Free Agency Watch, Day 1: The (completely ignored) moratorium begins

Discuss the chaos here

Free Agency Guide

Perks GSWReddit helpfully provided us an overview of Warriors free agency targets:

• Free Agent Targets 1: Ballhandlers

• Free Agent Targets 2: Wings

• Free Agent Targets 3: Frontcourt

• Two-Way Contract Candidates

And here are some key targets examined above (many more are in the pieces):

• Patty Mills

• Austin Rivers

• Otto Porter Jr.

• Wayne Ellington

• Nicolas Batum

• Rudy Gay

• Aron Baynes

• Omari Spellman

• Ryan Taylor

The (ignored) moratorium

Okay, in theory, there is a moratorium period from Mon Aug 3, 3:00 pm Pacific until Aug. 5 at 9:01 pm Pacific. Teams cannot sign free agents until the period is over (with some minor exceptions), so free agents can negotiate with different teams, etc etc.

In reality, this is completely ignored and the negotiations begin way before the moratorium period and many deals get announced at the start of the moratorium.

Last year was the first time in memory that a trade was stopped because of the Bucks and Kings finalizing a deal before the moratorium. This year, the ignoring seems to be back in effect, as Kyle Lowry and the Miami HEAT appear to have a deal in place as reported by Woj. Which naturally has pissed off Kings and Bucks fans.

Greg @gwiss

Around The Realm: Kyle Lowry to join Miami Heat in sign-and-trade, because tampering rules only apply to small markets

kingsherald.comAround The Realm: Kyle Lowry to join Miami Heat in sign-and-trade, because tampering rules only apply to small markets - The Kings HeraldKyle Lowry is joining the Miami Heat via a sign-and-trade agreement that will send Goran Dragic and Precious Achiuwa to the Raptors. Or at least that’s what is implied by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Lowry’s long been Read More...

Brandon Abraham @bcabraham

To me, the main difference is Lowry seems to want to go to Miami whereas Bogdonovic did not want to end up in Milwaukee. It’s all tampering, but when a player is in a Sign and Trade he hasn’t agreed to, it creates the issues we saw last year. If Lowry/Dragic don’t care, NBA won’t https://t.co/oVgtyQD3WL

Mark Schindler @MSchindlerNBA

I really just don’t see how this is any freakin different than what happened with Milwaukee and Sacramento lmaoooo Like slightly different scenarios, but this feels very selective

In theory, these deals are not binding, but it’s major news if someone backs out of the agreement (for instance the absurdly funny DeAndre Jordan situation in 2015).

The NBA on the Free Agency Moratorium:

Some signings can take place during the moratorium period, which are:

• Teams signing their first-round Draft picks to standard rookie-scale contracts.

• Second-round Draft picks accepting a required tender, which is a one-year contract offer teams must submit to keep the rights to that player.

• Restricted free agents can accept qualifying offers from their existing team.

• A restricted free agent finishing the fourth year of his rookie-scale contract can accept a maximum qualifying offer.

• A restricted free agent can sign an offer sheet with a new team, which triggers the 2-day period for his original team to match it.

• Players can be signed to minimum-salary contracts for one or two seasons (but the deals have no bonuses of any kind).

• Teams can sign players to Two-Way contracts, turn a Two-Way contract into a standard NBA contract or convert certain standard NBA contracts into a Two-Way contract.

• Teams can waive players or claim players waived by other teams.

Otherwise, all other signings must wait until after the moratorium period ends.

So expect lots of free agency news today

Hopefully about the Warriors, but no guarantees.

• Nifty Free Agent Tracker from RealGM

Yaya Dubin @JADubin5

I would assume that once we get numbers on the Lowry deal and Jimmy's extension, we're over $1B in contracts in less than an hour.

---