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Nine summers ago, Kevin Durant acted as the center of the NBA universe in the Hamptons.
Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala flew out to make their best pitch to the 7-foot superstar. Tom Brady joined Boston’s recruiting contingent. The incumbent Thunder tried to secure a second meeting in the Hamptons.
The scene was wacky, compelling, and all-encompassing. It was more reality TV than Synergy, with Durant as the main character holding court in the beachy peninsula as paparazzi hid in bushes.
Contrast that drama with this free agency cycle — the summer of Deandre Ayton Watch and the possible will-he-won’t-he ask out questions surrounding 40-year-old LeBron James.
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This summer, under the collective bargaining agreement the league has finally wrapped its head around, free agency has been a dud. The best free agents to change teams have been Myles Turner, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Dorian Finney-Smith – a trio of players who have a combined zero All-Star selections.
Although the Warriors are one of just two teams yet to strike a deal, they’re not alone in relative inactivity. The new collective bargaining agreement has sapped the hype out of the free agency period, putting more of an emphasis on trades and contract extensions. In the punitive apron system, money has dried up and so has the free agency frenzy associated with it.
It’s not that the NBA has a player movement problem. In the past six months, Luka Doncic was traded to the Lakers, the Rockets traded for Kevin Durant, the Warriors swung their blockbuster for Jimmy Butler. It’s that what used to be a summer event — free agency — is suddenly defined by inertia.
Supply and demand are symbiotic when it comes to free agency. There aren’t any superstars hitting free agency because there aren’t any teams with cap space to pay them (besides Brooklyn). Teams didn’t bother to clear cap space because they weren’t any superstars hitting the open market. It’s causation more than correlation.
But this summer doesn’t feel like a one-off, and that’s because of the collective bargaining agreement.
Too afraid of big-spenders such as Joe Lacob and the Clippers’ Steve Ballmer, NBA owners negotiated what is now effectively a hard cap to protect themselves from overspending. The players association, either misunderstanding the agreement or prioritizing the top-level stars who stood to benefit from the new system, obliged.
“Teams are very hesitant to really do anything that pushes them into second apron territory,” cap expert Kevyn Kovesdy told The Standard. “I think people are valuing their cap space, they’re valuing their flexibility, and there’s a lot less margin for error.”
Who is the CBA for? Well, besides owners (especially small-market ones), the league’s best players are going to be just fine. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander inked a four-year contract extension that will earn him an average of $71 million per year. In the next ten years, there will be players making $100 million annually.
Who’s it not for? Aspiring dynasties. Look at the Celtics, who did everything right by drafting a pair of stars and making shrewd moves to flesh out their roster around them. Spooked by the second apron penalties, they had to blow up their team to shed salary and take a gap year as Jayson Tatum rehabs his torn achilles.
Building superteams is still possible. Keeping them is another story.
It’s also apparently not great for Warriors wing Jonathan Kuminga.
In a more typical year, Kuminga would be one of the more sought-after free agents. Take or leave his game, he’s only 22 years old and showed the ability to score at an elite level against a top defense in the playoffs. Teams would normally be lining up to give him some sort of offer sheet.
Instead, the Nets are the only team capable of making him an offer sheet, and they’re apparently uninterested. Without teams competing for Kuminga’s services and driving up his price, he loses leverage in negotiations with Golden State.
Kuminga could have extended with the Warriors before last season on a multi-year deal worth between $20 and $30 million annually. Now, in such a cool market, there’s a non-zero chance he ends up picking up the $7.9 million qualifying offer.
The other avenue forward for Kuminga would be a sign-and-trade. But that would require a team enamored of Kuminga enough to both pay him and send the Warriors a return they’d deem enticing enough to part with the young wing. It’d also likely demand additional teams willing to involve themselves as facilitators because certain CBA mechanisms create a complicated trade environment in particular for restricted free agents.
A free agent who normally would have enjoyed a bidding war for his services has watched a staring contest develop instead.
Kuminga isn’t an outlier, proving that the system is starting to look a bit rigged against free agents. The other top restricted free agents on the market — Josh Giddey, Cam Thomas, and Quentin Grimes — appear to be in the same holding pattern as Kuminga since the negotiating window opened up on June 30.
This is what happens when teams are more cautious about spending than ever.
Free agency used to be magic in the Hamptons. This summer, it’s dull in the doldrums.