Two years removed from a power shift that witnessed Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving sign in Brooklyn and Kawhi Leonard land with the LA Clippers, the NBA has seen superstar free-agency movement come to a standstill.
The days of Durant being recruited in the Hamptons or Leonard holding up free agency for days as teams await his decision are all but over for now, as multiple All-Star players have chosen to bypass free agency in favor of signing long-term contract extensions with their current teams.
The question teams are asking now is if this is a shift in how the league does business, or just a short-term blip.
"You are naive to think that the best way to build your roster is through free agency and not the draft and trades," one Western Conference GM told ESPN. "Preserving cap space and waiting for that next great player to become available will get you fired."
After a multiyear run of unprecedented superstar movement, the league's top players are staying home more often than not. Of the 33 players who made the All-Star team in 2020 or 2021, just five of them -- LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard and Julius Randle -- joined the team they represented at All-Star Weekend via free agency. Kyle Lowry and James Harden are the only two players from the top 35 of last season's NBArank who have since changed teams, and both were traded (though Lowry was a sign-and-trade deal in free agency).
And this isn't a trend that looks to be reversing anytime soon.
All-Star Zach LaVine is likely to hit free agency because he is limited to signing an extension that would increase his existing $19.5 million salary by 20%, while waiting until next summer could net him an additional $100 million -- though it's possible he ends up re-signing with the Chicago Bulls even after becoming a free agent.
Of the 15 players named to an All-NBA team in 2020-21, only Bradley Beal is set to be a free agent next summer, and he could be off the market before this season starts. Beal is eligible to sign a four-year, $187 million extension with the Washington Wizards on Oct. 1. Harden and Irving are both also expected to sign long-term extensions with Brooklyn, rather than becoming free agents either this summer or next.
"I always tell my client to take the money now in an extension and worry about the future later," one prominent agent told ESPN. "We can always force a trade later and it would be reckless giving up guaranteed money now."
That ideal could apply to Zion Williamson, the No. 1 overall pick in 2018, who will become eligible to sign a five-year, $181.3 million max extension next offseason. It would be unprecedented for Williamson -- who almost certainly will agree to the max extension and figure out his future in New Orleans down the road -- to turn down the extension in favor of a one-year qualifying offer that would get him to unrestricted free agency in 2024.
As another agent noted, "Sign now and ask out later."
In the past two offseasons, James, Durant, Randle, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler, Paul George, Rudy Gobert and Joel Embiid have signed contract extensions before even reaching free agency, in part because they'd already found themselves in -- or moved themselves to -- championship-contending situations. Teams like the Bucks, Nets and Lakers have been aggressive in trading future draft assets to add star-level players around Antetokounmpo, Durant and James, making leaving a less-interesting option for those players.
Even the old staple of waiting until free agency to maximize salary isn't as enticing anymore, thanks to changes to the collective bargaining agreement that allowed for better terms for contract extensions.
"The fact that you could make more money staying is enticing for a lot of players from a comfort standpoint," CJ McCollum, the new president of the National Basketball Players Association, told The Woj Pod. "A lot of players have gotten to a point where you see Embiid with years left say, 'Give me the extension, I will take it now. What am I waiting on?' If it does not work out, they could always work something out later."
That wasn't an option before 2017, when veteran players could extend their contracts for only a total of four seasons (including what was left on their contract), with the starting salary on the new years being limited to 7.5% more than the final year of the existing contract. In addition, only contracts that were at least three seasons long originally could be extended.
These limitations drastically impacted the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2014, when Durant was coming off an MVP season but was already under contract through 2015-16. OKC was limited to offering him an additional two years at a total of $44.9 million. If they'd been operating under current CBA rules, the Thunder could've offered Durant a four-year, $139 million extension in 2014 or a five-year, $178 million deal a year later.
Instead, both sides were left with no choice but for Durant to play out his contract and wait until he became a free agent in 2016, when he eventually signed a four-year, $164 million deal with the Golden State Warriors.
That move, along with other similar situations, led the league to make changes, including the introduction of the supermax (for which Durant would've been eligible in 2014). In addition, the current CBA now allows a player to sign an extension after the second anniversary of their existing contract, with up to a 20% raise off the prior season's salary and a total of five years (including what is left on their contract).
In total, eight players have signed a supermax contract and an additional 32 have signed a non-supermax veteran extension over the past four seasons. In comparison, 15 players signed veteran extensions from 2011 to 2016.
As a result, 26 of the 33 All-Stars from the past two seasons are under contract through at least the 2023-24 season. "The extension rules have been a game changer to teams," an Eastern Conference GM told ESPN. " At least we are not caught off guard now if a player does not want to stay."
In some cases, not signing an extension can be a signal from a player to a team that the player would like a change of scenery. However, some players are choosing to sign those lucrative extensions and send those signals more directly later on, which has led to more superstars changing teams via trade (like Harden, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul and others) over the past few years than via free agency.
The next set of superstar movement is likely to follow that trend, with teams around the league watching the situations of Beal (particularly if he doesn't sign an extension this fall), Ben Simmons and Damian Lillard. The latter two are both under contract through 2024-25, but have expressed varying levels of displeasure with their existing situations -- not unlike when Leonard forced his way out of San Antonio, Anthony Davis forced his way out of New Orleans or Harden forced his way out of Houston.
Players have learned that they can still hold leverage over a team while under contract, either by demanding a trade or demanding improvements to the current roster, something we saw with Lillard in Portland this past offseason. Lillard is still under contract until 2024-25, but has already began to express urgency about his future.
"The best way to put it is to be more urgent about what our next step is and how we move forward," Lillard said in mid-July after a Team USA practice. "We're not a bad team; we're a winning team. We've got a great environment, we've got a great city, we've got great fans, there's a lot of positives.
"I just think we've reached that point where it's like, OK, it's not enough. Do we actually want to win it all? Is that what we're shooting for? We've got to do things to show that. We've got to put action behind that. That desire to win at that level -- that's been my only thing this entire time."
Though Lillard can't be a free agent for another three years, it's possible he changes teams before then, just like Harden, Davis and Leonard before him (and like Ben Simmons, who can't hit free agency until 2025, is trying to do in Philadelphia).
While the next two summers are likely to see the limited level of superstar movement we saw in both 2020 and 2021, the combination of a new CBA in 2023-24 and a new national television contract could see a dramatic increase in the salary cap (which has seen limited growth the past two offseasons due to the pandemic).
If players anticipate a dramatic cap jump in 2024, like the one the league saw in 2016, the next generation of All-Stars, including Devin Booker, Karl-Anthony Towns, Donovan Mitchell and Jayson Tatum, could decide to play out their contracts and eventually pair up in free agency.
Until that happens, however, the NBA will likely remain in a holding pattern when it comes to superstars changing teams via free agency.
Why the trend of NBA superstars changing teams in free agency has temporarily been put on hold - ESPN
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