nba-free-agency Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

'Woj Bombs' vs. 'Shams Wows': Who won opening night of the NBA free agency salvo?
NBA free agency opened on Friday, and with the usual whirlwind of signings in the first few hours after the 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time start of activity, it’s not easy to say what team really did the best....

The Clippers Showed Kawhi Leonard A List Of Guys, Then Kawhi Looked At The Guys, And Picked Paul George
After the Clippers pulled off this NBA offseason’s most startling move by signing Kawhi Leonard and acquiring Paul George, it was tempting to view Leonard as some devious, silent puppet master....

In Huge Bummer, Jeremy Lin Says He's Hit "Rock Bottom" In Free Agency
The NBA is more fun with Jeremy Lin in it. And on a more practical level, he can still be a useful rotation player. Before a midseason move to Toronto that got him a ring but reduced his usage to garbage time, he averaged 10.7 points and 3.5 assists in 19.7 minutes per game as a backup/mentor to Tra...

Get Ready For The Real Tampering Fight
Sure, you people laughed about the new NBA-wags-its-withering-fingers-at-tampering story. Of course you did. You’re still drunk, high, and sleeping on the front lawn about the latest offseason. It’s what you do, because drunken no-limits you is the best you you’ll ever be....

The NBA Is Shocked, Shocked To Find That Tampering Is Going On In Here
The NBA will reportedly open an investigation into the 2019 free agency period, based on the observation that roughly a zillion players changed teams this summer despite only Kawhi Leonard taking any meetings or doing any deliberating before making a move. The feeling seems to be that teams, players...

The NBA's Supermax Is Doing What It Was Supposed To
The provisions of a collective bargaining agreement can be tricky things. After all, by definition they’re negotiated and agreed upon by parties with different and largely opposed interests, who will want different and often directly conflicting things out of them. The purpose or intent of any given...

The Lakers Really Want You To Know They Don't Want J.R. Smith
You would have been forgiven for wondering, even assuming. LeBron likes his guys, those role players he has repeatedly gathered around him at every stop in his role as shadow GM. J.R. Smith is one of his guys. Yes, even after that....

The NBA Offseason Doesn't Get Better Than This. Unfortunately.
And now, the longer view on the Russell Westbrook–Chris Paul deal that you haven’t seen yet:...

Marcus Morris Wipes Out Thousands Of Acres Of Transaction Market Confidence, Dumps Spurs For Knicks
In a move that has been described by some as a ruinous assault on, uhh, confidence in the transaction market, Marcus Morris has officially reneged on his verbal agreement to join the San Antonio Spurs in free agency, in order to sign a more lucrative contract with the New York Knicks....

We Need To Talk About Russell Westbrook
We’re officially in the slowest part of the sports calendar: There is no real basketball on (get out of here, we’re not counting Summer League), soccer just wrapped up its summer tournaments, baseball is in the dead zone between the All-Star Game and September, and so on. But the streets demand the ...

Kawhi Leonard Signs For Only Two Guaranteed Years With Clippers, Can Continue Wandering The Barren Plain, Searching, Always Searching
After the long journey to get back home to California, and the incredible finesse in free agency to secure Paul George, it seemed safe to assume that Kawhi Leonard would set down roots in Los Angeles. He’s 28, in the prime of his Hall of Fame career, signing his third contact. After a sour exit from...

Until There's A Contract, There's No Contract
Here is some weapons-grade stoogery, from The Athletic’s Jared Weiss:...

Kawhi Leonard Is The NBA's Executive Of The Year
Kawhi Leonard dynamited what remained of the premise of the Executive of the Year Award, and in doing so redefined the meaning of such staples as: the Friday night news dump; the value of holding onto non-human playing assets; and even patriotism. Now if that’s not a full day’s work for an adult-siz...

KawhiWatch: Holy Shit, Kawhi Leonard Is Going To The Clippers
Reigning NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard is heading to the Los Angeles Clippers, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting, and he’ll be joined by MVP finalist Paul George. The news ends weeks of speculation about which team might woo the two-time Finals MVP, coming off an amazing postseason, away from re...

Soccer Idiots Agree: The USWNT Is Cool, VAR Is Not
It’s Independence Day, the day on which every American feels especially proud to be American, which also now means every taking it upon yourself, as an American, to make sure that every other American is behaving in a suitably proud way re: how American they are. In real life, this holiday mostly re...

Stephen A. Smith Says Kevin Durant Says Stephen A. Smith's Kevin Durant Reports Are Bullshit
Stephen A. Smith shared three spicy Kevin Durant reports on Wednesday’s episode of First Take. The least spicy of the three (since it’s three years old, now) had Durant, entering unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2016, telling several Thunder teammates to their faces that he would not be lea...

It Appears That No One Wants DeMarcus Cousins
The pool of NBA free agents available as of July 3 is shockingly small. The vast majority of marquee names settled within a few hours of the official kickoff of free agency Sunday afternoon; a huge number of rotation guys and role players have already grabbed up much of what remained of the open sal...

KawhiWatch: Drake Attempting To Acquire More Chips And Dip
Two days into free agency, and it’s been a severe drought of Kawhi Leonard news, excluding sources who may be Jeanie Buss’s Reddit-loving nephew or Shams Charania-cosplayers. Bone-dry. In an era where a lone emoji can kick off a 12-hour news cycle, there’ve been no inklings as to whether Leonard’s p...

Bobby Portis Is A Lesson In The Cost Of Doing Business With Bad NBA Teams
A crappy side effect of the NBA’s salary cap is it’s usually better business for your favorite team to have a cheap good player than an expensive one, so you are conditioned to think of cheap contracts for good players as “good” and pricier contracts for comparable players as “bad.” Sticking with th...

And Now, A Washington Wizards Update: Hell
If you lost track of the Washington Wizards amid all Sunday’s wild NBA free-agency news, that’s fine, and reasonable. It speaks well of you, all things considered. A solid double-fistful of the league’s big stars switched teams over the weekend, and none of them came to or left the Wizards—but the W...