Random Thoughts on Free Agency

About a week in into the 2017-2018 season, and nothing is going at all as anyone envisioned. Well, except for Golden State getting the band back together. Now that Iggy and Livingston are back in the fold, the Dubs have signed Saggy P (Nick Young) and Omri Casspi, and were rumored to be signing Michael Beasley. It’s an interesting thought. The Dubs feel their culture can keep bad tendencies in check. If there was a hole in the Warriors’ armor last season, it was the lack of shooting on the bench. Half of me is hopeful this destroys chemistry, and half of me is terrified.

On this side of the country, things could not have gone better for the Cavs so far. They avoided doing something dumb like trading Kevin Love for a pending free agent, and were assisted by GarPax and Kevin Pritchard/Herb Simon who sent Jimmy Butler and Paul George out of the conference for far less than they could have received if they’d have traded them to the Cavs or Celtics (if rumors are to be believed).

The Paul George trade was absolutely mind-boggling. Somehow, Indiana did not get any draft picks and traded for the right to overpay Victor Oladipo and his $63 million contract, add a middling prospect in Sabonis, and this goes down as one of the worst trades in NBA history. Now the Thunder again have an elite shooter in George to pair with Westbrook. I can’t wait for Russ to ignore him in crunch time.

The Celics did sign Gordon Hayward, but with Boston looking to have to give up 2-4 rotation players to sign Hayward, I consider it a wash. And they still haven’t solved their rebounding problem. Plus, with the rumored losses of Crowder and/or Smart, they’ve lost a good bit of toughness/flopping.

I’m baffled why Hayward left the Jazz. Maybe he wanted to be “the man.” And with Gobert in Utah, he wasn’t going to be. Haywayrd’s going to a team whose best player is the biggest defensive liability in the NBA and whose big men don’t rebound. Meanwhile, he left a team with a crunch time scorer to take the pressure off of him (Joe Johnson), a newly acquired wizard point guard who actually can be effective against playoff teams (Ricky Rubio), and a big man who has as much potential as anyone in the NBA (Gobert). I guess Hayward wanted to go to the one team that valued white guys even more than the Jazz.

The Jazz should just say “screw it,” and make a big free agent offer to Tim Hardaway Jr, who averaged almost 16 last year, Kentavious Caldwell Pope, or go really nuts and chase Dion Waiters (though sadly this last ship has sailed).

Boston will be relying significantly on young players. Perhaps Jaylen Brown can improve a lot. He impressed me whenever I saw him last year. But again, their lack of big men is going to kill them.

I like what Atlanta’s done in free agency: nothing. Let all the other teams make the big deals then play hardball when you’re one of the few games in town.

Will anyone give anything to the Cavs for Shumpert? Who can they pawn him off on?

So much of this off-season for the Clips has been Doc Rivers the coach paying for the sins of Doc Rivers the GM. They just gave Atlanta a first rounder to eat Jamal Crawford’s contract. Still, the Clips will be fiesty with P-Bev running the show, if not particularly good shooters. It should be… odd.

For all of the angst that Phil Jackson engendered in New York, he’s left them in a pretty good situation, despite coming in with a dearth of draft picks and assets. Sure, there’s Joakim Noah’s contract albatross, but he found a rotation player in Willy Hernangomez by buying a second round pick in 2016, and he drafted the Zinger number four overall in 2015. He also set them up with promising French point guard Frank Ntilikina. What was Phil’s big sin? Floating the idea of trading Porzingis for a haul of draft picks and/or young players. Jackson’s biggest problems in New York were due to a terrible sense of public relations, not understanding that as team president he can’t motivate through the media like he did as a coach, and, yes, his insistence on running a pure triangle offense. It did often seem like Phil was trying to get fired at the end, despite his insistence that he wasn’t. The dude was a stubborn over-controlling fuddy duddy, but he did find talent for them.

The Cavs have made a good moves in re-signing Kover for a reasonable three years and $21 million, and have gotten a competent veteran point guard in Jose Calderon. They also have enough over 35 guys to qualify for a group rate on Golden Buckeye cards. I still am a little confused on how Calderon is an improvement over Deron Williams who, at times, looked electric next to LeBron. Why not just bring DWill back? Perhaps Deron thought he was getting more than the vet minimum (he’s not). Oh, I forgot. Calderon once played in Detroit. Dan knows him.

Timo will remember Mitch Kupchak on his Xmas card list forever. – Photo: Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

Most teams in the NBA are capped out. Only a few teams, including the Nets, Bulls, Pacers, and Suns (and now Jazz) have any cap room. Most NBA free agents and their agents simply underestimated how cash strapped this market was going to be, and no one cap rollback  coming. The approximate $3 million dollar drop in the salary cap wiped out $90 million in cap dollars and put teams much closer to the luxury tax threshold. Even the tax averse Thunder may be paying the bill. Due to the idiotic contracts handed out last summer, the NBA turned $1 billion dollars in cap room last year into $400 million according Danny Leroux of the Sporting News (and that article was written before the NBA announced its new cap numbers).

Plenty of guys who opted out are going to eat it in this free agency. Rudy Gay inexplicably walked away from $14 million coming off one of the worst injuries a basketball player can have, an achilles tear. It’s hard to see him getting more than $8 million in this market. Also looking like fools for opting out or not picking up their player option: Aaron Baynes ($6.5 million), Dante Cunningham ($3.1 million), Dwayne Dedmon ($3 million – though theoretically he could up for a longer term deal)

In addition, some teams are looking equally foolish for paying big for their restricted free agents early in free agency, and not waiting to see what the market was. The Bucks signed Tony Snell to an inexplicable four year $46 million dollar deal. Because any time you can pay $11.5 mil a year to a wing who doesn’t even average nine points a game, you have to do it. It’s not as bad as four for $52 for Joe Ingles, though. He scores a whopping seven a game (though with Gordo’s absence, he’ll get more run).

I dare say that the Cavs probably overpaid for Korver, and could’ve probably waited a week and knocked a couple mil off his per-year offer. Kudos to Kover for not overplaying his hand and maximizing his value and the unique position the Cavs are in.

Another lesson of this free agency period? It’s going to be brutal for most restricted free agents. There are a couple exceptions. It’s hard to fault the Wizards for not extending Otto Porter last fall, but who knew he was going to blow up? It’s rough for them that the judged the market correctly and now have to decide whether to match a four year $106 million dollar deal on Otto Porter (a crap ton of money for a guy who didn’t average 14 points and can’t get his own shot). It’s safe to say, even if the Wizards match, the Nets are going to be throwing around whopping offers and screwing up a lot of teams’ free agency plans.

The good news for the Cavs, as long as Dan Gilbert is paying the luxury tax, is that plenty of guys who didn’t think they were going to have to take the minimum are going to have to take the minimum. And even after signing Cedi Osman, the Cavs may have have some money from the mid level exception to throw at someone. And there are LOTS of guys out there the Cavs could use. Here’s my list.

The wing Grinders: Tony Allen, the original Grindfather is a D-and-sometimes-3 player who is still among the NBA’s smartest and most elite perimeter defenders. The problem now is that offensively he only shoots 28% from three. An actual 3D guy who opted out of his contract, Luc-Richard Mbah A Moute shot 39% from three last year and was in the top 20 for forwards in dRPM. He’d be a great matchup on Durant. A few of our staff have advocated for trading for Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Well Thabo Sefalosha posts almost identical RPM numbers and is a better shooter.

I’ve advocated for K.J. McDaniels to be at the top of the Cavs’ free agent list. If they could get him for the minimum he’d be a great get. He’s as athletic as they come, and his per 36 numbers are 15.5 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.5 steals, and 1.2 blocks. His RPM numbers aren’t great at -2.22, and he’s not a great shooter, but he’s only 24, and would have one of the league’s best shooting coaches, Kyle Korver.

Vince Carter’s 73 games and 1.3 RPM at age 40 were truly astounding last year. If Richard Jefferson retires, the Cavs should see if he has a year left. Gerald Henderson is 29, a nice finisher, and could slide into RJ’s role as a 3D, cut and finish guy. Henderson shot 35% from three last year which is good for him. Michael Beasley is still out there. He shot 43% from three last year. He’s still Michael Beasley.

The Gritty Guards: I’ve said all off-season that the Cavs’ number one priority is to find a way to at least play teams to a draw (including the Warriors) for 12 minutes a night when LeBron is on the bench. One guy that could help with that is Tyreke Evans. While never the healthiest player, Evans shot well from three the last two seasons, and is a guy who can play three positions (point, shooting guard, and small forward). He can certainly guard that turnaround by Shawn Livingston in the post. If the Cavs could give half their MLE to Cedi and half to Tyreke, would that be enough?

There are plenty of other guards who could be got on the low end: Shelvin Mack (good defender, streaky shooter), Tyler Ennis (just 22, good shooting percentages, and some nice games to foil the Lakers’ tanking plans late last year), Erick Green (G-League, and Euro standout – can’t finish but good defender with a nice floater), Shabazz Napier (Portland, desperate to cut salary would roll him into a Cavalier trade exception). Finally, there’s a rumor that elite shooter, Wayne Ellington may be cut by the Heat to clear cap room. If so, the Cavs should offer him a contract immediately or claim him off waivers using a trade exception.

The burly bigs. Unfortunately, the crop of big men here is pretty weak. Most are castoffs or guys who could never stick. There’s a couple intriguing options. Tarik Black and Thomas Robinson both posted PERs over 15, but Black fell out of the Lakers’ rotation and never recovered from the numbers game. Similar story with Robinson. Of the two, I’d rather see Black, since he can actually shoot. Donatas Montejunas ended the season with a whimper, posting some truly dreadful shooting numbers 41%/23%/51%. The Cavs don’t need three guys with gimpy backs.

The Cavs could do a hell of a lot worse than Ersan Ilyasova. Ilyasova never seems to stick but he shot 35% from three last year, averaged 13 and 6 in 26 minutes, posted 1.72 RPM (13th among power forwards) last year, and is a much better defender than Frye (that wouldn’t be hard). If the Cavs move Frye, or even if they just want another stretch big, Ersan would be a fine choice.

It’s hard to believe that Jared Sullinger is just 25 and may be out of the league after this year.

Aaron Baynes would work as a thugtimidator.

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The NBA has a real parity problem, and it’s costing the rank and file players. The cap dip was directly caused by a lack of TV revenue because of uncompetitive games in the playoffs (the Finals teams went a combined 24-1 on the way to the finals, leaving 17 potential big ratings games unplayed). Further, the rumor is that even more teams are going to tank next year, compounding the problem. To top that off, most that weren’t free agents in the last two years got absolutely SCREWED this year. A leadership that valued players over stars would’ve smoothed in the revenue increase to spread it equitably instead of increasing the divide between the big contracts and the small ones. Also, Kevin Durant signing a deal well below market value just to save his owner some luxury tax can’t sit well with a lot of players. The NBAPA having big money stars like LeBron and Chris Paul at the top of their leadership is a problem.

With the arms race in the West, why would LeBron want to go out there? He’s not dumb.

The Cavs have 10 players under contract not including Kay Felder and Edy Tavares who I don’t consider anything more than training camp invites at this point. Rumors of Jefferson’s and Frye’s retirements have floated. Jefferson I could believe, but Frye makes too much money to hang it up. Still, the Cavs have plenty of flexibility and there are plenty of guys who are going to be available on the cheap. A roster upgrade can be done, and there are always trades… But that is a story for another time.