The NBA Finals are in the rearview, and free agency has begun with teams now allowed to talk deals with their own players.
Ahead of Wednesday night’s NBA draft, two free agents decided to return to their home teams. Center Bam Adebayo agreed to a three-year, $166 million extension to keep him in Miami while forward OG Anunoby intends to sign a five-year, $212.5 million deal with the New York Knicks — a night after the franchise traded for Mikal Bridges.
On Monday, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski the Toronto Raptors intend to sign their franchise player, Scottie Barnes, to a five-year rookie max extension that could be worth up to $270 million. Last week, the Indiana Pacers kicked off free agency news that two-time All-Star Pascal Siakam intended to sign a four-year, $189.5 million maximum contract with the team. The deal is on the heels of Siakam and the Pacers making a run to the Eastern Conference finals this past season.
In the West, the Sacramento Kings inked Malik Monk on a four-year, $78 million dollar contract. The Sixth Man Award runner-up will return to Sacramento after an injury marred the end of his 2023-24 season.
Barnes, Siakam and Monk are just the first dominoes to fall in what should be a busy free agency window. LeBron James, Paul George and James Harden are all unrestricted free agents this summer, so stay tuned as the future of the NBA takes shape.
ESPN insider Kevin Pelton reacts to the latest free agency signings and analyzes what free agency means for the league this summer.
Deal:
Grade: B-
Few free agents have ever been in a more favorable position than Royce O’Neale thanks to the restrictions on teams above the second luxury tax apron in the NBA collective bargaining agreement that kick in this season.
Not only were the Phoenix Suns unable to replace O’Neale with a free agent of equivalent value because they’re well above the second apron, they couldn’t sign anyone for more than the veteran’s minimum. Additionally, now that Phoenix is prevented from aggregating multiple salaries together to make trades, finding matching contracts is a challenge.
All of that gave O’Neale atypical bargaining power for a 31-year-old role player who has never averaged double-figure scoring and started just 14 games last season. Within reason, O’Neale could name his price and the Suns would have little choice but to pay. That earned O’Neale, who worked hard to develop offensively after reaching the NBA as an undrafted rookie at age 24, the biggest payday of his career.
Structuring this as a four-year deal does allow Phoenix to put off the highest salaries until later years, when the salary cap will go up thanks to the NBA’s pending new national TV deals. O’Neale’s $9.8 million starting salary is only a modest raise from last year’s $9.2 million. Nonetheless, the cost to the Suns of bringing O’Neale back will be immense.
Pending Phoenix filling out the roster, it’s likely the Suns will be farther over the luxury tax line than any team in NBA history has been to finish the season, meaning each additional dollar in salary could cost them up to 6.25 times that amount in taxes. Based on reasonable assumptions, re-signing O’Neale could add more than $50 million in salary and taxes for Phoenix this year.
The drawback to O’Neale getting more than he likely would have been offered elsewhere is he becomes a strong candidate for a trade. If the Suns are looking to upgrade using the second-round picks they have as sweeteners — the way O’Neale arrived from the Brooklyn Nets at the February trade deadline — his salary and versatility make him a likely target. I’d guess the possibility of O’Neale landing in a less desirable spot is baked into the contract he commanded.
Deal:
Grade: B-
Days after the New York Knicks agreed to a new contract with OG Anunoby, the Raptors have done the same with the key player they got in return from New York by trading Anunoby at the turn of the year.
Part of the appeal of that trade for Toronto was that Quickley, heading into restricted free agency, would likely come cheaper than Anunoby as an unrestricted free agent after declining a 2025-26 player option. Despite the ability to match any offer to Quickley, the Raptors are essentially paying him the same amount of his maximum salary (86%) as the Knicks did with Anunoby (87%).
The willingness by Toronto to go beyond the maximum total salary any other team could offer Quickley (a four-year deal projected at $152 million) suggests they feared such an offer sheet — rare in recent years because of the way they tie up a team’s cap space through the moratorium period. Deandre Ayton, then with the Phoenix Suns, was the only player to receive a max offer sheet in the past seven years. (Phoenix immediately matched the offer from the Indiana Pacers.)
A Quickley offer sheet from another team would surely have been less favorable from the Raptors’ perspective, potentially giving him all the possible benefits above and beyond that salary, including a 15% trade bonus and a player option on the final season of his contract.
By comparison, a five-year deal for Quickley without a player option as yet reported gives Toronto far more upside if he develops into an All-Star. By the final season of this deal, 2028-29, he’ll be making $39.8 million at age 29 while the maximum salary for players in their first seven NBA campaigns will likely climb north of $50 million.
At the same time, paying Quickley $35 million a year does put pressure on him to prove he’s a quality starting point guard rather than merely the supersub he was in New York. Early returns were promising, as Quickley averaged 18.6 PPG and 6.8 APG in 38 starts with the Raptors, the assist average nearly double his previous career high. By shooting 39.5% from 3-point range, Quickley maintained league-average efficiency despite a tougher shot diet with less talent around him.
Because Toronto has full Bird rights on Quickley, the team can utilize his smaller $12.5 million cap hold if the Raptors decide to decline a $23 million team option for wing Bruce Brown Jr. and create about $17 million in cap space before officially inking this contract. Alternatively, Toronto could keep Brown with an eye toward potentially trading him and use the slightly smaller $12.8 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception.
Either way, with big contracts kicking in for first Quickley and then Scottie Barnes‘ max extension next summer, this offseason is an important opportunity for the Raptors to utilize cap flexibility to add to a young core of Barnes, Quickley and RJ Barrett.
Deal:
Grade: B-
The Knicks’ willingness to trade four of their own future first-round picks in the deal with the Brooklyn Nets to bring Mikal Bridges to Manhattan reported Tuesday signaled a confidence that they could re-sign Anunoby to play with him on the wing. Anunoby and Bridges are a potent duo of defenders with more ability to generate offense than most players of their ilk.
Part of the reason New York gave up so much for Bridges was his bargain contract, which will pay him $47.9 million over the next two seasons. Anunoby alone will make more than that in the last year of this contract — a player option worth $48.4 million.
The Knicks’ willingness to go north of $40 million average salary over the course of this contract strongly suggests they expected another team to make Anunoby a max four-year offer, worth $182 million based on current cap projections. New York could pay more than that thanks to the ability to offer a fifth year using Bird rights, up to a maximum of $245 million.
The most important number here is Anunoby’s starting salary of $36.6 million. That’s enough to put the Knicks right on the threshold of the lower luxury-tax apron, which New York would be subject to if the Bridges trade is completed as a one-for-one deal in exchange for Bojan Bogdanovic.
If the Knicks add more salary going out in the Bridges trade, potentially via sign-and-trade involving one of their own free agents, that would subject them to a hard cap at the higher second apron and give them about $11 million more to fill out their roster.
By signing Anunoby to the longest contract possible, New York is counting on the salary cap escalating faster than his max 8% raises once the new national TV deal kicks in. By 2028-29, the last year of Anunoby’s deal, he projects to take up 23% of the cap as compared to the starting point of 26% — although that might make it more likely he declines a player option.
A five-year deal takes Anunoby, who will turn 27 next month, through the remainder of his prime. A $42.5 million average salary sounds like a lot for a player who has never been an All-Star, or all that close. It might even prove too much, but it assures the Knicks will be perhaps the biggest threat to the Boston Celtics after adding Bridges.
Deal:
Grade: A
Given Adebayo’s central role as the keeper of “Heat Culture” that has carried the team to a pair of NBA Finals appearances in the past five years, staying in Miami beyond the expiration of his current contract in 2025-26 seemed like a foregone conclusion.
Despite both sides being happy to extend their relationship, how Adebayo would handle his next contract was a question mark entering this offseason. Had he played out the upcoming campaign, Adebayo would have been eligible for a four-year extension and had the potential to qualify for a supermax extension of up to five years by either making All-NBA or winning Defensive Player of the Year.
Besides the extra year, a supermax extension could have started at up to 35% of the salary cap in 2026-27 as opposed to the 30% projection that gets us to a $166 million valuation for this deal. By locking in his extension now, Adebayo is to some degree betting against his ability to reach supermax eligibility.
Foregoing that possibility may speak to the strength of Heat Culture — or perhaps more importantly the lure of playing in Miami — off the court. Adebayo could reasonably fear that Miami, afraid of the potential of devoting 35% of the cap as he ages, would consider trading him instead of offering the supermax extension. By signing now, Adebayo largely assures he’ll be in Miami and also gets back into free agency in 2029 ahead of his age-32 season.
Whatever Adebayo’s motivation, the Heat front office has to be thrilled to take the supermax possibility off the table and put his next contract on their cap sheet officially. Miami will surely have a trickier time considering a possible extension for Jimmy Butler, who could become a free agent next summer if he declines a $52.4 million player option.
Butler’s age (35 in September) and contract create plenty of uncertainty for how the Heat move forward. Whether it’s Butler or pursuing a younger star, Miami knows that’s to pair with Adebayo for the foreseeable future.
Toronto to sign Barnes to a max rookie extensionDeal:
Grade: A
Along with free agents being able to negotiate with their own teams prior to the traditional June 30 start of free agency, the same is true under the new collective bargaining agreement for extension-eligible players such as Barnes.
It’s not very surprising this deal got done quickly. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst refers to rookie extensions like this as the “fun max” because teams are eager to reward their promising draft picks. Barnes, the Rookie of the Year in 2021-22 and the first player from the 2021 draft to become an All-Star last season at age 22, qualifies as Toronto’s franchise player.
Still, with rookie extensions like this that are sure to be for the maximum salary, there are a couple of points of negotiation to watch. The first is whether it includes criteria to increase the starting salary to 30% of the cap rather than the typical 25% max for players with fewer than seven years of experience, which this does. That would push Barnes’ extension from a projected $225 million to $270 million if he makes All-NBA or wins either MVP or Defensive Player of the Year. The second negotiating point is including a player option on the fifth year, which it doesn’t appear Barnes received. That’s in line with recent rookie extensions.
None of last year’s max extensions (for Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton, who bumped up their salaries by making All-NBA, as well as LaMelo Ball) included player options.
Beyond Barnes, the rest of this summer’s rookie extensions could be trickier to value. As promising as the 2021 draft looked in Year 1, the development curve has been bumpier for No. 1 pick Cade Cunningham, No. 2 pick Jalen Green and No. 3 pick Evan Mobley. Franz Wagner, taken eighth by the Orlando Magic, and No. 16 pick Alperen Sengun are lower picks with cases for max extensions based on their play to date.
Some of those extensions will surely get done, perhaps even for the max, but they’ll likely require more negotiating than Barnes’ “fun max” did.
Sacramento agrees to Monk extensionDeal:
Grade: A
Getting Malik Monk back is a great outcome for the Kings, who could have been outbid by a team with cap space that aggressively pursued last season’s Sixth Man Award runner-up.
Since Sacramento signed Monk to just a two-year deal back in 2022, when he’d first built up his value as a part-time starter during one season with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Kings could only use early Bird rights to exceed the salary cap and re-sign Monk. That makes this deal the largest they could offer.
To some extent, Sacramento was lucky another team didn’t aggressively pursue Monk, who ranked 10th in my projections of the most valuable free agents over the next three seasons based on his high-volume scoring off the bench and age (26). Much like the Lakers last year with restricted free agent Austin Reaves, the Kings deserve credit for making Monk the best offer possible, including a player option on the final season of the deal as reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Since he’s on the small side for a shooting guard at 6-foot-3, Monk wasn’t a fit with every team. That said, he improved his playmaking last season, averaging a career-high 5.1 assists per game and serving as Sacramento’s primary ball handler with former Kentucky teammate De’Aaron Fox on the bench. The Kings averaged more points per pick-and-roll with Monk at the controls (1.04) than Fox (1.02) when the play led directly to a shot, according to Second Spectrum tracking.
Unfortunately, Sacramento saw Monk’s value proven last season in his absence for the final 10 games due to an MCL sprain. That injury — in the wake of starting shooting guard Kevin Huerter‘s injury — torpedoed the Kings’ chances of a second consecutive playoff appearance. They went 4-6 over that span, slipping into the play-in tournament, and lost in New Orleans with the No. 8 seed on the line after eliminating the Golden State Warriors.
Re-signing Monk will likely necessitate other moves for Sacramento. As ESPN’s Bobby Marks noted, this contract pushes the Kings $1 million above the projected luxury-tax line with 12 players under contract, plus the No. 13 pick in this year’s draft. Sacramento has plenty of excess reserves in the final seasons of their deals who could be moved, with guard Chris Duarte — who played sparingly even with Huerter and Monk out — particularly standing out at $5.9 million. After falling agonizingly short of the playoffs, the Kings will also want to try to upgrade the roster rather than merely retaining last season’s rotation. Either way, Sacramento is closer to a playoff return with Monk under contract.
Indiana extends SiakamDeal:
Grade: B-
The Pacers re-signing Siakam has been telegraphed since the moment they dealt three first-round picks to acquire him in January, so it’s unsurprising that he’s the first player to take advantage to the change to the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement allowing free agents to negotiate with their own teams beginning the day after the end of the NBA Finals.
It’s also no surprise that Siakam got a deal starting at the maximum 30% of the cap for a player with eight years of experience, although Indiana did manage to hold the line on a four-year deal rather than the five years for which Siakam could have re-signed.
On one level, a 30% max — currently projected at $42.3 million, though subject to change when the salary cap is set on June 30, with the possibility that an unusually short set of series in the conference finals and Finals could mean the NBA’s basketball-related income for this season falls short of expectations — is surely an overpay for Siakam, who has made just two All-Star Games in his career and wasn’t a serious contender this season.
For a franchise like the Pacers that is rarely a player for stars in free agency, however, it was going to be tough to get more mileage out of the cap space they used to sign Bruce Brown last summer and send him to the Toronto Raptors as part of the matching salary for Siakam. Had Siakam chosen to test unrestricted free agency, it’s reasonable to think one of the handful of teams with cap space would have thrown a max offer his way given the paucity of gettable star players.
Beyond that, Indiana is betting the increase in the salary cap with the NBA’s new TV deals set to begin in 2025-26 will help this contract age well. The cap is set to increase the maximum 10% year-to-year over the duration of Siakam’s deal, and those raises — unlike his maximum 8% raises — are compounded. So while Siakam’s contract will be 30% of the cap in 2024-25, by the end of his deal in 2027-28, it figures to be just 28%.
That’s important, because the biggest concern is how well Siakam will age over the course of his contract. He turned 30 in April, putting this deal squarely in his decline years. As I noted in my rankings of the top free agents available, the players deemed most similar to Siakam saw their per-minute performance decline by 5% the following season. It’s possible that by 2027-28, Siakam is more of a complementary piece than the second star he gave the Pacers alongside All-NBA guard Tyrese Haliburton.
Before that happens, adding Siakam midseason raised Indiana’s ceiling dramatically and was key to the team’s unexpected trip to the conference finals. Siakam’s shot creation was valuable throughout that playoff run, starting with two monster games when the Milwaukee Bucks attempted to guard him with center Brook Lopez (73 points on 31-of-48 shooting) and up through averaging 23.0 points on 57% shooting in the final three games of the conference finals with Haliburton limited and then sidelined.
Retaining Siakam keeps Indiana in the East mix as a second-tier contender but raises for both him and Haliburton will force difficult decisions elsewhere starting this summer, including a $5.4 million player option for Jalen Smith and the non-guaranteed $2.1 million salary of Kendall Brown. The Pacers will enter free agency just $14.4 million below the projected luxury tax line with 12 players under contract.
Given Indiana hasn’t paid the tax since 2005-06, that likely limits what Indiana can offer restricted free agent Obi Toppin to return. If another team came in with an offer greater than the $12.9 million non-taxpayer midlevel in the wake of Toppin averaging 10.9 PPG backing up both Siakam and center Myles Turner during the Pacers’ playoff run, Indiana would have to choose between letting him walk or entering the season in the tax.
Down the road, as Turner and key reserve T.J. McConnell see their contracts expire, Indiana won’t be able to maintain the depth that was so important to the team this season. After trading for and re-signing Siakam, the Pacers are into a new stage of their building process, and it’s one that affords less margin for error filling out the roster.
