These Are The Big Winners And Losers After The First Weekend Of NBA Free Agency

The NBA’s free agency period began on Saturday at midnight. As usual, it’s been a joy to follow — players have been moving constantly, and with every passing hour, it seems more and more like the Western Conference is going to be so loaded that multiple teams with winning records are going to miss the postseason. As for the Eastern Conference, well, LeBron is still there!

The entire debate on conferences and whether we should get rid of them (we absolutely should) aside, there have been a number of defined winners and losers through the first two days of free agency. We decided to pick out the three teams/players who were the biggest winners, and the three that have come out with egg on their faces thus far.

Winners

3. The Clippers

After trading Chris Paul and with J.J. Redick already announcing that he wasn’t going to re-sign with the team, the Clippers ultimately had to decide whether they wanted to blow it all up or build around Blake Griffin. They chose the latter, which is a solid strategy, but one that could have backfired if Griffin decided to leave Los Angeles.

We knew that Griffin was going to opt out of his contract, and we knew that the Clippers were going to do everything in their power to bring him back. Were the methods they used to bring him back, um, conventional or in good taste? Absolutely not. But it all worked out, so really, they get the last laugh at the end of the day.

With Paul gone, the Clippers — in an attempt to stay relevant in town, especially with the Lakers looking like they’re going to make a serious run at some huge names next offseason — needed a cornerstone, a face of the franchise who could possibly attract talent to keep up in the never-ending Western Conference arms race. They rolled the dice on Griffin being that guy, and their gamble worked.

Sure, the Clippers don’t have Paul or Redick anymore, but they do have more depth thanks to the Paul trade, while has the potential to be a good (because depth) or bad (because they lost Chris Paul) thing. They also have a superstar to build around in Griffin, which makes them a winner in free agency so far.
2. The Sixers

Sometimes, doing the things that help you the most in the short-term is a really smart decision. Philadelphia managed to make a pair of intriguing short-term moves — signing J.J. Redick and Amir Johnson — that can help the team a ton in the long-term.

Bringing Johnson on board is the classic “bring in a veteran to mentor the young guys and play every now and then” move. He’s a solid player who will provide toughness and take the Sixers’ young big men of Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Dario Saric under his wing. He’s also on a low-risk one-year deal. That’s all easy enough.

Redick fills a far more important role as the team’s shooter and veteran presence in the starting lineup. He is in line to get a ton of open looks. And thanks to the fact that he’s going to make a ton of money, Philadelphia managed to bring Redick in on a one-year deal.

Neither of these deals will help the Sixers win a title or anything, but they should help the team make a big step forward this year while giving them a ton of flexibility next offseason. Not bad.

1. Steph Curry

Listen, the Warriors are in super ultra tax hell and it’s only going to get worse over the next few years as they have to pay Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. The checks that Joe Lacob and co. will have to write to the league are so cartoonishly large that they may be delivered via those massive prop checks that they use on game shows and at car dealerships. Seriously, look at how brutal this is.

Of course, you can argue that this is all worth it, because the Warriors have made the last three NBA Finals in a row, won two rings, and are easily the best team in the NBA. The squad’s value in February of this year, according to Forbes, was $2.6 billion. This is a massive investment, but it will probably be worth it if the team keeps winning.

With all of this as a caveat, how can the biggest winner of free agency’s first weekend be anyone other than Curry? He is literally the most highly-paid basketball player ever. He’s staying in the Bay, where he has reached a god-like status, and will probably win one more ring there at the bare minimum. Seriously, how can anyone say they’ve had a better three days than Curry?

Losers

3. The Pacers

The Pacers did the one thing they absolutely had to do — they went out and got something back for Paul George.

That’s kind of where the praise stops. Instead of building towards the future and blowing it all up, the Pacers somehow took on a player who is more expensive than George in Victor Oladipo and a decent young big man in Domantas Sabonis. That’s it. There were no draft picks or anything else, just the package that Oklahoma City got in return for Serge Ibaka.

A mix of impatience by Indiana and poor decision making by other teams (which we’ll get to later) led to the the Pacers giving up one of the 10-15 best basketball players alive for nowhere near enough. But hey, Oladipo was really good in college at Indiana University, so his bobblehead night is going to go over really well.

2. Dan Gilbert

This is the biggest offseason of Gilbert’s tenure in charge of the Cavaliers. His team got swept in the most gentlemanly of ways during the Finals, and it was obvious that Cleveland has to do something to make it so the team doesn’t become the NBA’s version of the early-90s Buffalo Bills. (Well, save for the fact that they did get one ring – but the point remains.)

Oh, he also has to make sure that he does everything in his power so that LeBron James doesn’t leave next offseason, which seems like a very real possibility right now. Instead, he decided to not pay his general manager — someone who LeBron loves and helped put together a team that won a ring — and is currently operating without a full-time general manager, partly because a former player with no front office experience in Chauncey Billups is still deciding whether he wants to take the job – (spoiler alert: he doesn’t).

And on top of all of this, the only moves the Cavs have made this offseason have been bringing in Jose Calderon on a cheap deal and signing Kyle Korver in a move that makes their tax bill crazy. Neither of these moves help Cleveland beat Golden State.

Gilbert is getting perilously close to losing the best basketball player alive for the second time as an owner. You would think that this fact would weigh on his mind and dictate everything he does this offseason, but thus far, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
1. Boston

To the credit of Danny Ainge and Boston’s front office, the team appeared to have a plan coming into free agency. If you believe the reports out there, it went like this:

1. Sign Gordon Hayward and tell him that once he signs, they are trading for Paul George.
2. With Hayward in tow, go acquire Paul George.

This is an alright plan, but it would have put the team in a weird scenario if, say, the Pacers were desperate to move George before free agency opened and they took a lesser deal for him. Good thing that didn’t happen or anything!

So Part 2 of the plan got thrown out the window. That’s bad, but it’s the Celtics, and maybe one day Ainge will decide to finally pull the trigger and make a move for a superstar. At least Part 1 is still on the table, even if it sounds like Hayward really liked what Pat Riley had to say in Miami and there’s a legitimate battle to obtain his services, partly because a big part of the Celtics’ pitch got messed up by the Pacers.

Still, so much of what Boston has been ruined by their own passivity. They could have had Markelle Fultz, but they thought it was better to move back in the draft for some reason. They could have had George, but decided to take things slow and open the window for another team to come in with an offer that they could have absolutely topped. And if they lose out on Hayward, there’s a good chance that you can look back on at least the George move as a reason why.

With how the East is shaping up to be really bad and very winnable as soon as the 2018-19 season, you’d think that Boston would want to do everything in its power to make sure it’s ready to pounce. Things can change if they get Hayward or if Ainge finally gets to a point where he’s ready to trade for something, but for now, the Celtics’ decision to play a completely unnecessary long game is not encouraging.