On Day 15 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.
All deals listed alphabetically by team.
New Orleans Pelicans
1. Agreed to a reported one-year deal with guard Rajon Rondo
The most the Pelicans could offer Rondo is the $7.6 million they have remaining from their midlevel exception after using part of it to sign second-round pick Frank Jackson to a three-year deal. Realistically, New Orleans might not have been willing to go quite that high because doing so would push the team into the luxury tax, a tough sell for a low-revenue organization.
Given that Rondo is coming off making $17.5 million for his one season with the Chicago Bulls (including the $3 million guaranteed portion of his 2017-18 salary the Bulls ate when they waived him), that's a pretty good deal for the Pelicans no matter what. But good deals alone won't help New Orleans reach the playoffs in a critical season for the future direction of the franchise. Only good on-court fits will do that, and that's where the Rondo deal is trickier to evaluate.
This deal reunites Rondo and DeMarcus Cousins, who played together in 2015-16 with the Sacramento Kings, Rondo's best season since tearing his ACL in terms of box score stats. Cousins enjoyed Rondo's playmaking, shooting an effective 51.0 percent off of Rondo's feeds (counting each 3-pointer as 1.5 field goals to reflect their additional value) as compared to 43.0 percent after passes from all other teammates according to SportVU tracking on NBA.com/Stats.
The Rondo-Boogie pairing was at its best when Cousins played center, the role he'll almost always fill with the Pelicans. Via NBAwowy.com data, Sacramento outscored opponents by 4.0 points per 100 possessions when Cousins played center alongside Rondo but had a minus-0.3 net rating when he was at power forward next to either Willie Cauley-Stein or Kosta Koufos.
At the same time, New Orleans already has a starting point guard in Jrue Holiday. According to ESPN's sources, the Pelicans are interested in playing Rondo alongside Holiday for large chunks of games. That fit doesn't appear as good.
Holiday is a fairly average spot-up shooter (he shot 30.4 percent on catch-and-shoot 3s last season according to SportVU data, worse than his 37.6 percent shooting off the dribble, although that was down from past years) and while he has enough size to defend shooting guards, using him in that role means weakening both guard spots defensively as compared to playing Holiday with a traditional shooting guard.
If New Orleans uses Rondo largely as a backup point guard, cutting Holiday's minutes back toward the 28.2 he averaged in 2015-16 to guard against a return of stress injuries to his right leg, this is a positive addition. The more the Pelicans play Rondo with Holiday, the less I like it.