NBA free agency live updates (2024)

LeBron James plans to sign a two-year, $104 million maximum deal to return to the Los Angeles Lakers, league sources said Wednesday. The Athletic previously reported that James intended to opt out of his $51.4 million player option for next season.

The new deal comes after news that James’ son Bronny, who was drafted at No. 55 by the Lakers last month, is planning to sign a standard NBA roster contract with multiple guaranteed seasons.

Read more here.

Damion Lee's return on a one-year minimum deal, per ESPN, puts the Suns at 13 contracts and a whopping $44 million over the luxury tax line.

Phoenix still seems likely to re-sign Josh Okogie to its 14th spot and then will either add second-round pick Oso Ighodaro on a 2-way contract or use the 15th roster spot on him.

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If this wasn't already obvious, the Lakers will need to throw some bodies overboard and may have to pay a team like the Pistons or Jazz with second-round picks to take them.

Most simply, L.A. could drop Christian Wood and Cam Reddish off on another team's doorstep, re-sign Taurean Prince for up to $5.5 million and have a 14-man roster that is right at the second apron.

To get a player like DeMar DeRozan with the nontaxpayer midlevel exception, however, the Lakers would likely need to part with bigger contracts — think Gabe Vincent, Rui Hachimura and/or D'Angelo Russell. Max Christie's new deal, occupying an estimated $7.2 million on their cap sheet, remains a thorn in the Lakers' side in this respect.

Paul George is the first max-level player to change teams via free agency since 2019. Free agency had become a meeting ground for two kinds of undesirable partners: mostly uncompetitive teams with cap space and the players not good enough to get big extensions from their own teams. It was like a dating app of the last resort. But George and the Sixers have tethered together in interesting ways, and it's worthwhile to wonder if this is a unique transaction or if the weathervane is pointing a new direction.

It's hard to think of many times over the last few years when a team has taken an intractable negotiating tact with a star player, which George, an All-Star just a few months ago, certainly still is. The Sixers drew a hard line with James Harden, but he was already on the decline and didn't have a bunch of suitors once Philadelphia made it clear it would be willing to deal him. The Clippers drew limits with George, just as they were able to get Kawhi Leonard to sign a three-year, sub-max deal.

Will this be a harbinger of future austerity across the league? Not for the very best players still in their prime, of course, but what about everyone else? George is 34, and this next contract will take him through age 37. A 37-year-old making more than $56 million is a risky proposition, spring-loaded salary-cap projections or not.

Every marginal dollar is going to have a price under the new collective bargaining agreement with its restrictive aprons.

Read more here.

The irony of it all, given his reasons for dissatisfaction with the Warriors, is that the money was a secondary factor in Klay Thompson's Mavericks decision. Thompson, well aware that the $43 million he earned last season with Golden State did not buy his happiness, chose Dallas mostly because he saw it as his best chance to win a fifth title.

League sources say a Lakers deal would have been far more lucrative, with discussions about a four-year, $80 million deal for Thompson if they had been able to convince the Warriors to cooperate in a sign-and-trade that would have sent D'Angelo Russell back to the Warriors (or to a third team). He had phone conversations with James and new Lakers coach JJ Redick that were all positive, league sources say, with Lakers president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka staying in touch with Lawrence, but the allure of the Lakers situation simply didn’t match what the Mavericks had to offer.

Read more about Thompson's decision to choose Dallas.

It’s no secret that LeBron James and Anthony Davis both want significant improvements to the Lakers' roster. According to agent Rich Paul, LeBron was even willing to take a sizable pay cut to help facilitate a worthwhile nontaxpayer midlevel exception signing. But that hasn't happened, and James ultimately agreed to a two-year maximum contract with a second-year player option and a no-trade clause, according to The Athletic's Shams Charania.

With each passing hour and each transaction elsewhere, upgrading the Lakers' roster becomes slightly more challenging.

Through three days of free agency — and really, dating back to last Wednesday, when they finally had access to three tradable draft picks — the Lakers have made no moves of consequence outside of re-signing Max Christie to a four-year, $32 million deal. And with summer league only a few days away, they've yet to hire an assistant coaching staff around JJ Redick.

It hasn't been for a lack of trying. The Lakers aggressively pursued Klay Thompson, but Thompson turned down their offer of more years and money from the Lakers to join the Dallas Mavericks, according to league sources. They've now turned their attention to DeMar DeRozan, though the Miami Heat are currently viewed as slight favorites to land the 15-year veteran and six-time All-Star, according to league sources.

The Lakers have been active in their conversations on the trade market, too. As The Athletic reported earlier on Tuesday, the Lakers have had recent trade talks with Portland, Brooklyn and Utah, among other teams.

"I think we're gonna always be aggressive to try to make roster upgrades and will be relentless to continue to look at what we can do," vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka said. "This is the season of being mindful of all the different things we can approach to improve the roster. So we're in the midst of that as we speak. That will continue in the coming days, and it often spills into Vegas, where all the GMs meet and gather, and other deals get done. But we'll stay aggressive."

LeBron James' re-signing will bring the Lakers' roster to 15 players — the league maximum. If he takes his maximum as The Athletic reports (two years, $104 million with a player option in the second year), the Lakers will have $190 million in guaranteed salary and be $1.1 million over the $188.9 million second apron, which would limit the team's ability to make additional moves.

That would mean the team must execute a salary dump to shed at least $1.1 million before they officially re-sign LeBron and Max Christie.

If the Golden State Warriors send Gui Santos to Philadelphia and sign second-round pick Quinten Post to a rookie minimum deal, that leaves them about $14 million under the tax apron for Buddy Hield. But the only way I can see to import him at that salary is to incorporate Hield and Kyle Anderson into the same sign-and-trade that sent Klay Thompson outbound, turning it into a five-team mega trade between Charlotte, Dallas, Minnesota, Golden State and Philadelphia.

Why Santos? Philadelphia acquiring him into cap space would mean the Sixers could aggregate him into a trade immediately. That, perhaps, would allow them to combine his salary and Paul Reed’s to acquire a player not attainable with Reed's salary alone, such as Cleveland's Caris LeVert or Sacramento's Kevin Huerter.

The Golden State Warriors are in serious talks on a sign-and-trade deal to acquire Buddy Hield, league sources told The Athletic.

The Warriors and the Philadelphia 76ers have been in deep discussions, and are working to finalize the deal for one of the NBA's best three-point shooters.

Hield, 31, averaged 12.2 points in 32 regular-season games with the Sixers, shooting 42.6 percent from the field and 38.9 percent from 3.

Draymond Green shared multiple revealing quotes on his podcast Tuesday, saying he nearly signed with the Memphis Grizzlies last year.

"Last year, during free agency, I called Klay (Thompson), and I called Steph (Curry). Separate calls. And Steve (Kerr). And I was just telling them, like, 'Yo, I'm leaving. I'm going to Memphis,'" Green said on "The Draymond Green Show."

Green returned to the Golden State Warriors on a four-year, $100 million deal. He said on his show, "Obviously, we got it figured out. Shout to the Lacobs and Mike Dunleavy, his first free agency."

Green additionally discussed Thompson's departure and the recent trade talks between the Warriors and Paul George, who is joining the Philadelphia 76ers on a four-year, $212 million max contract, league sources said Monday.

"Paul George was gonna come to the Warriors. ... The Clippers didn’t really want to play ball," Green said. "Didn’t want to help him get to where he wanted to go, so in turn, they get nothing back."

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that the Clippers have an interest in free agent forward Miles Bridges, and The Athletic can confirm via team and league sources that both sides are exploring a move.

While the player is interested in joining the Clippers, per those sources, it does not appear likely at this time that a transaction is imminent.

Bridges averaged 21 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in 69 games with the Hornets last season. He missed the first 10 games of the season serving a suspension after being arrested in June 2022 and pleading no contest to a felony domestic violence charge that November. He received three years of probation but no jail time as part of a deal with prosecutors.

The NBA issued the suspension in April 2023. Twenty games of the suspension were considered served in the 2022-23 season, meaning Bridges — a restricted free agent at the time of the incident who was not signed in 2022-23 — had 10 games remaining on the suspension to start this past season.

I wrote about about the mechanics of a Jonathan Isaac renegotiate-and-extend with Orlando in today's piece. It appears the Magic tacked on $10 million to his 2024-25 salary with their cap room, declined him by the maximum 40 percent to $16.44 million for next year, and then had the maximum 8 perent declines in the out years to take him down to $12.9 million by 2028-29. The total would be $85.3 million, of which $67.9 million is new money.

Orlando then used the remainder of its cap room to re-sign Mo Wagner on a two-year, $22 million deal. The Magic still have their room exception remaining and one open roster spot.

The Warriors had to sign-and-trade Kyle Anderson into the trade exception from the Klay Thompson move to Dallas because they already used their non-taxpayer midlevel exception on De'Anthony Melton. The Warriors can only take back about $7 million more into the Thompson exception if they carry it into the season. However, if they can rope in another contract and make this a multiteam trade with Dallas and Minnesota over the next few days, they can take back considerably more.

As a more practical matter, this is unlikely unless they also dump another contract, as staying below the luxury tax and the first apron is likely to limit them more than the size of the trade exception.

The center market was thin, but I don’t really get Utah paying Drew Eubanks $10 million over two years. The Jazz haven't played their cap space cards yet.

Less than three months after the Cavaliers traded for Donovan Mitchell, I began hearing rumors swirling around his future.

He doesn't want to be in Cleveland. He wants to be in New York. This isn't going to last. The Cavs will eventually have to trade him.

Powerful agents, executives from other teams, and even players around the league whom I spoke to all agreed. The idea of Mitchell remaining in Cleveland long-term just didn’t seem feasible to anyone who actually worked in the league.

That's what makes Tuesday such a significant milestone for the Cavs and the city of Cleveland. The trade for Mitchell may have been the single-biggest gamble in the history of the franchise. His signature on a three-year, $150 million extension this week made it all pay off.

Read the rest of my story here.

Kyle Anderson is joining the Warriors on a three-year, $27 million contract, team sources confirmed to The Athletic. The third year of the deal is fully non-guaranteed. Anderson will join the Warriors via sign-and-trade, sliding right into the just-created $15.8 million traded player exception from the Klay Thompson sign-and-trade to Dallas. The Warriors received two second-round picks in the Thompson deal. They sent out a second-round swap to the Timberwolves.

Anderson can essentially be considered the return for Thompson's departure. They had negotiations with the Mavericks in recent days, which included the possibility of taking back Josh Green or one of Dallas' other mid-tier contracts in exchange for Thompson. But the Warriors didn't prefer those options, team sources said, so they generated the traded player exception and used it on Anderson, a long, smart, slow power forward who should add size to a roster that needs it and fits well into Steve Kerr's system. The Warriors get Anderson for his age 31 and 32 seasons before that third-year non-guarantee.

Anderson appeared in 79 games for the Timberwolves last season and was a 15-minute member of their playoff rotation, which is about the role he should slide into in San Francisco.