SPENDING SPREE A SIGN OF TIMES
High-profile free agents such as Gordon Hayward, Kyle Lowry, Blake Griffin and Paul Millsap will have plenty of suitors when negotiations begin. »
MIAMI» Drama is never in short supply during NBA free agency. This year will be no exception. Case in point: A Utah fan has been lobbying Gordon Hayward to stay with the Jazz, citing a story this week about how the Massachusetts Legislature is aiming to raise taxes on those who make more than $1 million a year. That fan happens to be U.S. Congressional hopeful Tanner Ainge, the son of Boston Celtics president Danny Ainge.
So even family ties get crossed during free agency, which starts at 10:01 p.m. MDT on Friday, the moment when players such as Hayward, Kyle Lowry, Blake Griffin, Paul Millsap and many more can start officially taking meetings and hearing pitches that will ultimately help them decide where to play next season.
“You never know what’s going to happen in free agency,” Miami Heat president Pat Riley said. “We’ll see what happens on July the 1st. It’s always a pretty exciting time.”
With Chris Paul already traded to Houston, and because free agentsto-be Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry are widely believed as locks to stay with NBA champion Golden State, Hayward could be considered the top available player in free agency. He will meet Saturday with the Heat, a team that will have about $35 million to spend once it officially parts ways with Chris Bosh and gets relief from the remainder of his contract.
No deals can be executed until July 6 — but it’s likely that agreements adding up to $2 billion or more will be in place when the moratorium ends. Everyone is chasing Golden State, and Houston has fired the first big salvo.
“We’re going all in,” Houston general manager Daryl Morey said.
That’s evident, given how the Rockets pulled off a series of six trades to acquire Paul from the Los Angeles Clippers this week. Houston is looking to add even more firepower to pair with Paul and MVP runner-up James Harden, potentially by getting Paul George (who has told Indiana he will play elsewhere in 2018, if not before).
There’s so much money out there to spend, thanks to the salary structure that skyrocketed when the league’s $24 billion television deal began filling the NBA coffers. It led to some huge, eye-raising deals last summer — and teams might be more cautious this summer.
“Some of the contracts were sort of out of whack,” Riley said. “I don’t know if you’re going to see that this year. I’d be surprised, because from my experience with talking to a number of teams this year, those contracts are already trying to be dumped. There might be a little bit more discipline in how teams go about that whole process.”