The NBA's 2015 free agency has moved fast. Less than 24 hours after the market opened for business at midnight Eastern, 10 of the top 20 free agents on my rankings of projected value have already agreed to terms. (Players can't officially sign contracts until the 2015-16 salary cap is set and the league's moratorium period ends on July 9.)
If you've had a hard time keeping up with the enormous amounts of money getting thrown around in anticipation of how dramatically the salary cap will go up when the NBA's new television deals kick in, you're surely not alone. Let's take a look at all the deals and the implications for their teams.
Kevin Love
Team: Cleveland Cavaliers (re-signed)
Contract: Five-year maximum contract worth approximately $110 million (exact figure will be determined when salary cap is set)
Iman Shumpert
Team: Cavaliers (re-signed)
Contract: Four years, $40 million
What it means: For all the speculation over Love's future during the 2014-15 season, as he struggled to figure out how he fit in a loaded Cavaliers roster, the consensus had developed recently within the league that Love -- as he repeatedly said -- wasn't going anywhere. So the surprise here is less that Love re-signed and more the length of this deal, the maximum possible five years.
The long-term security is useful for Love in case the back injury that limited him lingers. Still, this looks like a win for Cleveland, which has Love locked in at a reasonable price as the cap escalates. Shumpert's number might have come in a little higher than the Cavaliers expected. Fortunately, that doesn't really affect their flexibility at all, and I project he'll be worth more than $10 million a year over the next three seasons.
What's next: ESPN's Chris Broussard and Brian Windhorst reported Wednesday the Cavaliers are close to a five-year, $80 million deal with restricted free agent Tristan Thompson. Cleveland also has to re-sign shooting guard J.R. Smith and backup point guard Matthew Dellavedova to bring back the core of last year's team. Then the Cavaliers can look to use the non-guaranteed contract of center Brendan Haywood to add another piece. Windhorst tweeted Wednesday that Cleveland has "numerous options" for Haywood trades.