Barely 24 hours after NBA teams were allowed to negotiate with free agents from other teams starting at 6 p.m. ET on June 30, nearly all the top players on the market have struck deals, including Paul George leaving the LA Clippers for the Philadelphia 76ers.
LeBron James is still technically a free agent. Having offered the Los Angeles Lakers a possible pay cut if they land a player worth signing using the non-taxpayer midlevel exception, James is still waiting on that possibility — but the league’s all-time leading scorer is not leaving L.A. this summer.
That leaves DeMar DeRozan of the Chicago Bulls as the only remaining free agent from the top 10 of last month’s projections who has yet to agree to a contract and has other teams in pursuit.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at an updated list of my top 10 free agents on the market with an eye toward what kind of value pickups might be available to the handful of teams with remaining cap space and several more capable of offering more than the veteran’s minimum using exceptions.
1. LeBron James
Los Angeles Lakers | Forward
James’ return to Los Angeles is a foregone conclusion. It’s just a matter of whether the franchise finds a move that can convince him to take less than his max as part of a new deal. With Klay Thompson heading to the Dallas Mavericks via sign-and-trade, it’s unclear how many remaining free agents qualify as the kind of “impact players” James was hoping the Lakers could add. It might be down to the next two on my list.
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