2023-24 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

i mean, bontemps isn't wrong. we didn't improve. but i think he's ignoring that we finished the year on a 60-win pace with lebron missing half the games, and we brought back all the guys that helped us (save moving DS for vincent) at prices that make us a threat to trade for any star that becomes disgruntled and in ways that don't strangle our cap post-lebron. we bought a year of contention and, it appears, stayed under the tax in doing so.

i'd have done it differently, but it was a master class in general management, given the constraints. if rob was the clippers gm, they'd have rings, imo.

 

right. it's fine. he doesn't have to bleed black and red or whatever. i just don't want to hear that he does when he never did. it's just stupid bs that annoys me and so i whine on the internet.

 

I don’t think letting Beasley/Bamba go had anything to do with being cheap or needing to save money. It was all about roster flexibility and opening up both the MLE and BAE

Yeah I haven’t looked too closely at the math, but I feel like you could have signed two minimum players (Beasley AND a big) to fill up all 15 roster spots. And then still have enough room under the hard cap if later you needed to add another minimum signing for an emergency (you’d just need to cut someone to open up the roster spot).

I would guess that the FO would have brought back Beasley for the minimum, but he was looking for a slightly more lucrative deal to return for us. Maybe around $5M.

Just emotionally it’s probably a tough pill to swallow to return for the minimum after initially having a $16M option. Milwaukee offers a fresh start and they could only offer the minimum anyway. I’m sure that made him feel a lot more valued than our potential minimum offer.

 

do you trade bamba/beasley for hayes/prince? that's what it boils down to, i think.

one counter is: prince/hayes is 1/5th the cost of bamba/beasley. awesome. but i don't root for jeanie's wallet or rob's ingenuity. and when the clips trade 20 million in dead salary for a guy better than our 6th man in february, this is what i'll think about.

 

Thank you, good riddance!

 

We wouldn't have the MLE if we hadn't declined Beasley and Bamba. So it's more Beasley/Bamba for Vincent/Hayes

I'm fine with it. As Weezy said, we didn't have that much to improve. We went from 13th to WCF in 3 months without a single day to prepare. That's not talked enough. Our big swing was in the trade deadline, now we just improve the margins and we did great with Prince. Then Reddish is a prospect that gives us more size than Lonnie. Agree Vincent and Hayes are lateral moves. So we lost nothing and managed to improve. That's great

In 2021 season we had:

Westbrook, Reaves
Bradley, Ellington, Bazemore
Monk, Stan, Ariza
LeBron, Melo
AD, Howard, Jordan

We now have:

Dlo, Vincent
Reaves, Max
Lebron, Prince, Reddish
Vando, Rui
AD, Hayes

That's a HUGE improvement. Only 1 player from the 10 who are no longer in the roster would crack the rotation. 9 improvements in 2 seasons.

 

I don’t know why this all bothers you so much. It’s clear Lillard has been more loyal than the average star, but it’s come to a closing point for both sides.

 

i think you should know by now that stories interest me. and this is just a completely false story. i don't see how he's been more loyal than anyone. he's said he's more loyal. he had a chance to prove it, and he demanded a trade to miami. fine. but he's not loyal. loyalty is, as an erstwhile colleague of mine would have said, a perfect duty. meaning once you act contrary to it, the whole thing is gone. there isn't gray area.

and this is ok! why should he be loyal to his employer? they pay him money to play basketball well, and he plays basketball well. i just can't abide this narrative that he's been done dirty or that he tried all he could to persevere or whatever. not true. he's not dirk.

 

I mean we are in a league where Harden asked for a trade 3 years in a row. Durant is constantly moving. Kyrie has a meme about it. PG asked for a trade the year after a max extension. LeBron made a whole TV show to choose other franchise than the one who drafted him from his hometown.

If anything, Dame is a legend in that regard lol

That doesn't mean this is being well dealt with. Everyone would have understood if he asked out after Portland got the #3 pick or at least for sure after drafting Scoot. For sure there wasn't worse timing than 36h into FA after giving 5/160 to Grant and missing all FAs/trades/salary dumps.
Portland could have traded him, clean the roster and payroll and start over.
They have been saying they want to compete though, so we'll see

 

I actually would boil it down to: Is it worth getting rid of Beasley/Bamba for Gabe Vincent? Knowing that keeping Beasley/Bamba would also price you out of retaining Schröder?

Because without the MLE, you could still get Prince at similar price using TPMLE instead of BAE. And still get Hayes/Reddish for minimums.

Although maybe you would need to pivot, NOT get Prince, and instead use the TPMLE on a PG on a lower tier than Vincent. But you’ve still also been priced out of retaining Troy Brown, so now you’d have to actually rely on Reddish to be in the rotation as you’re back-up 3. Looking at Sportrac, PG’s that have signed for around TPMLE range: Reggie Jackson, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Patrick Beverley, Cory Joseph.

Not exactly a great crop of players, so maybe you DO still sign Prince with TPMLE. But instead go diving through the bargain bin even further for your back-up PG, maybe even rely on JHS to fill that role.

All of those roster construction thought exercises are a LOT more bleak than what we actually pulled off IMO

 

maybe you and sven are speaking a different language than i am. sure, relative to harden, durant, and kryie, he doesn't look that bad. but that's damning with faint praise, imo. he was supposed to be the one that was different, and he is not.

i'm sure both sides will come out with competing stories in the coming weeks and months (dame's side is obviously working overtime already), but we do have some facts that haven't been disputed, namely that lillard a) requested a trade and b) named only one desired destination.

i'm not trying to say portland's management is great and without fault, either.

 

The question though is, was this the "plan" they told Dame, that they were pursuing?

He came out before the draft, talking about waiting to see, if the team improved after the draft, and free agency. Do YOU think that they haven't gotten any better?

It's really hard for me to believe, that the Trailblazers, weren't already in on committing to Grant, back when Dame made those comments. Maybe he feels like he was mislead, IDK.

 

Well, think about all the stupid things that are said about the Lakers and our players. Media is just full of poop.

 

Loyalty only goes so far and loyalty absolutely demands reciprocity. Would you say that Kobe was loyal to the Lakers? I would and even he demanded a trade when things were not being run correctly. Anyone who gives their FO a chance to make things right has been loyal. When they finally grow tired of the ineptitude, it is hard for me to blame them.

 

Looks like the Suns had a plan..let's see if it works.

Follow live free-agency news and analysis from our entire NBA staff, and sign up for The Bounce to get basketball content delivered straight to your inbox.

How do you win in NBA free agency without any money? The Phoenix Suns may have just found a way, one that has eerie echoes of the 2021-22 Golden State Warriors team that rode a series of astute minimum contract signings (Otto Porter Jr. and Gary Payton II) to help the Splash Brothers win a fourth ring.

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Can the Suns give us a desert version of that? It seems possible after some of the best minimum contract work in memory, a haul that could make even the Warriors’ summer 2021 group pale in comparison. The Suns agreed to deals with seven players on minimum (or essentially minimum) contracts in the first 48 hours of free agency, and what stood out about the signings was that they were of a much higher quality than usually seen at this pay grade.

It stands out for another reason too — usually a top-heavy team with name-brand veteran stars like Phoenix fills out the roster with decrepit veterans. The Suns, for whatever reason, were able to completely resist the lure of adding washed-up 35-year-olds and instead built one of the league’s best benches despite cap restrictions that left them with little spending money. (Because Phoenix is over the second tax apron, the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement permitted the Suns to agree to only minimum contracts for outside free agents.)

Partly, the Suns did this by dangling the prospect of the Bruce Brown experience: Come to us, get a lot of minutes in important TV games, become a household name and profit. Five of the seven also get the security of a second-year player option for 2024-25 if things don’t go well.

The Suns’ front office was paying attention to the NBA this year, even in some of its more unwatchable corners. Whatever you think of its college scouting, Phoenix’s free-agent class includes some deep cuts.

The names: Eric Gordon, Yuta Watanabe, Keita Bates-Diop, Drew Eubanks, Damion Lee, Chimezie Metu and Josh Okogie are all on minimum deals.

(Pedantic side note: Okogie and Lee may have technically received a 20 percent raise on their minimum contracts from the previous year as “non-Bird” free agents returning to the Suns and thus not technically count as “minimum” contracts. Functionally, it’s about a $30,000 difference.)

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Gordon is the biggest name here, but I’m not sure he’s the biggest catch. The 34-year-old sharpshooter will likely help on the right nights and could add a jolt of floor spacing in the playoffs, but the Suns have two better players at the same position. Nonetheless, the Suns won here on value: He’ll go on their cap at $3.2 million, and I had a BORD$ value of $6 million for him.

Yet that might be one of the Suns’ smaller-value victories. The big payoff could come with the signing of Bates-Diop, who toiled in obscurity in San Antonio for the last three seasons but who fits the profile of a guy who can help in the playoffs: a crafty 6-foot-8 player who shoots 3-pointers just well enough to keep defenses honest and can guard multiple positions.


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Kudos to James Jones and the Phoenix front office for paying attention to Spurs games. BORD$ had a $9 million valuation on Bates-Diop, but in a flooded power forward market, he never gained much traction. He could end up starting playoff games, or, more importantly, finishing them. Even with the Spurs rebuilding, it’s a bit surprising they let him walk without a fight.

Eubanks was another coup, an energetic rim-running backup five who is a much better rim protector and defender than the guy he replaced (Jock Landale) and somehow is on the books for $2.3 million for the Suns while Landale is getting $32 million over four years from Houston. I don’t think this move is getting nearly enough attention — in a bad backup center market, the Suns found a very adequate solution at a position that was low-key killing them.

Similarly, the Suns went off the radar to get Watanabe (44.4 percent on 3s in Brooklyn last season) and Metu (who fell out of the mix in Sacramento despite a 17.3 PER in 66 games) and brought back Lee.

Finally, Okogie’s floor-spacing limitations caught up to him in the playoffs, but he also generated a big BORD$ valuation ($9 million) with his defense and energy in the regular season. It may be easier to spot him in lineups that have a lot of shooting. I thought he’d have offers for the taxpayer exception, but instead, the Suns brought him back for peanuts. He’s probably the first choice as the Suns’ defensive “stopper” to begin games, saving miles on Devin Booker and Bradley Beal.

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While we’re here, check out the birth certificates. The Suns didn’t just sign a bunch of old dudes who were good three years ago, as a lot of teams have done in this situation. Okogie is 24, Eubanks and Metu are 26, Bates-Diop is 27, Watanabe is 28 and Lee is 30.

As I noted this spring, Phoenix also did strong work in this area in 2021, helping the team stay afloat during an injury-riddled season. But even that performance pales compared to their work the past few days.

We can’t say the Suns might have “won” free agency just yet — to do that, they need at least one of these guys to be a plus next June – but in terms of value for the dollar, this might be some of the best 48 hours we’ve ever seen. Phoenix maximized its minimums.

Some other teams that came away from the first 48 hours feeling good about themselves:

Lakers
It’s almost as if the destructively bad Russell Westbrook trade with Washington liberated the Lakers from just chasing after shiny objects and allowed them to operate like a real front office. Ever since, it’s been a series of shrewd decisions by L.A., starting with this summer’s choice to not go diving in after Kyrie Irving and instead bringing back most of the roster that went to last season’s Western Conference finals.


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In a bout of unsexy team-building that nonetheless positions L.A. to contend in the West, the Lakers brought back D’Angelo Russell (two years, $35 million), Austin Reaves (four years, $56 million) and Rui Hachimura (three years, $51 million), which was largely expected. They helped themselves by grabbing point guard Gabe Vincent (three years, $33 million) to replace the departed Dennis Schröder and added stretch four Taurean Prince to replace the more offensively limited Troy Brown Jr.

The Lakers also took two shots by agreeing to minimum deals with a second-year player option for Cam Reddish and Jaxson Hayes. In particular, I would keep my eyes on Hayes, who gives them more athletic pop at backup five than they had a year ago.

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One other note: It appears the Lakers set up their contracts to come exactly to the luxury-tax line and no further. If second-round pick Max Lewis signs for the minimum and the Lakers add another backup five on a minimum deal, they would have the required 14 players under contract and be right at the tax line.

Cavaliers
The Cavs’ weaknesses were displayed during their playoff implosion against New York, and Cleveland spent the opening days of free agency addressing them. The hope is that the Cavs added enough shooting that Donovan Mitchell won’t have the Knicks’ entire team waiting for him in the paint on his drives this coming spring.

In particular, Cleveland took advantage of the most permissive trade rules under the new CBA and its considerable wiggle room below the luxury-tax line to engineer a sign-and-trade that turned Cedi Osman into Max Strus. It only cost the Cavs a second-round pick, and Strus’ deal is reasonable (four years, $63 million) for what he gives them. Free agency tends to trend old, but Strus is 27, and the Cavs likely bought the best years of his career.


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For the frontcourt, Cleveland went after Georges Niang, who might not be worth $26 million over three years on some other rosters but could easily justify it on this one. The Cavs’ shot blockers (Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley) ease the concerns over Niang on defense, and he’s a career 40.3 percent shooter from 3. He’ll fill the role left open after the Cavs soured on Kevin Love (oops) and Dean Wade proved wanting.

The Cavs also needed another guard who could provide some offense after Ricky Rubio and Raul Neto failed to provide much juice. It appears they used the leftover piece of their midlevel exception to add Ty Jerome for slightly more than the minimum, thus preventing the over-the-second-apron Warriors from matching. Jerome played on a two-way last season but is a good shooter with an advanced floater game. Just like Niang, his defensive vulnerabilities are lessened by the two fly swatters waiting behind him.

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The Cavs also resisted going overboard to re-sign their own player, Caris LeVert (two years, $32 million is reasonable here), and his deal is now timed to expire at the franchise’s next big pivot point in 2025, when Mitchell could become a free agent and Mobley will be eligible for a max extension. Cleveland also sent $110,000 to Utah for backup big man Damian Jones.

Cleveland still has three open roster spots and will likely fill two of them; the Cavs could still use another forward in the 6-foot-8 range. If they add two veterans at the minimum and waive the non-guaranteed Sam Merrill, the Cavs will enter the year with a $1 million cushion below the tax line.

Finally, some short-attention-span-thoughts on other deals I liked:

Nets
Brooklyn quietly got one of the best values of all of free agency by signing Dennis Smith Jr. for a one-year minimum. I’m amazed the weak backup point guard market didn’t value him more than this after his rebound season in Charlotte; Smith is a poor shooter, but he’s one of the best defensive guards in all of basketball.

Heat
Miami brought back Josh Richardson on a “one plus one” minimum deal that lets him re-enter free agency a year from now. He’s lost some athletic juice since his last tour in Miami, but he’s still great value on a minimum. Richardson is a reliable shooter with some guard skills and can fill some of the minutes vacated by Strus and Vincent.


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Mavericks
Dallas brought Dante Exum back from Europe’s KK Partizan Belgrade after a nearly two-plus-year hiatus; he hasn’t played in the NBA since January 2021. Since then, he figured out how to shoot (38.8 percent from 3, 84.7 percent from the line last season across all competitions); he was one of the best players in Europe last season and will still only be 28 when the season starts. This was a canny pull on a one-year minimum.

The Mavs also got a great value by bringing back Dwight Powell for three years and a mere $12 million, and added shooting with Seth Curry’s return; it appears the Powell deal’s dollars are lined up to keep Dallas just below the apron if it uses its full $12.4 million midlevel exception on another player.

Knicks
New York got a good deal on Donte DiVincenzo and needed another reliable shooting guard for its rotation, but I’m a bit concerned that the Knicks had to jettison Obi Toppin to make it happen. I’ll feel a lot better about this if they can get a decent backup four with their biannual exception, but time’s-a-wasting.

Pacers
Indiana brought in Toppin and Bruce Brown. I mentioned this recently so I won’t belabor the point, but I thought the Pacers had the best week of any of the cap room teams, pending what the final sausage ends up looking like in Houston.

Related reading
Harper’s free-agency grades: Day 1 | Day 2

(Photo of Eric Gordon and Kevin Durant: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)

 

Thought this was hilarious.

Laker fan tweets at Christian Wood telling him he should join the Lakers… and he actually likes the tweet!

Only problem is… it wasn’t the actual NBA player, just some other random dude named Christian Wood

 

The Clippers will get him.

 

I am supremely and monumentally impressed, with what Rob and the front office have done.

Considering over the last couple of seasons stars excluded we were Russel Westbrook and the f*** out of the league all stars.

We have kept a promising core and replaced key weaknesses. I liked Plumtree and would hope we can get Christian Woods. I accept that the he is likely to be Clipper bound.

9 out of 10 Robs would recommend.