Written by Andrew Sharp at SI.com
NBA free agency begins at 12:01 Saturday morning, but we’ve been in the midst of madness for a few weeks now. Jimmy Butler is in Minnesota, the Pacers have made it clear that Paul George won’t be in Indiana next year, and as of Wednesday, Chris Paul is in Houston. God knows what Boston will do with Gordon Hayward or Blake Griffin. And now that free agency is here, players like Kyle Lowry and Paul Millsap will be added to the mix as well.
Over the past few weeks there’s been a steady chorus of voices crediting Golden State’s playoff run for inspiring the frenzy that’s overtaking NBA teams this summer. I don’t think that’s quite right. It’s not about the teams themselves responding; it’s the collectively-bargained response from the league itself that changed everything this summer.
The NBA’s new CBA was considered a triumph for everyone involved, and it was greeted warmly by fans and media alike. Post-TV money, the NBA’s business has never been better, and the latest CBA reflected as much. Most of the existing framework of the old deal remained in place, and as Sports Illustrated’s Michael McCann wrote at the time, “the new CBA is more about targeted tweaks than fundamental shifts.”
The one big innovation under the new deal was the Designated Player Veteran (DPV) Exception, also known as the “supermax.” This wrinkle allows incumbent teams to pay veteran superstars upwards of $200 million. It was also a “targeted tweak” aimed directly at the Warriors. For one thing, the new system means that keeping the actual Warriors roster together could get very, very expensive. KD, Draymond, Steph, and (maybe) Klay could make more than $160 million per year in 2020, and that’s before astronomical luxury taxes (and eight other players). It will get complicated for Joe Lacob and Co., and that’s starting this summer. More importantly, this new model was the NBA’s response to the concept of the Warriors.
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