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NBA free agency officially opens tomorrow at 6 p.m. ET! That’s when we expect a deluge of news about some stuff we already know and some stuff we don’t know yet. The best way for you to follow this is to open our running free agency live blog — and don’t close the tab for like 10 days.

Reunited?

Could Kawhi be moved to Toronto or Dallas?

We’ve already dipped our toes into trying to figure out what the LA Clippers will do this summer. The Aspiration investigation still hasn’t been resolved by the league (or if it has, it hasn’t been shared with the public yet). And the 35-year-old Kawhi Leonard (Happy birthday, Kawhi!) is eligible for a contract extension this summer. He has one year left on his deal, for $50.3 million.

If Leonard can’t secure a new contract with the Clippers (are they waiting on the investigation?), then he could be on the move this summer. One of those places might be the Dallas Mavericks, according to The Athletic’s Christian Clark, Dan Woike and Sam Amick.

Mavericks president Masai Ujiri has interest in reuniting with Leonard, multiple league sources with knowledge of Dallas’ thinking told The Athletic.

The Mavericks and LA Clippers have discussed a deal that would send the seven-time All-Star to Dallas for a package that would include P.J. Washington, Klay Thompson and draft picks, said league sources granted anonymity to describe deliberations still in progress.

I understand Kawhi’s 35. I understand he’s a free agent next summer. I understand the injury and availability concerns. Still, is that all you can get for him in a trade with Dallas? Leonard is coming off maybe his best statistical season. He was incredibly impressive in 65 games last season.

• Washington is a really good veteran forward who can fit in with any team.
• Thompson is still a very good shooter, but he’s not really a starting-level player anymore. He’s coming off career lows in minutes (21.7), points (11.7), rebounds (2.1), assists (1.4), field-goal percentage (39.3), 3-point percentage (38.3) and free-throw percentage (76.6). Washington has roughly $89.7 million left over the next four seasons. Thompson has an expiring contract in 2027.
• As for the potential draft compensation, the Mavericks have a 2027 second-rounder from the Bulls, a 2029 first from the Lakers, a 2029 second from the Rockets, a 2030 from the Warriors (top-20 protected or it becomes seconds), a 2030 second from the 76ers and then their own firsts in 2031, 2032 and 2033. Assuming they have to give up at least one first-rounder for Kawhi, it would probably be best to dangle the one from the Lakers.

Ujiri traded for Kawhi when he was the Raptors GM in 2018, and Kawhi helped Toronto win the championship in his one year there. But Ujiri’s Mavs are not where the interest ends for a reunion. According to The Stein Line Substack, the Raptors have also been hot after Kawhi. You might remember they struck out on LaMelo Ball last week when he was sent to the Timberwolves. Jake Fischer reported the Raptors are hoping to send Brandon Ingram to LA in a potential trade, while the Clippers would probably prefer the expiring contract of RJ Barrett.

The biggest question with any potential deal is whether Kawhi would sign an extension with his new team. He’s said to really love Los Angeles (where he’s from). At 35 and in search of a big-money extension, he might not have much of a choice, though.

The last 24

⛰️ Sticking around? We haven’t seen any extension negotiations yet for Nikola Jokić. Denver still believes he’ll be a Nugget forever.

💰 New deal. The Thunder declined the team option on Isaiah Hartenstein to sign him to a new contract. He’s getting $75 million over three years.

🩼 Is this bad? Dereck Lively II has been recovering slowly from multiple foot surgeries. None of this sounds optimistic.

🤝 Great move. The Thunder are shedding salary, and the Pistons are benefiting. They acquired Isaiah Joe from OKC.

💰 Not great, Bob! The Pistons and restricted free agent Jalen Duren have stalled in negotiations. I’m not sure he has many options here.

Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!)and catch out-of-market games onLeague Pas

Do you bee-lieve?

Analyzing Charlotte’s confusing recent moves

“Why are the Charlotte Hornets doing this?”

I’ve had some version of that question thrown my way after the two trades the Hornets made over the last few days. They went from one of the best stories in the regular season and most impressive mid-season turnarounds to trading their two best veteran players in two different deals. Have they ruined all of the good stuff they created under Charles Lee? Did they need to get rid of these players? Are they better or worse off than where they were a week ago?

Let’s dive into what the Hornets have done so far this summer and figure out if they screwed up or improved their lot in the Eastern Conference.

What have the Hornets done? Two trades, a draft and a re-sign and a pizza place so far.

• Trade 1: They sent LaMelo and Josh Green to the Wolves for Naz Reid, three pick swaps, a 2033 first and three seconds.
• Trade 2: They sent Miles Bridges, a 2029 first and a 2027 second to the Suns for Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neal and a 2033 first.
• Draft: They selected big man Hannes Steinbach (14th) and guard Christian Anderson (18th).
• Re-sign: They agreed to re-sign Coby White for three years and $74 million.

LaMelo was their franchise guy. Bridges was their best veteran outside of LaMelo. Moving them for picks should indicate the team is taking a step back.

Wait, didn’t the Hornets have a really good season? They did! They started 13-25 but finished 44-38. They had the league’s best offense, the sixth-best defense and the best net rating in the final 44 games of the season (31-13). They went 1-1 in the Play-In Tournament but missed out on the playoffs.

So why would they immediately go away from it? Two reasons. 1) They didn’t want to pay LaMelo or Bridges. LaMelo has a two-year, $120 million-ish extension coming up this summer. That would push him to about $250 million over the next five seasons. Bridges is on an expiring contract this coming season, making about $22 million. They’d have to extend him or risk him walking. 2) They’d rather stock up on draft and trade assets to give the young core of Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel more to build around them.

What does their roster look like for next season? Let’s run down the positional chart:

• Lead guard: White, Anderson, Tre Mann
• Off-guard: Knueppel, Allen, Sion James
• Wing: Miller, O’Neale, Liam McNeeley
• Forward: Reid, Tidjane Salaun, Grant Williams
• Big man: Moussa Diabate, Steinbach, Ryan Kalkbrenner

They have a team option on Pat Connaughton, as well, and they need to make sure they have two-way contracts signed for players. But this is a good, deep roster. This was the third-best 3-point shooting team in the NBA last season, and Charlotte added a lot more shooting. We just have to see if it will have enough offensive creation without LaMelo.

What’s left for them to do? The Hornets have a possible contract extension for Miller this fall before the start of next season. If they don’t come to an agreement, he’ll become a restricted free agent next summer.

So did the Hornets do the right thing? I believe so. I don’t think they take much of a step back on the court, and they have a lot of draft capital to use. They’ll have at least three first-round picks in 2033. The 12-year-old stars of today could be the future of the Hornets

Jaylen Brown is not a fan of analytics — or at least one random analytics person. (Winslow Towson / Imagn Images)

Mad online

Brown is angry … at anonymous analytics guy

Jaylen Brown’s summer is only getting more interesting and more online. At this point, plenty of things have been said by Brown and about Brown and we’re now wondering if the Celtics are going to move on from him. They tried to trade him for Giannis Antetokounmpo, and it didn’t happen. Now they’re dealing with the fallout.

This past week, former NBA executive Bobby Marks was on SiriusXM NBA Radio and offered up this soundbite.

“I had an analytics guy tell me, ‘We view (Brown) as the seventh-best player on a TEAM.’”

The longer, four-minute clip has a lot more context from Marks, and it’s clear he doesn’t agree with this analytics guy. That didn’t stop Brown from lashing out on social media on Saturday:

• 12:56 p.m. PT: “Analytics nowadays used to discredit and control narratives — Roll the ball out none of these guys better than me on both ends who does he work for.”
• 1:07 p.m. PT: “Nobody has won more combined regular season and playoff games since I entered the league 10 years ago.”
• 1:14 p.m. PT: “Analytics have / are ruining the game we playing AI hoops.”
• 1:15 p.m. PT: Marks then replied to Brown to make sure Brown knew it wasn’t him who made this claim. Marks was actually defending Brown’s place in this league before he threw “the media” under the bus for the SXM account posting the shorter clip.
• 1:25 p.m. PT: Brown replied to Marks: “State your source.”

A big part of this issue is just the branding of analytics. It sounds mathy, and a lot of people don’t like things that sound mathy. “Analytics” just means finding the most efficient basketball most of the time. But just like you have bad scouts and people who are bad at the eye test, you also have people who are bad at analytics. Marks source sounds like someone who is bad at analytics.

Brown says analytics are ruining the game, and maybe it’s fair to feel that way. You know who won a title by playing analytics-based basketball? The Celtics in 2024. Most analytics are pretty favorable toward Brown. Why? He’s awesome. I did appreciate him trying to throw out the buzzword “AI” when saying that’s what hoops are now because of analytics.

I did not bother to fact-check the rest of what Jaylen said about winning games. I’m just here for the chaos.