The usually frantic first night of NBA free agency was a slow burn this year, but there were some key moves and additions made.
After a week of trades, the Draft, and teams signing current players to extensions and new deals, NBA free agency finally got started at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday. Typically there is flurry of action as soon as the moratorium period opened up, as teams don’t want to wait long to lock up top targets and players don’t want to wait too long to miss out on cap/exception space that often dries up quickly around the NBA.
However, this year it took longer than usual for things to get warmed up. For one, teams could agree to deals with their own free agents as soon as the Finals ended, which meant a lot of the deals that used to get held for 6:01 p.m. (or 12:01 a.m.) could just get locked in over the past two weeks. We saw that with guys like Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Immanuel Quickley, and others, taking away some of those handshake deals to re-sign guys we usually get the first night. Along with that, teams at least pretended to be better about playing along with the league’s rules about not contacting other players outside their rosters. There were a handful of deals that teams got done on Sunday prior to free agency opening to keep their own players in town, and then about an hour after free agency finally started to open up and deals began rolling in.
Still, it was a pretty quiet night, largely due to Paul George still not being officially locked in — even though the Clippers publicly announced he wouldn’t be back in Los Angeles. With the biggest name taking his time in meeting with the Sixers, things were held up a bit, while the newly increased salary cap apron penalties put a real damper on teams enthusiasm for being aggressive early on.
Here are the 15 deals that got agreed to on Sunday, including those that re-signed with their current team prior to free agency opening.
Sunday’s action started with the Bulls and Patrick Williams agreeing to a 5-year, $90 million deal just after midnight to keep the young forward in Chicago.
Patrick Williams intends to sign a five-year, $90 million deal to return to the Chicago Bulls, league sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. pic.twitter.com/L4ImJS29xf
Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 30, 2024
Elsewhere in the Central, the Pacers beat the clock to lock up Obi Toppin on a long-term deal for 4 years, $60 million to keep him from hitting the open market, giving him just above the mid-level to stay a couple hours prior to free agency.
ESPN Sources: Restricted free agent F Obi Toppin intends to sign a four-year, $60 million contract to stay with the Indiana Pacers. Toppin emerged as a top bench contributor for the Eastern Conference finalists. pic.twitter.com/sJP8q5prJe
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 30, 2024
An hour before the market opened up, the Lakers got a deal done with Max Christie to keep him in L.A. for the next four years (including a player option) and $8 million per year.
