Catching up on the latest transactions and extensions

The Thunder's young money, Herb Jones, Norm Powell, and more

I’m writing this from my hotel in Las Vegas, where I flew in on a thrice-delayed flight from North Carolina to cover Summer League. (On the plus side, I did successfully dodge having to deal with a millipede bloom, as my wife discovered hundreds of the wriggly crawlies on our front porch after I left for the airport. Sorry, Mrs. Poetry!)

I’ll have a whole bunch of Summer League coverage for you early next week after I fill up my notebook (your mandatory Cooper Flagg takeaway: The offense will take some time to develop. He’ll be fine). Today, though, I wanted to discuss a handful of intriguing moves that occurred last week while I was on vacation.

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The most noteworthy thing to happen from an on-court perspective was the Heat/Clippers/Jazz swap. To summarize:

LAC gets John Collins
MIA gets Norm Powell
UTA gets Kevin Love, Kyle Anderson, and LAC’s 2027 2nd-round pick

Norm Powell is the best player in this deal by a significant amount, and he will fill the void (and then some) left by Duncan Robinson’s trade to Detroit. Powell was one of the league’s best shooters last season, shooting 38% on off-the-dribble threes and a halogenic 45% off the catch, and despite Robinson’s improved floor game, Powell has far more juice pressuring the paint. It’s been a long time since Miami had a straight-line driver who could blast his way to the rim on the reg:

Powell is a below-average defender, but Robinson is one of the worst high-minutes defenders in the league. The new guy will be an upgrade there, too.

Even with Jimmy Butler, Miami’s offense was far too creaky and reliant upon system-generated buckets; Powell gives them a legitimate three-level scorer who can — gasp! — create shots for himself. There is a little overlap with Tyler Herro’s skill set, but the Heat are so starved for ballhandlers and shooters that it shouldn’t matter.

Powell is on an expiring deal, and at a fresh 32, it’s fair to assume he won’t be improving. Miami may want to lock him up for fair value on a short-term deal, or (if the season goes pear-shaped) hand him off to a contender at the deadline, but either way, they nabbed a sub-All-Star player for dirt cheap.

For the Clippers, Collins showed the kind of shooting stroke that makes blog nerds swoon. If he can replicate anything close to 2024-25’s 40% three-point shooting, he’ll be a nice addition to the big-man rotation as a stretchy four who can even dabble at center.

Losing Powell hurts; he was an important part of LA’s surprising success last season, particularly when Kawhi Leonard was hurt. But it also opens up a spot for Bradley Beal if he ever comes to a buyout agreement with the Phoenix Suns; that’s no coincidence.

I’m keeping an eye on the Clippers. If they can add Beal, they will have had a sneaky-awesome offseason. We’ll check back in later this summer.

For the Jazz, they get a second-round pick for their troubles. They also clear out playing-time space for their young bigs and cap space for other teams’ future salary dumps. Utah has become the town's waste management center. Sure, Team X, you can offload your unwanted trash, but you’ll have to pay (in picks) to do so! Unexciting, but practical.

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The Oklahoma City Thunder signed Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams to maximum rookie extensions and MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to his uber-maximum extension. Combined, they’ll earn a small tourism-centric island’s GDP:

By my count, that’s (*checks abacus*) a lot of f****** money!

This year and next will be doable. But starting in 2027-28, the Thunder will pay one-fifth of their roster two-thirds of the second apron. That’ll create a sticky situation.

This is a problem endemic to winning. There is no getting around it. OKC has done a remarkable job of cleaning up the books around their young trio, but the league has proven that we’re past the point where the Big Three model works. Can Williams and Holmgren bring back the classics?

The Williams and SGA extensions were no-brainers. I understand why they felt they had to give a max to Holmgren, but he’s the one I feel queasiest about, given some of his offensive limitations and injury history. However, at 23, he will improve, and his skill set/size combination is too rare to play hardball.

This was a predictable outcome, but the numbers are still eye-popping.

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The Phoenix Suns extended Devin Booker two more supermax years on top of the three years he still had remaining on his contract.

Put another way, the Suns have just given the highest salaries ever to a guy who did not make the All-Star team this season.

I’m a little confused about the exact terms of the extension; Shams initially reported two years, $145 million. Spotrac, which is usually my go-to salary source, has it at $133 million (perhaps Spotrac is doing a better job accounting for incentives or estimating the future salary cap, given the 7% raise the NBA has recently projected instead of the widely-assumed 10% increases). Given that Shams always puts forth the most player-friendly, pie-in-the-sky terms, I’m inclined to believe Spotrac. Regardless, it’s a lot of money!

Booker is the latest example of the problem with the maximum salary rules. He has not proven to be the level of player who can drive winning simply by showing up every night. He’s not on the level of an SGA, a Giannis, a Jokic. But because of the weirdness of the NBA’s salary cap, the league has decided that nearly every team’s best player (give or take) is simply a max player, regardless of the sanity of these decisions in a vacuum.

I understand that Booker is a beloved figure in Phoenix, and he is very good. But no team paying Booker 36% of the salary cap can ever amount to anything. He deservedly did not make the All-Star team this year, and the Suns were garbage. He turns 29 right after the 25-26 season starts. He’ll be 33 when he’s making nearly $70 million.

This isn’t a problem just with Phoenix, of course, but they’re the most obvious example. Booker immediately becomes one of the most damaging assets in the league. That’s unpleasant and unfair to him as a player (something Booker, unfortunately, is quite familiar with), but it’s still true.

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The New Orleans Pelicans continue their run of perplexing moves by extending Herb Jones for three years, $68 million, the most they could have offered him under extension rules. That tacks on to the end of the two years he still has remaining.

Look, I love Herb Jones. Who doesn’t? He’s an itchy sweater who can guard everyone on the floor, sometimes all at once:

He also shot 41% from deep in 2023-24, his last healthy season.

But that sentence is doing a lot of work. Jones hasn’t cracked even 34% from beyond the arc in any of his other three seasons and only played 20 games last year. Although Jones has underrated passing abilities, he’s still a limited offensive player who has never gotten up enough three-pointers to really earn the “3” part of his 3-and-D role.

Why did New Orleans feel the need to give him a not-cheap extension now when he still had two more years to show them what he could do? (Hell, why have the Pelicans done any of the things they’ve done this offseason?) Other people online seem to really like this extension for New Orleans, but there are too many unknowns for me.

If Jones stays healthy, and if the three-point accuracy improves, and if the three-point volume ekes upwards… it’ll be a good deal. There are plenty of universes where Jones plays up to his contract. But there are far too many where it’s underwater, too.

And in the exceedingly unlikely possibility that Jones outplays his handsome salary… he has a player option for the last year.

Like with Booker, locking in someone near their peak value more than a year before needed is not good business. And Jones will turn 27 before the coming season starts; he’s not a spring chicken by NBA standards. Would it have hurt New Orleans to wait one more year? Was the risk of him becoming a $30 million player that high?

Again, I adore Jones! Defenders with shaky shots and nifty passing are my thing! But this deal is assuredly not to my tastes.