Free Agency Frenzy Thread

Swedgin

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If my understanding is correct, the Lakers weren't allowed to pay Caruso that much due to cap rules, not because they chose not to bring him back.

Agree with the rest of the post, though.
Pretty sure Caruso was strictly about the dollars the owner's were not willing to pay. Unless there is a sign and trade I missed, they are not hard capped.

EDIT: Apologies this was covered up thread (and had not loaded). Did not mean to pile on.
 

bigq

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Dunno if this was an intentional pun, but ... :)

Definition of canter (Entry 3 of 3)
1: a 3-beat gait resembling but smoother and slower than the gallop

Examples of canter in a Sentence
Verb The horses cantered across the grass.
This is outstanding and a perfect analogy.
 

Cellar-Door

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If you're Tatum you say "Oh this is the best chance for me to play with my buddy another star who I've been wanting to play with for years? Sounds good to me" Doubt he'd be too thrilled if signing Gay or Green or whoever cost them Beal
Except reasonable minds can differ on what is necessary to get him Beal. And more importantly the original threat this came from was the idea that player like Tatum are fine with staying under the tax for multiple years to save money. The Celtics have a number of ways to go over the tax while still setting up options to sign Beal next year (trading Horford for example, might be pricey, but you could swap him out of more money this year but less next, actually making it easier for you to sign Beal without losing as many long term assets, AND maybe improving this year's team).

It's all hypothetical, but the general point is, players of Tatum's caliber don't want to feel like the team is wasting a year of their prime over the billionaire owner's tax bill, especially when they just last year had a re-set year where they didn't aggressively pursue big money assets and moved depth because they wanted to re-set the tax

The idea that creating the ability to renounce everyone and sign Beal next year and not spending into the tax are necessarily one and the same is not accurate. Tatum could very well say,,, "sure do what you can to get me Beal, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't spend this year too"

6-8 team trade, that won't fall apart.
Might, but more likely it's just tying 2 or 3 existing pending trades together, so it really only take 1 or 2 teams to do it not all 6 or 8.
 

Swedgin

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Anyone know of a good public resource which tracks/estimates which teams still have their MLE/or mini-MLE available, based on the reported signings?
 

Cellar-Door

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Anyone know of a good public resource which tracks/estimates which teams still have their MLE/or mini-MLE available, based on the reported signings?
Keith Smith's twitter honestly, he gets it up before it goes to spotrac (where he works now) which is usually the best publicly available site for contracts at the moment.
 

JM3

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Beal to Celtics is going to be a nice tertiary aspect of the Dinwiddie 7-team s&t.
 

ggreene

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I like Kanter. He can put up good rebound and scoring numbers in short minutes. That said, given Horfords and RWilliams durability issues, he may get more time then a lot are expecting.
 

Lazy vs Crazy

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Feel like Fournier plus picks would have been the best way to get Beal, if he indeed is requesting a trade now
Yeah, salary matching is going to be very hard on this. The Celtics would have to send 5 or so players unless Al is going.
 

Cellar-Door

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Feel like Fournier plus picks would have been the best way to get Beal, if he indeed is requesting a trade now
I think it's what it's always been.... picks and filler. Maybe Marcus Smart or TL.
And from the Celtics' end, they're fine with that because if you get adn extend Beal you can't afford both Smart and TL (maybe can't afford either).
 

Eddie Jurak

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If you have Brown, Tatum, and Beal, you probably also have your pick of vet minumum guys. (Although not this year because so many of them have signed).
 

Cellar-Door

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If you have Brown, Tatum, and Beal, you probably also have your pick of vet minumum guys. (Although not this year because so many of them have signed).
Do you? I doubt it.
BOS with Smart/Tatum/Brown is unlikely to be more attractive than LAL/BKN at the least, many will still prefer MIA/GS/LAC, etc. I don't think Tatum and Beal are the draws for Ring chasing vets people think they are. Certainly not in the league of established superstars like LeBron, Durant, Curry etc.
 

JM3

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Above & beyond Fournier not having any interest in that, I can't see him on a long-term deal being something appealing to what should be a rebuilding Wizards team at that point.
 

cheech13

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Kawhi still being unsigned is really fishy.
It was a really strange decision to opt out. If he wanted to stay he could have just picked up the option and signed a max extension. It also would have allowed LAC to claim a disabled player exception to pick up another piece. The opt out was bad for him and the team. Not sure the end game.
 

HomeRunBaker

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It was a really strange decision to opt out. If he wanted to stay he could have just picked up the option and signed a max extension. It also would have allowed LAC to claim a disabled player exception to pick up another piece. The opt out was bad for him and the team. Not sure the end game.
The end game will be him signing a monster contract with the Clippers. I just think @ElUno20 is bored as shit right now to be worried about this. It was a no-brainer for him to opt-out and sign for a ton more guarantees dollars now IMO. What purpose does waiting serve him?
 

JM3

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The other option is to try to hold the Clippers completely & fully hostage & try to force them into doing a 1+1 with a player option & pay him a ridiculous ton of $ not to play next year :)
 

HomeRunBaker

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The other option is to try to hold the Clippers completely & fully hostage & try to force them into doing a 1+1 with a player option & pay him a ridiculous ton of $ not to play next year :)
Yup that’s another reason. My point was that there is no benefit to stay in the current deal and not be proactive instead.
 

Cellar-Door

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That's a "Brad please don't leave, look at this fine assortment for below average players we got you" trade
 

JakeRae

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Yeah, salary matching is going to be very hard on this. The Celtics would have to send 5 or so players unless Al is going.
Any deal before the Knicks finish can be a sign and trade involving Fournier. Someone tosses them a second or two for helping out, they lose nothing by taking the deal into cap space and send out a vanishing 2nd to make it all valid. We could also use Thompson part of this to build up the salary a bit. If you can get everyone involved to wait until August 9th, we can even use Richardson as salary instead of Smart. There’s a lot of coordination to make that work, but there are ways to do this without including Smart or Horford. Excluding the latter and using Fournier also makes a trade easier for Washington since they don’t have to take back any bad salary.

In other words, it’s important to remember that Fournier has agreed to a contract but hasn’t signed it yet and we can still potentially use him as outgoing salary if something gets worked out quickly. I wouldn’t bet on that outcome, but it is a possibility.
 

cheech13

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WAS does super well for themselves. Gives up Westbrook and gets4 decent to good players in Dinwiddie, Harrell, Kuzma, Holliday
The fact that they started with John Wall, perhaps the worst contract in all of basketball, and a year later ended up with multiple rotation pieces that complement their star, is really impressive. They haven’t hit a home run yet, but they’ve strung together a couple singles.
 

Sam Ray Not

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He is 34, tho. 2/$20M seems about right to me for the age 34 and 35 seasons of a pure 3 & D guy, even if one of the best in that category. Would have loved him at the MLE even given my completely irrational hatred of him for derailing Klay's career...
 

Swedgin

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The recent canard of Shams/Woj reporting deals with the "up to" qualifier has made this NBA free agency season feel more like the NFL. The Chris Paul deal went from insane to completely reasonable with a team option for the 4th year and a partial guaranty on the 3rd.

Any credible buzz on Schroder? I assume he wants to get out on the market again next year after the debacle of turning down that extension. So he should be prioritizing an opportunity to rebuild his value. The Celtics can offer playing time at lead guard. One year at the MLE?
 

Kliq

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The fact that they started with John Wall, perhaps the worst contract in all of basketball, and a year later ended up with multiple rotation pieces that complement their star, is really impressive. They haven’t hit a home run yet, but they’ve strung together a couple singles.
It really turned on Westbrook playing well down the stretch last season. When they swapped Wall for Westbrook, it was swapping one bad contract for another. But Westbrook played well so his contract wasn't THAT bad, and the Lakers were desperate enough to feel like they needed a third star, so they got off the Westbrook deal without having to take a bad contract back. On top of that, they managed to have a reasonably entertaining season last year that gave their fanbase something to cheer for, instead of being a miserable lottery team.

Unfortunately, the outlook still feels bleak. I don't think Beal is sticking around and without him, you have role players of varying skill levels and I think they are going to have to go full rebuild and start from scratch. They need a lot more out of Avdija; the only young player I really like on the team is Hachimura and that is in more of a 4-5 best player on a good team kind of way.
 

terrynever

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He is 34, tho. 2/$20M seems about right to me for the age 34 and 35 seasons of a pure 3 & D guy, even if one of the best in that category. Would have loved him at the MLE even given my completely irrational hatred of him for derailing Klay's career...
Philly can opt out of second season by July 1, 2022.
 

cheech13

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Kind of like what the Hornets have done the past two offseasons. It be all hinges on LaMelo and his development but they are surrounding him with good wings and competent bigs. They’ll need another All-Star at some point but at least they are on the right trajectory after years of purgatory.