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Dear Free Agency, We Love You

Dear Free Agency, We Love You

It’s incredible. The feeling of every single NBA fan who was ready to refresh their phones while looking at Adrian Wojnarowski’s twitter page on the fateful evening of June 30th, 2019. The instant when they saw their team get their prized player, or if they didn’t. This is a the tale of NBA Free Agency, and how it has an effect of 90% of America’s mental stability. Your group chat going crazy, all the analysts making their free agent predictions, and all the damn money in the world being spent. In the first 8 hours of Free Agency over $3 Billion was spent on contracts. And the once place to find all the juicy rumors and breaking news, NBA Twitter. NBA twitter has its own nucleus in the social media universe. Each twitter community has their leaders and for NBA twitter they consist of sports analysts who give all of us worshippers every single rumor and hot take that is spread across the league. They are Woj @wojespn, Stephen A. Smith @stephenasmith (who we should all pray for right now), Rob Perez @WorldWideWob (who we should also pray for), and Shams Charania @ShamsCharania. When that clock hit 6:00PM ET on June 30th the real ones already knew what was coming. The ill-informed fans of this beautiful league were shocked and amazed when they saw that Kevin Durant announced he was signing with the Brooklyn Nets. Woj already had tweeted that Durant was signing with the Nets at 4:52PM. Then all hell broke loose. The months of rumors and “sources tell ESPN” were finally coming to life, and the big money contracts came pouring in like a Black Friday Walmart stampede.

These two signings added on to the new hope that was born after the Raptors won Game 6 at Oracle Arena. Fans rejoiced as they were already deeming the Warriors dynasty over. The past three years were now looked at as worthless, as the ultimate super team was finally down their biggest piece. Kyrie Irving was leaving a disgruntled Celtics fanbase who believed that the six time All-Star gave up on their franchise. As he returns home, he will be faced with a new challenge leading a team with himself, new signing DeAndre Jordan (4 Years $40 Million), and a group of solid role players while Durant recovers to bring the Nets back to their winning ways of the early 2000s.
The 29 year old point guard out of UCONN finally got the hell out of that sorry excuse of a franchise that is the Charlotte Hornets. After months of speculation he has landed in beantown for some serious money. Boston gives it another shot at the “IT4 Replacement” stakes and hopes that Kemba will create the chemistry that was there during Kyrie’s first season at the TD Garden.
The ultimate slap in the face to every New York Knickerbocker fan on this planet. After trading Porzingis to clear up cap space to try and go for Durant and Irving. After going 17-65 and posting Zion, KD, and Kyrie edits for months, the Knicks have ended up striking out on all three. The Pelicans won the NBA lottery and picked Zion, which was the first step in the eventual nightmare that was to come. They then proceeded to miss out on both KD and Kyrie as both players chose the team that is 20 minutes away from Madison Square Garden. And to rub salt on the wound it was reported that owner James Dolan (who is hated all across NYC as the Knicks team president) didn’t offer Durant the max contract due to concerns about his achilles injury. However, despite almost everything going wrong, it isn’t completely over for the Knicks. With Julius Randle they add a versatile big man who is a solid PF and averaged 21.4 PPG and 8.7 RPG for the Pelicans. They picked up Reggie Bullock (2 Years $21 Million) who’s a decent off the bench shooter and Taj Gibson (2 Years $20 Million) who brings a veteran presence to a locker room full of young unproven talent (Allonzo Trier, Kevin Knox, and Dennis Smith Jr.). Lastly, the Knicks have one more key piece for their road back to the playoffs. Their first round draft pick out of Duke, RJ Barrett. The 19 year old now has the weight of the franchise on his shoulders. A team who has not had a championship since 1973 and has not won a playoff series since 2013 has officially started to run out of patience. Whether he wants it or not, he is the light at the end of the tunnel for a fanbase that has suffered greatly since the great Knicks teams of the late 90s.
You remember that joy that was being talked about when KD signed with the Nets? Yeah, everyone turned into Mr. Krabs immediately when they saw this tweet. Not even 24 hours later and New York Times reporter Marc Stein goes on the Dan Patrick Show and says that the Warriors are currently trying to trade away Russell. The Warriors also traded away the 2015 Finals MVP Andre Igoudala to the Memphis Grizzlies along with multiple future draft picks. With Iggy now leaving the Warriors they have created a deep void with no big defensive presence on the team. I don’t know even know what the hell is going on, but I absolutely love it.
First off, as a Celtics fan I am absolutely crushed. How did we let our starting Center who was been consistently productive throughout his tenure in Boston go to our (kind of) rival? How does this happen? Was it a fallout between Al and Brad Stevens? Was Danny Ainge being stiff with the money because he knew he wanted Kemba? I don’t know, but I’m really sad to see Al go. And with the Sixers resigning SF Tobias Harris (5 Years $180 Million) they are looking pretty solid. Even Stephen A. Smith said that they are his pick to come out of the eastern conference.
And in one of the biggest surprises of this free agency Jimmy Butler is taking his talents to South Beach. However, the deal can not go through until Goran Dragic is moved from the team to create cap space for Butler’s 4 Year $142 Million maximum contract. The Heat tried sending over Dragic and Kelly Olynyk to the Mavericks, but the Mavs front office thought that the Heat were sending over Derrick Jones instead of Dragic. This is just a whole mess. But like I said, I absolutely love it.
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This Post Has 7 Comments

  1. Terrell Byrd 1 Jul 2019

    Well written and very factual indeed sir

    1. Yanni Kouiroukidis 1 Jul 2019

      Why thank you Myron

  2. Jaibir Kang 2 Jul 2019

    Great job embedding tweets. IT major?

    1. Yanni Kouiroukidis 2 Jul 2019

      No sir. General studies.

  3. Julien 2 Jul 2019

    Quite educational, thank you YSN

  4. Adam Khan 2 Jul 2019

    Fantastic research.

  5. Tom 2 Jul 2019

    🤠

Comments are closed.