'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,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'%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Once a champion is crowned every year in June, NBA fans suffer from basketball withdrawal. They are left with the NBA Draft, free agency and trades between late June and early October of the off-season to get hyped about. However, depending on your favorite team, draft position, cap space for free agents, and trades may not even create a buzz in the slightest.
For example, the New York Knicks had $72 million in cap space this offseason and their fans are disappointed with Julius Randle being their major free-agent addition to the roster. As for the defending NBA Champions, the Toronto Raptors, they sacrificed a 2019 NBA Draft pick last summer in a trade to secure the services of Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green ultimately getting them their first-ever NBA title. This means that in one year, the Raptors have lost Leonard and Green to free agency and had no first-round selection in the 2019 NBA Draft.
But, free agency has played a major factor in creating new landscapes of power that seemed impossible in the NBA. Teams, since 2010, that have had meteoric and sustained rises to prominence due to their free agency signings include Miami, Golden State, Cleveland, and the Los Angeles Clippers. It has also signaled a shift in the power to the players who communicate with each other and arrange, when possible, an amalgamation of their talents at certain destinations.
The norm lately for contract signings seems to be 3 years plus one year as an option. Players such as Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, and LeBron James started this trend back in 2010 and it seems to have caught on throughout the league.
Here is a look at 5 of the greatest free agent signings since 2010:
#5 Kawhi Leonard signs with the Los Angeles Clippers (2019)
In the summer of 2018 before getting traded to Toronto along with Spurs teammate Danny Green, it was rumored that Kawhi Leonard wanted to go back to his home town of Los Angeles to continue his pro-basketball career. Either to spite Leonard or because it was the best offer, Leonard was sent to Toronto. He had missed 73 games in the 2017-18 season due to a disputed quad injury.
With the threat of him not resigning in the summer of 2019, the Raptors ran with the upgrade on former team star DeMar DeRozan and wound up winning their first NBA Title. However, the rumors that Leonard would bolt for Los Angeles never went away and the Raptors on-court productivity is now in question as they could do nothing but watch as Leonard left the newly crowned champions for the comforts of home with the Los Angeles Clippers.
This signing announced on July 5th, 2019 and completed on July 10th, 2019 makes the Los Angeles Clippers an instant NBA Title contender and perhaps the favorite to win the Larry O’Brien trophy in 2020. The Clippers up until now have always been considered the second-best team in town behind the Lakers.
The Clippers won their division title in 2013 and 2014 but are woefully devoid of accolades as in comparison to the Lakers who have won 16 NBA Titles. Leonard perhaps changes all of that. He is now a two-time NBA Finals MVP with two different teams, his 2019 playoff scoring outburst is third-best in NBA history. Leonard inked a 3-year $103 million contract with the Clippers and is in the prime of his career.
The Clippers also traded to acquire Paul George this off-season. With a roster mainly intact from a season in which the Clippers finished 8th in the West, made the playoffs, and a roster that had the winner and runner up to the Sixth Man of the Year award in Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell. The NBA title is definitely in reach for the Clippers if they stay healthy enough to compete for it.
#4 Miami Heat re-sign Dwyane Wade while signing LeBron James and Chris Bosh (2010)
The summer of 2010 was hotter than the Miami Heat’s nickname suggests about the team’s locale and the four very successful seasons that would follow. Under the leadership of Pat Riley, a man known for winning in the NBA, the Miami Heat would pull off a trio of free-agent signings that saw the Heat a dance partner in four consecutive NBA Finals and a winner in two straight.
July 7th, 2010 will be remembered as perhaps the beginning of one of the greatest single off-season free agency hauls any team in any pro sport has ever pulled off. It started with an announcement that day that Dwyane Wade would be returning to the Heat by signing a new contract, his third with Miami. However, Wade’s re-signing also came with the news that his 2003 Draft Class friend, Chris Bosh, formerly of the Toronto Raptors, was joining Wade in Miami.
The electric news did not end there for Miami Heat fans as 24 hours later it was announced in a televised one hour special known as “The Decision” that fellow 2003 Draft Class friend and colleague and perhaps the game's best player, LeBron James, was leaving his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat also. This gave Miami a roster that would be built around 3 of 2003’s 5 best draft picks all in their primes and until this union, all three were franchise players.
These signings ultimately led to Miami losing the 2011 NBA finals to Dallas, winning the 2012 and 2013 titles against the OKC Thunder and San Antonio Spurs respectively, and finally losing to the Spurs in the 2014 NBA Finals after which LeBron James returned to Cleveland.
#3 Andre Iguodala signs with the Golden State Warriors (2013)
Andre Iguodala was a standout first round draft pick by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2004 NBA Draft. He took the baton as the 76ers' next superstar from Allen Iverson when the latter got traded to the Denver Nuggets in 2006. However, his signing with the Golden State Warriors on July 5th, 2013 was a career-defining moment as most of his best accomplishments as a pro-basketball player came after that 4-year $48 million deal was made.
The Warriors were already a team constructed around a core nucleus of young top world class talents such as Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green. Now, they had a player with veteran know-how and great talent himself. The Warriors would gel and become NBA Champions just two seasons later knocking off the Cleveland Cavaliers led by LeBron James who was himself in the middle of an 8-year consecutive run as an NBA finalist with the Heat and Cavaliers.
Iguodala would go onto to be named the 2015 NBA Finals MVP and it would be his first of three NBA titles as a player. He would play significant roles in the Warriors' back to back title wins in 2017 and 2018 and the last 5 seasons in which the Warriors have represented the NBA’s Western Conference in the battle for the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
r#2 LeBron James returns to Cleveland (2014)
After a 4-year run to the NBA Finals with the Miami Heat, paired with Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, LeBron James opted out of his contract with the Heat and returned to Cleveland as the prodigal son. On July 11th, 2014, he announced via an article in Sports Illustrated his intent to return to Cleveland.
The next day he was indeed a Cavalier for the second time in his career. This time, the great LeBron James had already successfully reached the pinnacle of NBA basketball twice with Miami and was bringing that experience along with the greatest talent of his generation back to Cleveland.
He kept his personal success of being the man to beat in the NBA Finals, as like with Miami, he kept Cleveland in the NBA Finals as the East’s representative from 2015 to 2018 for 4 consecutive years. However, his Cavaliers would run into the Golden State Warriors each year winning once in spectacular fashion in 2016 when he led the team from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals to an NBA title which had never been done before.
“The King” is 3 for 8 in his 8 consecutive NBA Finals appearances which ended after the 2018 Finals when he would as a free agent move to the Los Angeles Lakers who did not make the playoffs in 2019. The 2020 playoffs may see a return of the King now that Anthony Davis has joined him in Los Angeles via trade this summer.
#1 Kevin Durant signs with the Golden State Warriors (2016)
The Golden State Warriors had just made back to back appearances in the NBA Finals winning against Cleveland in 2015 and then losing to the Cavaliers in 2016 after a 3-1 final series lead was blown.
Clearly, Warriors management was wondering if they had enough to make a third appearance in the NBA Finals for 2017 after a 2016 season in which they won an NBA-best 73 regular-season games. Keep in mind, the Golden State Warriors had not been around an NBA title for 40 years until they broke through in 2015 with Curry, Iguodala, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson leading the way.
On July 7th, 2016 Warriors management made an enormous announcement that would once again make a seismic shift in the landscape that is the NBA. It was Kevin Durant - the 6’9 small forward with silky smooth skills equal to any of the great guards in the NBA and the length of the biggest centers in the game - who was signing a 2-year $54.3 million deal to leave OKC Thunder where he had spent 9 seasons.
Durant, who with OKC failed to knock off the LeBron James led Miami Heat back in 2012 while with the Thunder, was sure to make the Golden State Warriors a dynasty. His signing did just that. The Warriors currently have represented the Western Conference in the NBA Finals for 5 straight years and each of the three seasons that Durant was a member of the team. The Warriors also won back to back championships in 2017 and 2018 with Durant winning the NBA Finals MVP award both times.
The Warriors failed to beat the Toronto Raptors in 2019 perhaps due to a myriad of injuries including a calf strain to Durant that kept him out of the Finals until game 5 where he ruptured his Achilles heel tendon after 11 minutes of playing time. Even so, on one leg, the Raptors who were an aggressive swarming defensive juggernaut in 2019 could not contain Durant who scored 11 points in those 11 minutes. On June 30th, 2019 Durant opted out of his contract with the Warriors and has since signed a new deal to play with the Brooklyn Nets.
Guess the Lakers players!
