Free Agency starts today
It really isn’t true that free agency starts today because players can agree to terms but not actually sign for another week or so. But for all intents and purposes the free agency period began at midnight this morning. That’s about all that has happened so far.
In years past the free agency period was marked with gm’s making trips and contract offers all over the place but this year nothing has been announced yet. We know that Ben Gordon is visiting Detroit and that Portland is going after Hedo. We have guesses everywhere else. In Utah we are waiting to see what happens with Paul Millsap and who is going to offer him some money.
The truth is that we have few teams who want to spend a lot of money on players this season when next season is set to be the greatest list of free agents ever to hit any professional sport. Next year we will see Lebron, Bosh, Wade, Boozer all free agents. I know I’m missing some but teams want to be able to go after those players and see what happens and they don’t want to be tied down to Hedo Turkoglu if they can get Dwyane Wade. The other side of the coin is that some teams realize they won’t be players for those guys so they want to get players that they can.
Just like baseball this past season, few teams are willing to spend the money than before and it will show itself. Jason Kidd, Rasheed Wallace, Antonio McDyess are all players who are older but have some life left. Where are they going to go? Would they be better off taking 1 year offers and seeing what is out there next year? I only know that with how slow this free agency period has began that it will drag out longer than normal and we will have some players who will have to take less than they are used to if they want a roster spot. Years ago we had Sprewell reject a 3 year 21 million dollar offer because he thought he could get a better offer and he hasn’t been heard from since unless it was about foreclosures.
