NBA fans, whet your appetites. The free-agent feeding frenzy has begun.
Starting at midnight on Friday, teams could finally pursue free agents. Here's what we're hearing so far:
The Clippers are making a big push to bring Ray Allen to L.A. With talks still rocky between Allen and the Sonics, the Clippers could be his final destination once the process works itself out. If the Clippers could pull it off, they would be serious playoff contenders next season.
The Knicks also are trying to make a splash by making a move for Kwame Brown. The Cavs have Michael Redd atop their list.
Insider made a plethora of phone calls Thursday to get you the very latest on what your team is doing in free agency. A few quick pointers before you get into the full list.
The salary cap this year is expected to come in between $48 and $51 million. For purposes of this article, we've split the difference and used an estimated $49.5 million figure.
Teams that are under the cap can sign players up to the cap. Teams over the cap must use a cap exception to sign free agents. Among the most popular are the Larry Bird exception (which allows a team to go over the cap to re-sign their own free agents as long as they've been under contract for three consecutive years) and the mid-level exception (which gives teams a $5 million cap exception to sign players).
Teams are allowed to negotiate with free agents, but aren't allowed to sign them officially until July 22. That means that all deals are done in principle only until July 22. Players also cannot be traded during the 22-day moratorium.
Under the new collective-bargaining agreement rules, teams now have seven days to match any offers for restricted free agents. Previously it was 15 days. This rule change should encourage teams to make offers to restricted free agents.
A new luxury tax amnesty rule will go into effect July 22. Teams will have until Oct. 1 to release one player from their roster. They still have to pay the player their full salary, but the salary won't count against their cap for luxury-tax purposes. For teams that have very high payrolls, it could free them up to be aggressive in the market. It also means that players like Michael Finley, Allan Houston and Jalen Rose could be on the free-agent market as early as late July. Some teams may choose to wait to spend their money until they see who is available.