The 2031 Free Agent Class - Unrestricted

[Flaming Homer]

I used the of the year change to take a first look at the upcoming FA class.

Overall I think the class cannot compete with the one from last year. But if you are looking for a PF or C you may like the names pooping up here.
Problem is, that the money thru out the league dries up pretty quick. If I got it right, only 3 teams would be able to hunt some of this big names. Some teams, like Sacramento, could make more room if they would decide to renounce some still talented players. But it may be worth it this year.

You can find the top unrestricted FA (just in my opinion) here:
https://www.keep-at-it.de/images/csl/31/urfa-2031.html

I did a quick calculation what the cap situation could look like.
That of course can change quite a bit depending on GM's decisions on options or trades.
For the calculation I set PO as guaranteed contract and TO declined. I renounced player rights for teams/payers where I though tit would make sense and kept them for other teams.

Cap prediction:

Atlanta: 17 Mil
Boston: 0
Brooklyn: 0
Charlotte: 21 Mil
Chicago: 0
Cleveland: 0
Dallas: 0
Denver: 0
Detroit: 0
Golden State: 0
Houston: 0
Indiana: 0
Los Angeles C: 0
Los Angeles L: 0
Memphis: 5 Mil
Miami: 0
Milwaukee: 0
Minnesota: 0
New Orleans: 0
New York: 0
Oklahoma City: 0
Orlando: 24 Mil
Philadelphia: 0
Phoenix: 0
Portland: 0
Sacramento: 0
San Antonio: 0
Toronto: 0
Utah: 0
Washington: 0

And here also the list of players with TO or PO.

Notable players with team option:

Killian Tillie
Fred Van Fleet
Kris Dunn
Kevin Looney
Eric Paschall
Joel Embiid
Damion Jones
Derrick White
Kevin Huerter
Arcidiacono
Thomas Welsh
Jakob Poeltl

Notable players with player option:

David Michineau
Jalen Brunson
Devonte Graham
Kaiser Gates
Demzel Livingston
Ike Anigbogu
Anfernee Simons
Deyonta Davis
Cody Martin
Cheick Diallo
Markelle Fultz
Alex Caruso

[KW]

Yikes 3 teams with notable cap space... This is the product of people severely overpaying role players

[Andrewu91]

Yikes 3 teams with notable cap space... This is the product of people severely overpaying role players

Yikes indeed

But those minimum signings with be huge this off season

[GreenBear]

Really nice article, Andre. I look forward to this series (and the RFA one) every year.

That said, there are other teams that could open up significant cap space if they wanted. 3 may end up being correct, but it all depends on what direction some GMs decide to go.

[Silogical]

Yikes 3 teams with notable cap space... This is the product of people severely overpaying role players

No, its because the gap between the soft cap and hard cap is way too great. ive been saying it for years and this isnt even as bad as it could get.

lower the hard cap by 10% and lower all current salaries by 10% would solve this problem.

[Silogical]

Some amazing players in this class but it does dry up quick if depaula and exum are top 5 at their position.

PG
Shaq and Frank N are 2 PGs ive been after forever very underrated. If you prefer winning to stats they are top tier PGs.

SG If Young and bird were the same age id take bird all day, both amazing talents used properly. Vaugn is a mini bird, and could be the steal of the class if he goes for the MLE.

SF Tatum up there with Milos as the most overrated players in CSL history. always shake my head when someone says hes top 5, but still an all-star that phoenix cant lose.

PF/C amazing talent at these positions. Ayton is prob one of the most underated players in CSL history. ive always viewed him as a top 3 player and was shocked when he slipped in the draft.

[Ramcus]

we have enough money to resign our guys

[hardenwithnod]

Man this is a pretty good class at the top! Curious to see if any of these top guys will actually leave for a new team.

[cb4raptorscb4]

This is actually a really deep class with some good talent. Not much cap space out there though.. so I'm sure we'll see guys trying to re-sign their players on discounts. Might be a slowwww start to FA this year.

I didn't realize Z Smith was getting burn again. He's putting up decent stats!

[mgtr81]

Very good class regarding big men. Not sure what the solution would be, but as others said, some max players are going to sign for bargain deals.

[wms02a]

one better UFA classes i have seen...

[Marcos_Beck]

Nobody has cap space so I believe most of these will be re-signing for pretty cheap

[blackice]

We don't have any caproom but this is an excellent article to reference this offseason,

[bt]

Great article.

We don't have any crucial FA's so we if we let them all walk, after draft picks, we might have around 10 mil in space but it won't be enough for anything significant here.

Unless we decide to move a contract like Bazley or Hall and then we could but not sure we would dump unless we were a favoured team to sign someone.