On Day 3 of NBA free agency, here's our team-by-team analysis of the major and minor deals.
Updates on each deal will be posted here throughout the day. Latest additions: Kevin Durant to Golden State and Darren Collison to Indiana.
All deals listed alphabetically by team.
Golden State Warriors
1. Agreed to a reported two-year, $53 million deal with forward Kevin Durant
Let's close the voting for the 2017-18 Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award. Kevin Durant's financial sacrifice next season will help make the Warriors a better team and assuredly helped teammates Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston make more money on their new contracts.
Because he has 10 years of experience, Durant's maximum salary this season would be $34.7 million, the same amount teammate Stephen Curry got as part of the richest contract in NBA history (five years, $201 million). Since Durant changed teams as a free agent last summer, Golden State would have had to clear the necessary cap space to pay him that maximum salary. That in turn would have meant renouncing the Bird rights to Iguodala and Livingston, meaning they could have only re-signed using cap exceptions.
Before the NBA Finals, ESPN's Chris Haynes and Ramona Shelburne broke the news that Durant intended to sign for the smaller amount ($31.8 million) the Warriors could offer him using non-Bird rights and remain over the cap. That sacrifice was unsurprising, given how important Iguodala and Livingston are to the team.
Today's news that Durant will take even less than that $31.8 million amount, by contrast, is stunning. According to Haynes, Durant will make $25.9 million this season, nearly $9 million less than his maximum and less than he made in 2016-17 ($26.5 million).
There's no mechanical reason Durant had to take less than the full value of his non-Bird rights. His salary still puts Golden State over the luxury-tax apron, meaning the Warriors are limited to their $5.2 million taxpayer midlevel exception and cannot use the larger non-taxpayer version without trading additional salary.
The most logical interpretation is that Durant taking less money made Golden State ownership more comfortable increasing offers to Livingston (who agreed to a reported three-year, $24 million deal) and Iguodala (a reported $48 million over three years) by reducing the team's luxury-tax bill for this season.
Luxury tax also could have affected the Warriors' willingness to use their taxpayer midlevel exception. Former Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard Nick Young has been mooted as a possible candidate for that exception.
As it is, Golden State is still looking at a luxury-tax bill in excess of $40 million, assuming the Warriors use their entire taxpayer midlevel, re-sign starting center Zaza Pachulia for the full value of his non-Bird rights and fill out the roster with players making the minimum salary. But Durant taking less money shaves more than $20 million off the tax bill.
To be clear, this is only a one-season sacrifice for Durant, who will have a player option for 2018-19. The Warriors can pay his maximum salary next summer using early Bird rights without needing to create cap space, and I wouldn't expect Durant to be so generous again. He already has helped his teammates -- and his owners' checkbooks -- more than enough.
Indiana Pacers
1. Agreed to a reported two-year, $20 million deal with Darren Collison
After losing Jeff Teague to the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Pacers had a void at point guard. While there has been talk about using Lance Stephenson there, and Monta Ellis and Joe Young also are options, none of those players have experience running a team full time. Enter Collison, who returns to Indiana -- where he started in 2010-11 and 2011-12, before losing his job to George Hill and getting traded to the Dallas Mavericks -- at a reasonable price.
Perhaps the Pacers could have brought back Hill at a discount rate, since his market seems to have dried up. But the emotions from Hill's departure are surely more raw, and he likely wouldn't have agreed to a contract structure like this, which is only partially guaranteed in in the second year, according to Sam Amick of USA Today Sports. Indiana still needs a long-term solution at point guard, but the Pacers had little hope of finding that in free agency, and this contract doesn't prevent them from looking for one next summer.
The Pacers still have about $13 million in cap space remaining, assuming they renounce their free agents, and are in need of additional depth at small forward. Stephenson and Glenn Robinson III are the two current options at the position.