With the arrival of July, the NBA free market has officially begun.
The new television broadcast contract has taken effect, and the league announced the salary cap limit for the 2016-17 season, which is 94.143 million! This is a full 25% increase from last season.
The skyrocketing salary space has plunged the entire league into madness.
On the first day alone, more than $1 billion in contracts were signed!
Eric Gordon signed with the Rockets for 4 years and 53 million.
Harrison Barnes signs a 4-year, $95 million contract extension with the Mavericks.
Mahinmi signed with the Wizards for 4 years and 64 million.
Al Horford signed a four-year, $113 million contract with the Celtics.
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Large and jaw-dropping contracts are being announced one after another, shocking the league and even the whole world. The amount of money earned is too exaggerated, right?
Especially Barnes and Horford, neither of whom can be considered top stars, but one gets 95 million, the other has a contract of over 100 million, and their average annual salary is more than 20 million!
At this time, no one would have thought that this was not the most exaggerated thing.
On July 2, the second day of the free market was even crazier than the first day.
Grizzlies starting point guard Mike Conley reached a contract extension agreement with the team to stay with the Grizzlies for 153 million over five years.
153 million per year, with an average annual salary of 30.6 million!
This is the largest contract in NBA history!
Mike Conley, who was previously unknown and had never even been selected as an All-Star, instantly became the subject of heated discussion in the league.
"Does a point guard who has averaged 15 points and 6 assists per game in his career deserve such a big contract?"
Let alone becoming the league's top star, even if Conley can be selected as an All-Star, perform well, have the experience of being selected for the All-NBA Team, or even lead the Grizzlies to gain substantial honors in the playoffs, it is estimated that no one will.
say what.
But Conley doesn't want anything, so why should he get such a big contract? Isn't this disrupting the market?
While doubts are everywhere, some people are also analyzing rationally. It is inevitable that the salary cap has skyrocketed, and player salaries will increase accordingly. Although the Grizzlies feel a little stupid and have too much money, it is actually a helpless move.
There are rich teams everywhere, but they are strong but have very few stars in their prime.
It makes no sense to have money but not be able to sign stars.
Although the five-year, $153 million contract the Grizzlies gave Conley is a bit exaggerated, it at least retains the team's main point guard and ensures that the team's strength has not declined. In the eyes of the Grizzlies management, this is enough.
.
And Mike Conley's largest contract in history is just the beginning.
Immediately afterwards, Howard joined the Atlanta Hawks for 70.5 million in three years. The more he played in the Rockets, the more he developed into a blue-collar center and he could no longer stay.
The Grizzlies struck again, signing Rockets forward Chandler Parsons for $94.8 million in four years.
In fact, the Grizzlies really want to get Wang Feng. At the same price, Wang Feng's strength is completely different from Parsons.
However, after they took the initiative to contact Wang Feng's agent Bill Duffy, the other party gave a straightforward reply that Wang Feng was not interested in the Grizzlies.
Wang Feng did seriously consider the Memphis Grizzlies, but after Conley's largest contract in history appeared like another time and space, Wang Feng was not very interested.
Conley's annual salary is 30 million, and Marc Gasol's annual salary is 20 million. In addition, he can give himself a maximum salary of about 22 million. The three players alone occupy almost more than 70 million in salary space, leaving the team to make up for it.
The strong space is almost equal to zero.
Marc Gasol's contract is slightly better. He can maintain his condition for a few years and is a good immediate player.
But Conley's annual salary of 30 million is really a scam. This contract alone is doomed that the Grizzlies will never have a chance to win the championship.
Moreover, although Memphis is a big city, the Grizzlies are a standard small-market team, so Wang Feng refused without hesitation.
Knowing that they had no chance to sign Wang Feng, the Grizzlies stopped worrying and signed forward Chandler Parsons for $94.8 million in four years.
In the next few years, this contract will be hailed as the most rubbish contract in recent years. Chandler Parsons, who takes money but does not work, is also jokingly called "the money is worth it" by Chinese netizens.
What are you afraid of?"
The Pistons renewed their contract with their home-trained center Andre Drummond for 130 million yuan over five years. Considering the current decline of centers in the league, this contract is not an exaggeration.
The Wizards renewed guard Bradley Beal's contract, which is also 130 million for five years, the highest salary allowed under the salary cap.
The Hornets re-signed Batum for $120 million over five years.
Menglong renews DeRozan's contract with 145 million in 5 years...
Major teams have launched heavy attacks, white money is flowing out like a flood, and there are fewer and fewer big fish in the free market.
After the end of July 2, there are only a handful of relatively famous stars in the league left.
At the same time, Chinese fans who have always been paying attention to Wang Feng's updates began to gradually become anxious.
"What is Wang Feng doing? Why hasn't he renewed his contract with the Warriors?"
After the salary cap skyrocketed, the Warriors' salary space increased by part, and Bogut, with an annual salary of 12 million, was traded to the Mavericks a few days ago, freeing up a lot of salary space, and is fully capable of providing Wang Feng with a four-year, 95 million contract.
Maximum salary.
However, it is already the third day since the free market started, and there has been no news from both sides.
Even the information coming from various grapevines is quite intriguing.
Wang Feng's economic team, Team Yao, met with many teams in the past few days, including the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks and other big-market teams with sufficient salary space. According to people familiar with the matter, some of them actually
There is the Warriors' archrival, the Cleveland Cavaliers.
On the Warriors side, many players, including Green, are actually actively communicating with Durant and seem to want to persuade Durant to join the Warriors.
This kind of behavior is incredible. Durant is one of the top stars in the league and a standard big name. How could he cut his salary and join the Warriors who have won two consecutive championships? Isn't it shameless?
When many people saw these news, they felt like they had seen a joke. They thought, who made this news? Do you understand football? They didn't take it seriously at all.
However, just one day later, the reality told everyone, who doesn’t understand football?
On July 4, Durant issued a statement on his personal Twitter, officially announcing that he would leave the Thunder and join the Golden State Warriors for 54.3 million in 2 years. The contract is a 1+1 model with a player option for the second year. He is obviously following James' example and leaving it for himself.
road.
In the article, he thanked his old club for everything they had given, and then described his decision as "a new chapter in my life" and "the most difficult decision."
As soon as this news was announced, it immediately caused an uproar in the league! Everyone was stunned by Durant's cool moves.