NBA free agency is one of the most anticipated events on the league’s calendar, yet in only a single weekend, it’s all but concluded. Oh, the league still has plenty of business left to conduct this offseason (we’re looking at you, Damian Lillard), but in just three days, most of the league’s major free agents have already inked new deals. Whether it’s the result of tampering or the desperation that tends to arise out of limited supply meeting unlimited demand, the meaningful portion of free agency usually concludes within a few days.
It certainly has this year. There are still rotation players available on the fringes, but we now have a general sense of how most of the NBA’s 30 teams will look next season. So with that in mind, let’s grade all 30 NBA teams on how they’ve done so far in free agency. For the sake of fairness, we are treating “free agency” as all moves made between Friday, June 23 and Sunday, July 2, as most post-draft moves complement a team’s free agency ambitions. Also, keep in mind that we are grading based on what was realistically available to each team. The standard is higher for those with max cap space than those that were working with only minimum salary slots. Let’s get rolling.
Atlanta has been relatively quiet on the free agent front, but they’ve made a few clever trades in the post-draft period. Getting off the ugly John Collins contract without taking on long-term money is a major win. Not only does it save the Hawks money, but it opens up more playing time for the ascending Onyeka Okongwu. On Saturday, the Hawks took on former Rockets first-round picks Usman Garuba and TyTy Washington in a cap dump. If you liked those players before the draft, you should still like them now. The Rockets were an unusually dysfunctional environment for young players, and now the Hawks should provide a more stable environment. They didn’t drastically improve their team, but the Hawks made some smart moves on the margins that could pay major dividends.
For now, we can’t properly grade the Celtics. We need to see how the Grant…
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