Report: Heat get last meeting with Kevin Durant https://t.co/VT6KDVfcwG
— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) June 30, 2016
Midnight madness is usually reserved for college sports, but it’s going to be an insane night Thursday into Friday with the NBA’s free agency window officially opening.
Teams can’t sign actual contracts until July 7, but players can begin verbally agreeing to deals at 11:01 p.m. Central Time Thursday.
Bleacher Report’s David Aldridge explains that it’s going to be insane as soon as the window opens. Here’s why.
The salary cap is jumping from $63 million to $94 million (it’ll jump to about $110 million in 2017, according to ESPN), giving every team in the league an extra $20-$30 million to spend on players. It’s all thanks to the billion dollar TV deals the NBA agreed to with ESPN/ABC and Turner Sports.
And every team has to spend at least 90 percent of the cap – $84.6 million – or they’ll face penalties.
The Timberwolves have just under $22 million in available cap space, according to Spotrac. But that number could change if they waive Nikola Pekovic, which ESPN says is likely to happen at some point.
Wolves rumors
There aren’t a lot of them out there, and none of them will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
Darren Wolfson has been tweeting a few names, including:
- Jason Smith, center
- Anthony Tolliver, forward
- Brandon Bass, power forward
Wolfson went a little further with these more appealing names mentioned on 1500 ESPN.
- Ryan Anderson, 3-point shooting power forward
- Courtney Lee, shooting guard
- Luol Deng, small forward
- D.J. Augustin, point guard
- Kris Humphries, power forward
- Eric Gordon, shooting guard
- Randy Foye, guard
Here’s a list of the top free agents available and you can organize it by position.
Stay tuned for more.
