New York -- plus, they’re represented by the same agent, Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management. Milwaukee is a real threat to lure Chandler away from the Mavs, one person with knowledge of the situation said Tuesday night.
Splitter on the move?: One player who could be on the move via trade is the Spurs’ Tiago Splitter, who is owed $8.5 million next season and $8.25 million in 2016-17, league sources said. Even with the salary cap expected to come in as much as $2 million higher than the $67.1 million projection that teams have been operating under, the Spurs have some maneuvering to do as they take aim at Aldridge and try to bring back Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili at reasonable numbers. Danny Green, who has attracted interest from the Trail Blazers, Mavs and Pistons, will be extremely difficult to keep.
Nets keeping their own: As expected, the Nets are moving swiftly toward agreements with their own key free agents, Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young, with one league source calling the deals a foregone conclusion. GM Billy King is continuing to patrol for trade offers for Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Jarrett Jack – and finding it to be an extremely difficult task. So, too, will be retaining free agent Alan Anderson, who is said to be seeking $3-$4 million a year from a contending team.
Wizards confident about Pierce: All the pre-free agency intelligence the Wizards had on Paul Pierce suggested he's fond of D.C. and that it would take a lot to pry him away from John Wall & Co. Nothing changed early Wednesday after Wizards officials checked in with the Truth and started the ball rolling on a new deal, but one source said it was "too early to tell" whether an agreement would be reached.
Ellis in demand: With the Pacers pushing hard to land free agent Monta Ellis, the Hawks, Nuggets and Kings also called to register interest, a league source said. With Dwyane Wade in limbo, the Heat also could become a factor.
Grunt work behind the glamour deals: While everyone is focused on the dog-and-pony show that NBA free agency has become -- who's being wined and dined at midnight, at what exotic locales -- some of the biggest news will be in the grunt work.
While teams like Knicks, Lakers, Spurs and Mavericks trot out their dignitaries in free-agent recruitment meetings, the worker bees back home will be poring over spreadsheets and working the phones in an attempt to make it all possible.
Cap space is what makes it all possible, and even for teams that are well positioned to go free-agent shopping, there is still work to be done.
Thus, the Spurs reportedly are talking with the Cavs about a trade for Brendan Haywood's non-guaranteed $10.5 million contract -- which, once acquired and waived prior to August 1, would create a giant vacuum into which R.C. Buford and Gregg Popovich will try to fit their grandiose free-agent shopping list.
The Spurs have more than $40 million in free-agent cap holds on their books, which will begin to disappear once they re-sign Kawhi Leonard and bring back Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili at numbers far below their current cap holds of $15.5 million and $10.5 million, respectively. Danny Green is a free agent, too, so Haywood's contract certainly would make for more do-able math. (League sources, though, believe Green is a goner, with the Trail Blazers, Mavericks and Pistons registering interest.)
Similarly, the Atlanta Hawks have a dilemma with free agents DeMarre Carroll and Paul Millsap, both of whom will have multiple suitors. Atlanta got some relief Tuesday when Pero Antic decided to leave the NBA for a deal with Fenerbahce in Turkey. That move cleared enough room for the Hawks to pay Carroll, a restricted free agent, about $12 million in the first year of his new deal. It will be challenging for Atlanta to retain both Carroll and Millsap, but more room can be cleared by waiving the non-guaranteed contracts of Mike Muscala and Austin Daye, and/or by off-loading the $3.3 million contract of Mike Scott in a trade.
The Lakers, who are trying to land Aldridge, Kevin Love, DeAndre Jordan or Greg Monroe, freed up the necessary max slot by declining their $9 million option on Jordan Hill. The Raptors, one of seven teams granted a free-agent meeting with Aldridge on Wednesday, will have to renounce two of their free agents (or make another trade) to clear cap space. Toronto cleared $6.6 million by trading Greivis Vasquez to Milwaukee for draft picks, but is still about $16 million shy of having a max slot available. The Raptors have nearly $21 million in cap holds on the books, about half of which could be cleared simply by renouncing Amir Johnson.
So while the luminaries will be wining and dining deep into the early morning hours Wednesday, the worker bees and their spreadsheets and smart phones will hold the keys to all of it. Some of the seemingly inconsequential moves that will unfold in the coming days actually will be the most important ones. Without cap space, all that wine and caviar will simply go to waste.
Bulls' Butler faces dilemma. The Bulls' Jimmy Butler is hitting restricted free agency a year too soon after failing to come to an extension agreement with the team last fall. The Bulls, in turn, have countered with the never-before used maximum qualifying offer to limit Butler's ability to get away.
Butler, 25, now can only sign an offer sheet with at least three guaranteed years. He can accept the Bulls' five-year, $90 million offer; sign a minimum three-year offer sheet with another team (which Chicago would match by default, since the Bulls' offer already exceeds it); or play next season for the $4.4 million qualifying offer.
Though $90 million over five years is less than Butler could command in next summer's free-agent bonanza, it's clearly a lot more than $4.4 million. Coming off a breakout season, Butler could opt to bet on himself and hope to score a bigger payday next summer. That's an awfully big gamble -- and evidence for why free-agent timing has never been more important than it is now, with the NBA's new $24 billion TV deal serving as a game changer.
According to someone who has crunched the numbers: If Butler’s goal is to leave Chicago and he thus chose to play next season on the $4.4 million qualifying offer, a four-year max deal with a new team at the elevated cap in 2016 would be worth about $94 million. So he’d be passing up $90 million guaranteed over five years for the chance to make $8.8 million more. Logic and economics say Butler will take the Bulls’ offer.
Kings circus continues: Funny how Kentucky coach John Calipari cleverly denied something that wasn't even in the Yahoo story Tuesday about the Sacramento Kings' efforts to bring him on board as president and coach.
"At no time has @Vivek [Ranadive] offered me a job," Calipari tweeted. "I WILL BE AT KENTUCKY."
The Yahoo story, of course, made it clear that Calipari hadn't been offered a job, so it was an easy thing for him to deny. By saying for the umpteenth time that he will be staying in Lexington, Calipari successfully squelched his latest NBA flirtation -- but did nothing for the dumpster fire that is the Kings.
While Ranadive, the owner, has dispatched lawyers to peruse coach George Karl's coaching contract for ways to fire him for cause, league sources told CBSSports.com, it's viewed in the coaching industry as a long shot at best. (Coaches get involved in personnel matters all the time.) Whether Karl's relationship with All-Star DeMarcus Cousins and Ranadive -- the two most important people in the organization -- is too fractured for him to remain on board remains to be seen as the Kings open their free-agent pursuits Wednesday.
What's more, sources say those pursuits will include point guard Rajon Rondo, who like Cousins, went to Kentucky. (The Kings, in fact, reached out to Rondo's representatives early Wednesday, according to a league source.) With Karl, Cousins, Rondo and Ranadive, could there be a more combustible mix brewing anywhere in the NBA? Only in Sacramento.
