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NBA free agency: Herb Jones, Grant Williams lead list of summer's five best value deals – CBS Sports
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There are still a few notable free agents out there (Christian Wood, Kelly Oubre, PJ Washington), but for the most part free agency is wrapped up and the NBA is on summer break as we all wait for the potential deals involving Damian Lillard and James Harden.
In the meantime, let’s take a look back at some of the best value deals we saw this summer.
This is great value for Jones, who could easily outplay this contract if his 3-point game follows the trend of his last few months of last season. We know about his defense. That alone is arguably worth more than an average annual salary of $13.5M. Jones was restricted, but the way the money shook out on the market it wasn’t a fruitful enough landscape to provide an offer that pushed New Orleans up.
Good for Jones. This is life-changing money for a second-round pick, and if New Orleans ends up with too many big salaries on the books, which is a distinct possibility, this contract could be traded in a heartbeat. Really good value for both sides.
If it’s a good value deal for Herb Jones in New Orleans, it’s a good value deal for Grant Williams with Dallas. We always love to talk about “fits” but mostly that’s an overused term; good role players fit everywhere, and Williams is just a flat-out good player. He fell out of favor in Boston toward the end of the season and was a DNP-CD guy early in the playoffs. Then he got back on the floor, and the impact was immediate. Boston will miss him, and their loss is Dallas’ gain.
You want to talk fit? Williams is a 40% 3-point shooter for his career and he could easily double his volume in Dallas, where he could be one of the leading corner 3-point shooters in the league playing off the driving creation of Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic, who is the best collapse-and-kick passer in the world. Jason Kidd can use Williams in all kinds of ways defensively, too, including as a small-ball five, and you know Dallas had to address its defense.
Let’s stay with Dallas, which gets Curry on damn near a minimum deal. Are you kidding me? We know what Curry can’t do at such a high level (defend, create individually), but we also know what he can do — and it’s worth more than four mil a year.
Curry’s an elite shooter both from 3 and in the pull-up range and can do some things with the ball. There’s not much more to say about this other than getting Curry, who will be a real contributor and could actually prove crucial, at this number is bargain shopping at its best.
The Lakers lucked out that nobody else offered Reaves big money they would’ve had to match. Another team could’ve signed him to an offer sheet for up to $102 million and really put the Lakers to the fire. Instead, they get him at four years, $56 million, an average annual salary of $14 million, just north of the non-taxpayer midlevel exception. That is an absolute steal for Reaves, who could’ve helped a lot of teams and enters this season as L.A.’s pretty clear third-best player.
Here’s to hoping Reaves continues to be featured in the ways he was down the stretch and in the playoffs. We know LeBron is going to do his thing and Anthony Davis will get his touches, but Reaves needs to be stealing some creative opportunities from D’Angelo Russell and should be the Lakers’ lead dog for plenty of non-LeBron minutes. Would love to see a lot of Reaves-Davis pick-and-roll throughout the regular season as LeBron saves himself for the playoffs.
Vincent is the best point guard the Lakers have; my guess is he’ll be starting over Russell by the playoffs, possibly earlier. To get a starting playoff point guard, let alone one that just shot out of his mind on a Finals run, at $11M annually is supreme value.
The Lakers also did well to ink Russell to just a two-year deal, which is both palatable money for a regular-season innings eater who is less valuable in the playoffs and realistic trade candy. Again, for my money, Vincent becomes the starting point guard and Russell becomes a potential salary filler in a trade at the deadline.
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