NBA Free Agency: Top 10 2014 free agents

10. Lance Stephenson:

Let’s do a quick pros and cons list for Lance Stephenson:

Pros: Led the league in triple doubles, is only 23 years old, is coming off the best season of his career in which he averaged 13.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game, will do ANYTHING if he thinks it will help his team win.

Cons:

Unfortunately for Born Ready and whatever team signs him as an unrestricted free agent this summer, sometimes what Lance Stephenson thinks is helping his team is actually hurting it. His comments about LeBron returning his trash talk being a sign of weakness in the Eastern Conference Finals led to one of LeBron’s best performances of the postseason, when he dropped a 32-10-5-2 stat line on the Indiana Pacers to take a commanding 3-1 series lead.

Stephenson later admitted that was probably his fault. Hindsight’s 20-20, but Stephenson’s vision and maturity weren’t Born Ready, especially when he turns into a bull who’s seen Miami Heat red. Stephenson’s a joy to watch because of his creativity, rangy defense, overly flashy moves and potential brilliance that comes with the total package, but teams other than Larry Bird‘s might be careful about signing him if they can’t reign in his sporadic behavioral outbursts.

Keep your eye on this one, because he’ll most likely either be back next year with the Pacers or he’ll be massively overpaid by another team banking on his potential.