2025 Free Agency Day 2: Farewell, Kevon Looney and other updates

looney looney

The index for all DNHQ Free Agency Coverage is here.

Table of Contents

• Small updates: Kuminga, Horford, Boucher

• Farewell, Kevon Looney

• Frequently Asked Questions

  • When should I be sad about GSW not getting all the free agents?

  • When should I be MAD about GSW not getting free agents?

  • Where can I educate myself on various free agents that GSW should pursue?

  • What are the key dates in the 2024 NBA Free Agency season?

  • When will we hear news?

Small updates: Kuminga, Horford, Boucher

• Anthony Slater: Despite a few conversations between the two sides, the Golden State Warriors have generated no real traction toward a deal with restricted free agent Jonathan Kuminga in recent days and, as anticipated, he is expected to explore the market when it opens at 3 p.m. PT on Monday afternoon, league sources told The Athletic. The Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls remain the two likeliest outside suitors, league sources said….

  
  Team sources have identified a stretch center as a high priority. Many in the league continue to link Al Horford to the Warriors as a preferred target.

  If the Warriors use the taxpayer midlevel exception (projected at around $5.7 million) on Horford or another free agent, they’ll be hard-capped at the second apron, currently projected at $207.8 million. The Warriors currently have nine players under contract at $170.5 million. Kuminga’s qualifying offer, extended over the weekend by the Warriors, is $7.9 million, but his cap hold is $22.9 million, further clogging the Warriors’ books if his situation drags deeper into July.

  • Apricot: I wouldn’t take any new anxiety from this. (Existing anxiety should continue.) JK definitely needs to explore the full FA market and try to get the biggest contract, then that team and GSW try to work out a sign-and-trade. The only way GSW could have avoided this is by offering him a massive extension. The max would have done it. Maaaaybe even a re-offer of the spurned $30m / yr would have done it? But GSW should not be offering anywhere close to that. They also need to have JK explore his market value, for a potential sign and trade.
    

    As for as JK, he does have a certain urgency because the longer he waits, the less cap space teams have to spend and the fewer options there are to make sign-and-trades work. I’m hoping we’ll hear news in the next day or two.

• Ramona Shelburne: "From what I understand, the Warriors are not going to give Kuminga up for assets that they don't like in return. They want to keep him unless they get something great back for him. (reddit)

• BrettSiegelNBA (xcancel)

  If the Warriors miss out on Al Horford, who is being pursued by several big-name teams, keep a close eye on Chris Boucher as a cost-effective option. Dubs also still maintain interest in Gary Payton II and De'Anthony Melton. Sit back and relax on Jonathan Kuminga updates.

Farewell, Kevon Looney

I think we all need to process this one a while. Kevon was a rock of the team. But I’m also glad he’s getting $16 million which is way more than GSW would have paid him and he’ll be reunited with his pal Jordan Poole and old coach Willie Green.

Guifus wrote:

I guess this day was inevitable, but I kept hoping LoonDawg would be a Warrior his entire career, in addition to being a Warrior for Life. We can’t assume to know everything about each player, but I think there’s enough evidence and testimony about Looney’s character to believe he’s the real deal. He’s been my favorite guy on the team for quite some time.

I stumbled upon this video years ago and absolutely adored Looney in it. He was in Milwaukee to do his annual camp for kids and joined a local morning show and was paired up with two hosts that obviously knew nothing about hoops and asked pretty bubble-headed questions. Instead of acting cool or rolling his eyes, he handles the whole things with grace, humility and the utter lack of pretense that we’d see over and over from him during his time here.

This makes me way more melancholy than Klay, Iggy or any Warrior leaving.

More comments from Dub Nation HQ

• Goldarn Staid Worrier (21 ♡):

  Goodbye Kevon! A great Warrior!!

• Steel Beams (19 ♡):

  God I love Looney. I hope he does well in Nola. LoonDawg is a Dub for life, and I will throw hands over that claim.

• dubbletrubble (15 ♡):

  I appreciate the information [on Loon’s departure], but I will not be liking your post.

• Sleepy Freud (14 ♡):

  LoonDawg had this run of rebounds v SAC and LAL in the ‘23 playoffs.

  20

  14

  22

  13

  21

  23

  😢

• TDR (12 ♡):

  Ok devastated for a moment. Looooooooooooon ☹️

• E2148 (11 ♡):

  Gutted. I’m a UCLA fan too so losing Loon hurts extra.

  He was supposed to be a point forward with 3 pt range in college but his health issues were so bad he wasn’t even a guarantee to stick around in the league past his first contract.

  To see him not only get healthy and reinvent himself as an undersized, tenacious rebounder, but become an “adult in the room” and a major contributor to the 22 championship has got to be one of my favorite things I’ve watched as a Dubs fan in the last 17 years (next to my former Davidson classmate becoming a top 10 all time player, of course ☺️).

  I think it goes without saying that Kevon is and forever will be a Warrior for Life!

• Ty (11 ♡):

  Oh god no, not Looney…it was always a possibility but it still hurts…

  “If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them.” —JAMES O’BARR

• Abaddon (10 ♡):

  I croon

  A mournful tune

  We’re losing Loon

Frequently Asked Questions

When should I be sad about GSW not getting all the free agents?

Go ahead and be sad right now. It is the right of a fan to have wild feelings.

When should I be MAD about GSW not getting free agents?

GSW can sign free agents with the Taxpayer Midlevel Exception of $5,685,000. If you see a free agent signed by another team for less than that, then you can be mad that GSW didn’t grab them first.

Any free agent above that salary can only be added via sign-and-trade, which would

• (1) cap GSW at the first apron so it is not done lightly,

• (2) need to be agreed upon by the player (to sign) and both the teams, and

• (3) fit the byzantine NBA salary matching rules.

So these deals take time and may not be possible.

If GSW lets one of its own free agents leave, you can stomp your feet since GSW probably were able to match that price. Although that would probably have restricted GSW’s ability to sign other free agents.

Where can I educate myself on various free agents that GSW should pursue?

Check out

• Free agency key dates plus Transcript: Perks and Apricot on GSW Free Agency (part 1)

What are the key dates in the 2024 NBA Free Agency season?

The Free Agency Moratorium starts June 30. This is supposed to be quiet time but in fact all the free agent signings get announced then.

• NBA glossary and primer on free agency

• Perks Warriors Cap and Salary Doc

• Day After Last Game of NBA Finals: Each NBA team may begin negotiating with upcoming free agents who finished the just-completed season on its roster.

• June 30: Each NBA team may begin negotiating with all other upcoming free agents (beginning at 6 p.m. ET).

• July 6: Each NBA team may begin signing free agents to contracts (12:01 p.m. ET).

I always found this calendar to be extremely unhelpful, so let me give you context for how slowly or quickly we might hear by listing the titles of the DNHQ articles from last year. Keep in mind that this year could be different. Things may be unusually slow for GSW because if GSW and Kuminga may be slow to come to agreement and that could stop GSW from signing free agents.

When will we hear news?

Free agency signings will be announced starting Day 1 of the Moratorium period.

For context…

In 2024:

• Day 1. We learned: GSW was exploring sign-and-trades for Klay, Chris Paul waived; Paul George was pursued but joins PHI

• Day 2. Klay sign-and-trade with DAL confirmed; De’Anthony Melton signs

• Day 3. Lauri Markkanen and Buddy Hield targeted; Kyle Anderson signed

• Day 5. Buddy Hield signed. Klay sign-and-trade expanded. Markkanen still targeted.

In 2023:

• Early on Day 1, Draymond’s re-signing news broke.

• Around Day 3, Cory Joseph’s signing news broke.

• Around Day 8, Dario Saric’s signing news broke.

In 2021:

• Within the first few hours of Day 1, half the Warriors’ free agent targets had already been signed by the Lakers. (Excuse me while I smile and smile about this from the comfort of post 2022 Championship.)

• Otto Porter Jr’s signing news came at 9pm of Day 1 (Aug 2 2021)

• Nemanja Bjelica’s signing news came around 9:30am of Day 2

• Andre Iguodala signing news came Aug 6, after the moratorium.

In THEORY and by rule, the key dates are :

• Official start of league year and free agency moratorium when no agreements can be made. Teams can NOT start negotiating with players before. The moratorium gives all teams a chance to meet with any free agent, so it’s not a race.  

• Free agency moratorium ends. Teams officially can begin signing players and complete trades.

In reality, free agency negotiations are happening at all times, through intermediaries. The league turned a blind eye to this because of the difficulty of enforcement, but teams flouted the rules to ridiculous extents. Regularly, reports would come out on free agency agreements in the first minutes of the moratorium. The league finally had to crack down on MIL for announcing a sign-and-trade within minutes, and MIA and CHI for a complex three person sign-and-trade.

The practical result of this is to expect most free agency signings to be announced starting Day 1 of the moratorium.

These moratorium agreements are not binding of course, but it’s major news if someone backs out of the agreement (for instance the absurdly funny DeAndre Jordan situation in 2015, still my favorite NBA Twitter real-time saga).