From the article:
I’m old enough to remember when cap space meant something, when the words “max room” were enough to get your team’s fans titillated about the possibility of All-NBA superstars striding onto the court for the home squad the next season.
At the very least, there was the momentary excitement of being in the game, right? Just being one of the teams picked to have a July 1 meeting in some beachfront hideaway felt special.
Now? We only had one All-Star change teams this summer in free agency — one-time All-Star Fred VanVleet. Only two players — Kyrie Irving and VanVleet — got the max. James Harden, a Hall of Fame player who scored 42 points in a road playoff game six weeks ago, generated so little interest that he opted into the final year of his deal. So did Kristaps Porziņģis, for that matter.
It wasn’t for a lack of money sloshing around. Eight teams entered the offseason with max or near-max money to spend in free agency: Detroit, Houston, Indiana, Orlando, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, San Antonio and Utah. Three others (Charlotte, Washington and the Lakers) also could have jumped in if they wished by renouncing their own free agents. That’s more than a third of the league! While several of those teams were rebuilding, they also had ambitions of taking large steps forward this summer.
And yet the net result of all that cap space was one truly jarring free-agent move (VanVleet to Houston), followed by … some stuff. Let’s just say when the word “max cap space” came up this spring, Detroit fans weren’t imagining Joe Harris.
I must emphasize what a change this represents.
As recently as 2019, seven All-Stars changed teams in free agency in a single summer. Kawhi Leonard jumped from the Raptors to the Clippers with cap space. Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving did the rare and spectacular “double max” to team up in Brooklyn. Kemba Walker left Charlotte for Boston’s cap space. Jimmy Butler left Philly, although not into cap space, but once he did the Sixers had enough room to sign Al Horford away from Boston and into the void. D’Angelo Russell may not be your idea of an All-Star, but the was the seventh when he left the Nets as the outbound part of a sign-and-trade for Durant.
The initial instinct is to blame the Big Bad New CBA for this, but the actual culprit is the last CBA. The loosened restrictions on contract extensions and, especially, the arrival of the supermax extension, have massively reduced the pool of star talent that ever hits free agency in the first place. That summer of 2019 — which also featured Paul George, Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook getting traded — was sort of a last gasp for the old-world model of free agency.
With that in mind, take a look at what our friends with cap space have done this summer. I get that we’re not quite done yet, and in particular a couple of restricted free agents remain on the market and could receive offer sheets. Nonetheless, there isn’t a player in that group who could hold a candle to our class of 2019, so I think the point will hold regardless.
• Houston was the only team that pursued the “old model,” launching into a feeding frenzy that saw the Rockets sign VanVleet, Dillon Brooks and Jeff Green while trading three former first-round picks. Everyone else went a different direction.
• Detroit, with near-max room and clear marching orders to improve, turned its nearly $30 million in cap room into Harris and Monte Morris while netting one second-round pick.
• Oklahoma City had even more room than Detroit; the Thunder used it to A) pay $33 million to move up two spots in the draft by taking on Davis Bertans, B) take on a second-round pick for Victor Oladipo, and C) sign Vasa Micic to a contract that would fit in the room exception if they ever actually used the rest of their cap space.
• Indiana turned its cap room into a short-term overpay on Bruce Brown — at least this one had some on-court oomph — and a trade for Obi Toppin. We’ll talk more about the Brown deal in a minute.
• Orlando would have had to waive players such as Gary Harris or Markelle Fultz to have max room and opted not to; even so, the Magic’s only real move was filling the space with Joe Ingles for a year.
• Sacramento broke new ground by using cap space to overpay its own player rather than somebody else’s, with a $217 million renegotiate-and-extend for Domantas Sabonis that I would describe as, um, player-friendly.
• San Antonio volunteered itself as a dumping ground for Cedi Osman and maintains significant cap room to absorb whatever flotsam the inevitable trades of James Harden and Damian Lillard produce.
• Utah used the bulk of its room to take on somebody else’s problem contract, turning Rudy Gay into John Collins. The Jazz still have enough room left to renegotiate-and-extend Jordan Clarkson or take on another bad contract.
• Charlotte and Washington could have entered the fray but never really had any stomach for jumping in. The Wizards somewhat oddly opted to (over)pay Kyle Kuzma; the Hornets’ situation is still unclear pending restricted free agents P.J. Washington and Miles Bridges, but they haven’t been a player in unrestricted free agency thus far.
• Even the Lakers — the Lakers, people, the free-agent destination par excellence for decades now – took one look at the options and decided “Nah, we’re good.”
So, in the aggregate, $30 million or so in cap room gets you … a couple of seconds? That’s it???
It seems things really have changed. You’re just not getting an elite player for free anymore; teams have become too savvy and extending players has become too easy. On the flip side, nobody is foolish enough to just spend the money on randoms because they have the money; Deng-Mozgov summers are likely a thing of the past.
In fact, the smartest plays I’ve seen on the board have come from teams such as Orlando and Indiana, who have adopted something of a hybrid strategy by essentially turning their cap room into both a useful player and a trade exception.
Bruce Brown is overpaid at $45 million over two years, but with a second-year team option he basically operates as a trade exception. If any deal comes up to get the Pacers a truly difference-making player, they have the large expiring deal they need …and that’s true at any point in the next two years if they pick up the option. In the meantime, they landed a genuinely useful player to help in the backcourt; this is way higher up the food chain than absorbing a salary dump.
Orlando had a similar concept with half the money; Ingles isn’t on Brown’s level, but having his deal on the books lets the Magic quickly pivot if a trade opportunity presents itself.
For teams like the Magic and Pacers that are still figuring out what they have, I thought this was a particularly clever use of their cap room, and I was a bit surprised more teams didn’t go for the short-term overpay as a means of rolling over cap space.
One thing is for sure: Cap space isn’t cool anymore. The dream of an All-Star free-agent signing is impossible if none of them ever become free agents in the first place. As a result, teams will need to think a lot more strategically about what max-type cap room even means anymore, and what options are truly viable for franchises in that position. Many of them got 50 cents on their cap room dollar this year, and with so few genuine stars hitting free agency, I’m not sure the ROI is going to improve much in coming seasons.
