Decision day arrived for DeAndre Jordan, and he chose the Dallas Mavericks. That left the rest of the NBA waiting on LaMarcus Aldridge to make up his mind. George Karl, Vlade Divac and Vivek Ranadive also made a decision to roll the dice on a one-year deal with Rajon Rondo. Nobody’s star has fallen quite as far as Rondo’s. Just six months ago, he was the prized acquisition of the Dallas Mavericks. Then, before the Mavs were even finished being eliminated from the playoffs,
It was a day unlike anything the NBA had ever seen before. It was like “Make it Rain” night at a strip club, except the bills being tossed into the air were not George Washingtons or even Benjamins. This was a high-denomination spendfest that left folks at Sotheby’s envious. And it wasn’t just free agents that were getting showered with money. The players on rookie deals who were negotiating extensions received money that trumped what the Kevin Loves and Khris Middletons and
The biggest news in the first hours of 2015 free agency had nothing to do with a free agent. Instead, we got a whiff of the funny money that is going to be the new norm a year from now. And later in the day, the changing financial landscape became even clearer. Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans agreed to terms on a five-year max deal for at least $145 million. Yes, one hundred and forty five million, with an
Today is the best day of the NBA offseason. Say what you want about the draft, which is a spectacle unto itself. But the start of free agency operates on a whole different level. It is not a televised event, but rather a phenomenon that ebbs and flows by the hour, best covered and followed on Twitter. About 99 out of every 100 tweets are relatively worthless. “Team X has interest in Player Y, sources tell Reporter Z.” Yeah, you will
The countdown has begun, and all heck breaks loose at 12:01 a.m. EDT Wednesday. We have The Decision II on our hands, but nobody is talking about it because everyone knows what LeBron James is going to do. Kevin Love, however, is this year’s mystery man. DeAndre Jordan is one of the most coveted pieces out there. Mitch Kupchak would still love to have DeMarcus Cousins patrolling the middle, but he and the Lakers have a ton of fallback options. Short contracts
The Toronto Raptors are flush with salary cap space. Yes, they need to re-sign Sixth Man award winner Lou Williams, and they’ll likely need to give him a significant raise after what he gave them. But what about getting unrestricted free agents to come to Toronto? It has never been an easy thing to do (last summer’s Kyle Lowry re-signing notwithstanding), and Masai Ujiri is going up against some awfully heavy hitters when it comes to going after the likes of
GREENBURGH, N.Y. — I am not going to sit here and tell you that Phil Jackson made a mistake in taking Latvian toothpick Kristaps Porzingis with the fourth pick of the 2015 NBA draft. Jackson was in the press room at 8:20 p.m. Thursday night comparing the kid to Pau Gasol, and Jackson is a better judge of talent than I am. He gets paid $12 million of Jim Dolan’s money each season to make these decisions, to “preside.” But I will
I have always respected Phil Jackson, but I am starting to think the man is crazy. Crazy like a fox? Maybe. But his statements Tuesday congratulating himself for the job he did in Year One as president of the Knicks are mind-boggling. He led the team to its worst record in franchise history, he gifted J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for a second-round pick in 2019, and he started goink crazy on Twitter when he