Situated between the end of pre-Draft workouts and summer league, NBA free agency is a whole different playing field. Teams scour the market for talent that will give them an edge, and agents replace coaches as offseason tacticians scheming to get their clients into position to score exorbitant amounts of money.
This summer, teams have been uncharacteristically restrained in their pursuit of free agents: The salary cap stagnating at 101.869 million had something to do with that. Alternatively, a projected spike to $109 million in 2019 has convinced 2018 free agents to play a game of chicken with their careers this season.
Very important information buried in the NBA’s salary cap memo sent to teams: projection for 2019-20 cap up to $109 million, and then $116 million for 2020-21. Cap is set at $101.9M for upcoming 2018-19 season.
— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) July 1, 2018
As a consequence, next season may feature more players on “contract years” than at any point in time before. In light of Boogie Cousins’ devastating achilles injury and current predicament, eschewing long-term security is a precarious position to be in. But it’s a risk many are willing to take.
Whereas Chris Paul, Nikola Jokic and Devin Booker chose financial security, Kevin Durant left open the possibility of re-evaluating his options in 2019 by agreeing to another 2-year, $61 million contract, with an opt-out clause. All indications are that he loves the Bay Area and collecting rings, but the nature of these escape hatch contracts makes the Warriors dynasty seem like it’s sitting on thinner ice than it should be.
The 2018 free agency period has also featured more twists than usual. It goes without saying that the most significant acquisitions were Paul George, DeMarcus Cousins and LeBron James.
