Free agency is a time to dream big, which really means that it’s a time to make do. Over the coming days, the best-laid plans of most NBA teams and the Photoshopped-jersey dreams of many of their fans will be blown completely to bits, forcing all involved to talk themselves into the next-best option on the board. And then the next-best option. And then the backup plan to the backup plan. And then whichever leftover player might not be an outright disaster.
That chain reaction promises to be especially painful with this summer’s point guard market, which has some sheer, terrifying drops as you move down the list of who might be available. The best and most reliable of the free agent guards is James Harden, which is quite a thing to say about a 33-year-old with a growing list of soft-tissue injuries and an uninspiring big-game résumé who may not actually be gettable in the first place. Yet the fact that Harden sets the market for the position certainly fits the theme; this is the summer of the imperfect point guard, when even the top free agent initiators available are flawed in their own distinct way, making it all the more difficult for teams to navigate the decision-tree logic and suss out their best alternatives.
The Offer Sheet
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The ranking order of the guards in this class very much depends on what a particular team is willing to live with. The caveats with Harden are almost the complete opposite of those attached to Fred VanVleet, whose size can be an issue but whose effort and intensity never are. The catch with VanVleet doesn’t even really compare to the full array of red flags waving around Kyrie Irving, who is so unpredictable that he could destabilize a franchise at virtually any time. Try squaring that with the superior professionalism but trickier fit of Russell Westbrook, or the theoretical aptitude but come-and-go production of D’Angelo Russell. This isn’t a deep guard class, and the top five candidates offer such radically different propositions that there may not be a team in the league that would have genuine interest in all five.
A lot of the action will still end up going through Harden, seeing as no one seems all that sure of what last season’s assist leader actually wants. Much of the latest reporting points to Harden returning to the Sixers for another run with Joel Embiid, caveated to the point of making those reports more of an informed shrug. A little more than a month ago, there was “a belief among NBA executives” that Harden would head back to the Rockets to enjoy the twilight of his career in the city he called home for eight-plus seasons. The way the rumors around Harden’s free agency have played out to this point suggest the winds could change again tomorrow, and again the day after that. So much depends on the whims of a guard with fairly inscrutable motives, which is to say Harden has navigated these negotiations to his advantage.
Harden isn’t even a perfect on-court fit for either team, but he’s the best choice for both by default—as the only All-NBA-level contributor Philly can currently sign, and the only star in the league with enough history in Houston to play for the Rockets on those grounds alone. Whichever team Harden doesn’t sign with would reportedly be interested in VanVleet as an alternative. He may not have an MVP trophy on his mantle like Westbrook or one of the biggest shots in NBA history in his personal highlight reel like Irving, but VanVleet—even after struggling with his shot and his role for much of last season—is widely regarded as the surest bet of these good-but-flawed guards.
With the way the market has played out, VanVleet has the widest appeal of any guard available. There are only two teams genuinely in the running for Harden at this stage, and both have suspected they might be getting played for leverage. Marc Stein reported that the Mavs are the “only confirmed bidder” for Irving to this point, after the Suns bowed out after trading for Bradley Beal. The market for D-Lo is flimsy enough that he might wind up right back with the team that benched him in the Western Conference finals, and Westbrook’s rather particular foibles make him a challenge to plug into just any rotation. Teams that need guard help and have either cap space or sign-and-trade flexibility have inevitably been tied to VanVleet at some point in the process. It’s not just the Sixers and Rockets, but the Lakers, the Magic, the Suns (again, before landing Beal), and the incumbent Raptors.
For all VanVleet’s limitations (as a 6-foot guard who shot under 40 percent from the field last season, for starters), he doesn’t need the ball like Harden does, shows up in ways Irving doesn’t, fits in more easily than Westbrook can, and defends more capably than Russell could. A player with that kind of appeal could be a logjam in the marketplace; only two teams may be waiting on Harden, but if VanVleet is the Harden backup plan for those teams and he decides to wait out Harden too, a lot of the point guard market could wind up waiting with him.
And once the dam eventually breaks, we’ll finally get some resolution to three of the biggest and strangest subplots of free agency:
How much can Kyrie squeeze the Mavericks? Given that Dallas picked up strictly supporting players on draft night, there’s no real plan for the Mavs to compete next season that doesn’t include Irving. That gives a player without any real market an awful lot of leverage, a setup for the league’s premier chaos agent to chase some pretty wild outcomes.
Who takes a chance on Russ? One might expect that Westbrook, after such an affirming stint with the Clippers, might be eager to sign back on for another season. Maybe that’s true, but at present, the Clippers can offer Westbrook only a bit more than the veteran minimum. It really wouldn’t take much for another playoff team to come in over the top.
Will any team but the Lakers make a real offer for D-Lo? The lack of teams with significant cap space this summer means that Russell could have a hell of a time drumming up interest for his services. At this point in his career, he’s really of interest only to desperate teams. But is any team out there desperate enough? The most likely outcome is that Russell ends up back with the Lakers, even if that means being an interchangeable (and benchable) part of the rotation.
And to think: These are among the best options available. Teams still in need of a point guard will quickly find themselves in Patrick Beverley or Dennis Schrӧder territory, which feels like a reminder that the best approach to this summer’s free agent frenzy may be to sit it out entirely. Minnesota did well to flip Russell for Mike Conley back at the trade deadline. If Golden State had waited any longer to make the call on Chris Paul, some other team unimpressed by the free agent alternatives might have called up Washington and beaten the Warriors to the punch. This is the kind of marketplace that makes a team get its Damian Lillard trade offers in order.
In the right circumstances, a few of this season’s free agent guards could be high-impact players—Harden in particular. More than a few teams, however, will find themselves in the sobering place of deciding whether to make their big offseason play for Russell or Schrӧder. Westbrook or Beverley. After missing out on Harden and VanVleet, some general manager will consider selling out for Irving’s talent at the cost of everything else, only to snap out of it and settle for Gabe Vincent instead. There are no truly great point guard options here—just the kind a team can talk itself into.
