Breaking down NBA free agent wings by player type

Last week in this space, we dug into the NBA’s increasing fascination with wing players. The league is becoming more and more obsessed with players who stand between 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-9, handing that group of players more than 60 percent of all available playoff minutes for the first time in 2018, then following it up by using 38 of 60 total draft picks on players in that size range.

Next week will come another test for just how much the league values these players. Even assuming that Kevin Durant quickly re-signs with the Warriors, as is currently the expectation, the 2018 free-agency crop is still headed by two players who fit that description in LeBron James and Paul George. While both of those players should be expected to sign pretty much whatever kind of contract they want with the team of their choosing, there is a second and third tier of small and big wings whose contract situations are far more interesting.

The league has an incredible need for players who can guard either wing spot and/or space the floor and/or create off the dribble, but the amount of cap space available with which to actually pay those players what they feel they are worth is … scant. That’s why the most interesting group of available free agents this offseason is, in my opinion, the cadre of flexible wing players who are not going to come close to getting a max contract, rightly feel they deserve far more than the minimum, would like to receive a contract that exceeds either or both of the mid-level exceptions in terms of average annual value, and seem likely to be disappointed by the number of teams willing and/or able to offer them such a deal.

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The best among this group of players can be broadly broken down into four categories: shooter, defender, attacker, and 3-and-D guy. Let’s walk through each group and try to suss out who their suitors might be and what they might be able to expect on the market.

Shooters

J.J. Redick, Wayne Ellington, Joe Harris

Redick is the clear prize among this group, and he should have a strong market whether or not the Sixers go out and sign one of the available stars. If the Sixers don’t land LeBron or George, he can likely expect a contract similar to the one he signed last year, when he made over $20 million on a one-year deal. Philly running it back with his shooting playing an important on-court role around their young foundational pieces, then dipping back into the market next year, makes a lot of sense. if the Sixers do land a star, they should be interested in bringing Redick back anyway. (This is especially true if they trade for Kawhi Leonard, which would likely mean they dealt away Robert Covington and/or Dario Saric.) His low-usage, high-efficiency game is an excellent fit with the team’s core pieces, and his ability to serve as both a primary actor and a distractor while on the floor does wonders for their offense. Add in the fact that, though he is not exactly a stopper, he rarely makes mistakes defensively, and he’s a perfect 2-guard for the current iteration of the Sixers.

Ellington is basically discount Redick, while Harris is discount Ellington. Neither player is quite as consistent a shooter as Redick, nor quite as distracting when flying around screens or engaging in dribble hand-offs, but both serve similar functions for an offense. Ellington has been a huge part of the Heat’s success over the last couple seasons while Harris stands out as one of the nice early finds of the Sean Marks/Kenny Atkinson era in Brooklyn. Both players seem likely to command something like the taxpayer mid-level exception, with Ellington standing a better chance of getting a team to open up its non-taxpayer mid-level, which starts around $3 million higher.

It would not be surprising to see the Warriors get interested in either or both players, while the Rockets would surely come calling if they had to include Eric Gordon in a LeBron James trade. Shooting-starved teams like the Grizzlies, Thunder, Bucks, Timberwolves, and even Knicks make sense as an option for one or both players but the first four have salary issues and the Knicks have more of a need for bigger wings rather than pure 2-guard types. The Jazz or Pacers could be interesting fits if they decide to open up a bunch of cap space, though, and it’s easy to see either playing carving out a pretty decent-sized role for one of those two teams.

Defenders

Marcus Smart, Avery Bradley, Luc Mbah a Moute

Smart is the most intriguing restricted free-agent on the wing market. He is hugely important to Boston’s defense and culture, and his size-strength-speed combination makes him one of the NBA’s most flexible defenders despite the fact that he’s only 6-foot-4. The Celtics have routinely used him to defend power forwards and it has worked out just fine. That he’s also capable of occasionally working as a primary ball-handler makes him an even more interesting player. That said, his inability to shoot from pretty much anywhere on the floor caps the ceiling of his impact, and makes him a tough fit in certain lineups.

There are a bunch of teams who could use a player with Smart’s skill set and even have the available space to make an offer (the Suns and Pacers immediately come to mind), but do they want to tie up their cap space and just hope the Celtics decide not to match? And would the Celtics really be willing to let Smart walk out the door? They’ve already signed Brad Wanamaker from overseas, which seems to be a sign they’re willing to let Shane Larkin leave. Boston has built its identity on defense and it would be interesting to see how that would change if Danny Ainge lets his two most aggressive perimeter defenders leave in the same offseason.

The perimeter defender Ainge shipped out last year is also set to hit the open market. Bradley struggled offensively for much of his tenure with the Pistons, then played only six games with the Clippers before going down for the year. He still has a sterling reputation as a defender of 1s and 2s but there’s long been a school of thought that his defensive impact is a bit overrated. At his best he seems like a player who should earn a contract paying a figure in excess of the non-taxpayer mid-level exception on a per-year basis, but it’s also difficult to identify a team that would be willing to offer him such a deal.

Any playoff squad looking for more defense would surely be interested in his services for something like the taxpayer mid-level, and if he ends up taking that, it would be very similar to the Thunder’s Patrick Patterson signing last year. (Let’s ignore that Patterson spent most of this season recovering from an injury and thus was largely ineffective. He was expected to command more than that on the open market and the signing was near-universally lauded as a steal at the time.)

Mbah a Moute had a wonderful season in Houston after signing with the Rockets for the minimum, but a twice-dislocated shoulder sapped him of his effectiveness just in time for the playoffs, when he would have been most valuable. Still, this is one of just seven players in the NBA who guarded four different positions on at least 15 percent of his defensive possessions last season, and one who showed a surprising amount of off-the-bounce verve as a cog in Mike D’Antoni’s offensive machine last season. He could easily garner a deal for the taxpayer mid-level and might even be able to get more than that if he’s willing to take a one-year deal or a one-plus-team-option. The Rockets, Spurs, Warriors — you know what: every playoff team should be interested.

Attackers

Will Barton, Tyreke Evans

The Nuggets would like to bring Barton back to reprise his role as the scoring captain of their bench unit but they have major luxury-tax concerns even before they hand Nikola Jokic his five-year maximum contract. Figuring out a way to get off the money they owe to Kenneth Faried and/or Darrell Arthur would help them clear out the room they need to clear Baton but failing that, he feels gettable. The only question is, well, how much is he going to get? He turned down the Josh Richardson-esque four-year, $40 million extension from the Nuggets last offseason and clearly feels he’s worth more than that. He might be right, but again, there is just not much money available. Would he be willing to settle for the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception from somebody? That’d be less than he turned down last offseason so it wouldn’t look great, but it’s just difficult to identify where the $50 million-plus offer is coming from for him. He’d be a great fit off the bench for any number of teams, but if there’s someone that identifies him as a candidate to start, he might walk away a little bit richer than I expect.

The same is true of Evans, who had been a disappointment for a few years before having an excellent season with the Grizzlies. It still absolutely boggles the mind that Memphis didn’t just trade him at least year’s deadline, but well, them’s the Grizz. They surely would appreciate if he came back to Memphis on the taxpayer mid-level and that feels about right as far as value goes, if he’s going to continue to come off the bench. He looked like a starter-quality player for much of last season but if you’re not putting the ball in his hands all the time, some of his utility is wasted, and that makes him a better second-unit fit on most squads. Anybody in search of affordable off-the-bounce dynamism would do well to put in a call to Evans’ agent, and it wouldn’t surprise if he got a nice multi-year deal early in free-agency from a team looking to make sure it does not miss out on any of the available guys in this category.

3-and-D

Trevor Ariza, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

Ariza should have his home team over a barrel in much the same way Andre Iguodala did last summer. There is nobody available anywhere who can bring the same value to the Rockets as can Ariza, and he has the leverage to demand a multi-year deal that pays him far in excess of what he might realistically be able to get elsewhere, simply because the Rockets can’t afford to lose him.

Of the players on this list, Ariza seems most likely to get a deal that looks really bad a few years down the line but doesn’t get criticized because he’s so essential to his team in the here and now. Something that looks exactly like Iguodala’s Warriors contract — maybe even with a fourth year thrown in because he’s less of an injury risk and a better shooter — is an entirely reasonable expectation. It would be even less of a surprise if he pulled an Iguodala outright and used the Kings for leverage. Less surprising still would be the Kings obliging.

Next: 20 best free agents available

KCP had a solid, if unspectacular season during his time with the Lakers. He’s coming off a one-year contract that paid far in excess of what he can likely expect on the market this year but maybe the Lakers do him and Rich Paul a solid again if they end up signing LeBron. That’s basically what their one-year, $18 million offer to Caldwell-Pope was last year. Why not just run it back and give him more money again, right? It’s not tampering.