Free Agency: How not to bui...

The argument is, if you can get Houston to take Dalembert's deal along with Iguodala it could make the Sixers players in the vaunted free agent class of 2010. A class headlined by LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh is plenty to entice fans.

Once you look past the names and you start assessing the probability of obtaining a top flight player to rebuild the franchise, the likelihood of success dwindles.

The first question to ask yourself is "why would a marquee free agent, with a half dozen other teams with similar cap space, select Philadelphia?".

The fact is, LeBron, Wade and Bosh will be able to be offered more by Cleveland, Miami and Toronto, respectively. More in terms of starting salary, for more years, with higher per-year raises. And that's ignoring the fact that all three have players options for the 2010-2011 season.

Even if they would elect to leave, there will be several teams that have been working for years to clear room under the cap to make a push for this free agency class. Why would these maximum salary free agents go to a 25-win Sixers team that just gave away their best player for nothing? Surely there has to be a better situation for them than that.

Looking past the summer of 2010, an extreme long shot for even among the most optimistic of fans, building a team through free agency is a flawed premise. We remember Shaq signing in LA, Moses coming to Philadelphia, or to a lesser extent Steve Nash donning a Phoenix Suns jersey. Mixed in with those rare success stories are the Charlie Villanueva's or Ben Gordon's, or perhaps a closer to home example, the Elton Brand's. Good, albeit flawed, players who, because of the NBA's collective bargaining agreement have to be overpaid in order to force their previous teams to deem their salary too steep for their liking.

I took a look at the 16 teams who would be in the playoffs if the season attended today. I categorized the 5 starters for each team (80 total players) into how they were acquired. For the purposes of this argument I included draftees acquired via draft day trades (i.e. Jameer Nelson) as draft picks, and sign and trade deals as Free Agent signings (even though some of them, such as Joe Johnson, required significant talent be given up as well). The graphic below is the breakdown of how the starters were acquired:



Even that graphic, which clearly shows the way the cream of the crop builds their teams (the draft) is slightly skewed. The majority of the signings are in the Keith Bogans, Derek Fisher, Antonio McDyess, Trevor Ariza, Nenad Krstic or Andre Miller level of deals. Contributors, but at best the 4th or 5th best players on their teams.

The major signings?

• Joe Johnson. That being said, this was costly, both in terms of dollars committed and and talent given up. As previously mentioned, Boris Diaw and Rondo were ultimately included in teh deal).
  
• Hedo Turkoglu. It's hard to quantify this as a win, considering Hedo's averaging just barely over 13.5 points per game on a below .500 team.
  
• Kenyon Martin, who has underachieved for the majority of his contract.
  
• Shawn Marion. A shell of his former self now asked to play a much smaller role.
  
• Rashard Lewis. An ungodly contract that, because of team success, paying $14 million, $16 million and $18 million in the three years he's been in Orlando for a player who's never averaged more than 18 ppg. That being said, he fits great on Orlando next to Dwight Howard. Which is good, because moving him would be next to impossible.
  
• Steve Nash. The clear winner in this group, but even he has come with consequences, as Phoenix has been shedding first round picks for years in an effort to limit salary, including one that could have given them their choice of Luol Deng or Andre Iguodala.
  

So there you have it. You can hope for your Steve Nash or Joe Johnson, but you're much more likely to get a Hedo Turkoglu, Kenyon Martin, Charlie Villanueva or Ben Gordon. Is that worth Iguodala?

Since 1999, the NBA and its collective bargaining agreement has made it so the team with a players bird rights has every opportunity in the world to re-sign its cultivated talent, and has further closed up loopholes like the "Gilbert Arenas provision" with the latest incarnation of the CBA. It's fun to dream, but the thought of top level stars changing teams through free agency is a very rare occurrence. It's much more likely to have to overpay for a middle tier contributor, the type of contract teams end up regretting shortly thereafter.

Championship teams (by and large) are not built this way, they're built through the draft, complemented through trades, and finalized with free agents. One team might get lucky in the summer of 2010, but the other 9 will be ruing their decision to put all their eggs in the basket of the shiny soon-to-be free agents. I hope the Sixers don't give up their best player to be one of these teams.

The Sixers need to work on getting under the luxury tax threshold next year, not get enamored with winning the proverbial lottery.