Last Updated on June 2, 2025 7:43 am by André Lemos | Published: June 1, 2025

If you’re an NBA GM most things revolve around whether you’re buying low and selling high.

And there is no better month for that than the two week happening known as the NBA Draft, followed by the start of NBA free agency.

30 competing agendas all play out in concert, with big tectonic plates shifting over months and years of angling, and about 100 other deals will go down in some cadence around this time that determine how the next 3-5 seasons will go.

Some of the GMs are good and some are quite terrible and that’s before you get to the owners!

Still, for all that variance the basic idea is that you need to get the most value for your salary cap buck.

What these ranks attempt to do is give a cheat sheet for the big event.

On one hand I rank players based on overall rank of the acquisition … independent of how efficiently the player is using salary cap dollars

Then I rank players by how valuable they are as an asset, balancing the need for high-end play against all of the downstream impacts the cost of the contract will have.

Underperforming assets sometimes just run their course and aren’t as impactful but more often than not underperforming assets create circumstances and needs which put stress on future decisions, creating a cycle of bad choices.

Some decisions are so bad they can singularly doom a trajectory (see Sabonis in Sacramento).

On the other hand, if you can nail down important roster slots and get starting level and above talent at 10% of the going rate you enter those same decisions with flexibility and leverage. These choices are illustrated by what I call our Cash to Value Free Agency Ranks.

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MORE ON HOW THIS WORKS

CASH-TO-VALUE RANKS

The concept is this — you’re looking to get the best players at the cheapest costs. If you do that effectively, you have more money to spend elsewhere.

These ranks lean into that pretty strongly. However, you can’t win in the NBA without getting above average and elite players. The key is spending up to get the right players and for the purpose of these rankings, above average players get plenty of love in their cash-to-value rank, depending on how much they cost of course. As mentioned above the Cash to Value ranks are going to significantly reward players who are both cheap and high-end, most likely giving them the top Cash to Value ranks.

VETERANS VS. UPSIDE

These ranks will give older veterans that can still contribute a bit more value than a pure Cash to Value rank might represent. Teams aren’t lining up to sign them and deals may vary, but in terms of winning it all a quality old vet that’s willing to play at or close to the minimum represents a better play than some younger upside guys.

OVERALL RANK

If you just want to know who the best players are you can sort by the overall rank column. This rank will include some elements of upside, which is unavoidable when assessing overall free agency value. However, short-term production and win-now scenarios are going to show up in the overall ranks.  For example, James Harden is not going to do well in the Cash to Value ranks, but in terms of overall rank he’ll have higher marks.

POSITIONAL GROUPINGS AND APPROACH

I did something new two seasons ago and went with four different groupings. Ballhandlers and Small Guards, Wings, (the terribly named) Frontcourt Non-Fives and Bigs.

Ballhandlers are legitimate point guards or can play on the ball (excluding point centers and FNFs that run the point).

Wings are either asked to be outstanding shooters or they’re being asked to lock the perimeter down, or both. They’re valued in their ability to switch and otherwise facilitate offense.

A key difference between Wings and FNFs is that you’re not generally seeing Wings play the four slot. This (FNFs) group is often a rangy 6’8″ to 6’10” being asked to defend 2-4 or 3-5 (well or not is another story). They’ve become much more important as teams employ five-out looks, and elite ballhandlers and offensive initiators have grown in size and versatility.  With so many different player types landing in this group one commonality is that they’re being asked to play 3-5 in tons of small lineups as the league goes small, but they’re just simply not able to command the paint. As has been the case with the league at large, they’re firing away from deep.

Bigs are the aforementioned muscle you need to control the paint and shooting is a bonus.

SYMBOLS AND ANNOTATIONS

A QUICK WORD ON THIS FREE AGENT CLASS

There are the typical assortment of extraordinary values this season but the class as a whole is really underwhelming. The ballhandling cohort has a ton of expensive, risky players that are rough propositions. The wings classically include those extraordinary values but most certainly lacks star power and then the frontcourt non-fives are LeBron and then the star power plummets. The fives (bigs) have some big names like Myles Turner, Naz Reid and Brook Lopez where the profit margin will be tight, and while there are some nice targets they could easily fly underneath the radar.

LOOKING BACK AT THE RESULTS

Joe Ingles in 2017, Fred VanVleet in 2018, in 2019 Richaun Holmes was the big win we had seen coming for way too many years. In 2020 Jerami Grant was my top Cash-to-Value rank and predictably blew up. Top ranked wing De’Anthony Melton was awesome all season long and in the postseason. In 2021 years ago it was our second ranked cash-to-value wing Max Strus knocking in big shots all season long for literal pennies and in 2022 he was making big plays alongside other alumni of the 2022 class — top ranked Caleb Martin and Gabe Vincent. Back to 2021, we begged everybody to grab Isaiah Hartenstein as the 10th ranked cash-to-value big when he didn’t even get picked up in free agency. We made him our top ranked big in 2022. In 2024 he got big time paid. Also in 2022 we pick-pocketed Malik Monk, correctly hit the gas on Jalen Brunson, and went on a wing bonanza including third ranked wing target Caleb Martin as well as Kyle Anderson and Bruce Brown. In 2024 it was a very boring class but it felt like we had the answers before the test as we correctly ranked Austin Reaves, hit real big on Donte DiVincenzo, saw Coby White coming from a mile away, had Naz Reid and more. Last season it was Isaiah Hartenstein again after he got paid.

All the previous years’ ranks for your perusal.

2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017

BALLHANDLERS AND SMALL GUARD

At least the ballhandling crew is extremely interesting this season as Josh Giddey started breaking the pinball machine toward the end of last season and it virtually guarantees he’s going to get paid like a superstar.

Contrast that with the journey of Davion Mitchell as he was practically waived by Sacramento, flirted with by Toronto but ultimately landed in Miami and became an impact player (who still needs to fix his handles and his shot). His defense and winning instincts catapult him to the top of this list because he will be affordable and in a choice between he and Giddey it’s hard to take the guy that’s a turnstile.

And then you get to the big name guards who are old and injured and in the case of Kyrie Irving, amazing. Throw in playoff flamethrower for a few games, Fred VanVleet, polarizing Kevin Porter Jr., high-octane/low defense Ty Jerome and scoring powerhouse Cam Thomas and there’s just a ton of name value on the board at a position that historically leaves players out in the cold cash-wise (hello Dennis Schroder). This list is intriguing 30 players deep for various reasons.

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