At midnight Eastern tonight, the most frantic few weeks in the NBA off-season will begin with the start of free agency.
There are plenty of big names hitting free agency this year, with the Miami Heat Big Three and Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony all opting out of their contracts to test the waters.
While most teams will try to sign one of the superstars on the market, it’s more likely that they will have to settle for a second-tier free agent behind them. One of the most popular names out there behind the initial superstars of free agency is Luol Deng. While not on the level of a LeBron James or Anthony, Deng can still command some real money on the open market according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.
To be clearer on the Hawks cap space, Deng could be a part of it — by no means all of it. Market for him in $10-$12m annual range.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) June 30, 2014
While shelling out $10-12 million for a guy who can score 20 a night doesn’t sound like much, Deng has become increasingly injury-prone in recent years. As is often the case in free agency, teams will likely overpay guys like Deng once the mega-stars are no longer available.
It will be interesting to see how free agency plays out in the next few weeks and how many big money contracts teams regret in a few months.