Courting The King

Two players who had been assumed to be on the move were 29-year-old Hawks shooting guard Joe Johnson and Grizzlies small forward Rudy Gay because of the frugality of their teams. In the opening hour of free agency, however, Atlanta offered its four-time All-Star a maximum contract of $119 million over six years, and later in the day Memphis owner Michael Heisley shocked the league by awarding a five-year deal worth $82 million to Gay, a 23-year-old restricted free agent who averaged 19.6 points during the Grizzlies' surprising 40-win season. Johnson's return to Atlanta was especially disappointing to D'Antoni, who had coached him in Phoenix. "Joe loved playing for D'Antoni and was excited by the possibility of joining him in New York," typed Johnson's agent Arn Tellem while confirming news of Johnson's commitment in an online column he wrote for the Huffington Post. "It seemed like a perfect match: a tenacious player who never naps on court in the city that never sleeps." Everyone's a writer.

Yet this profligacy will do the league no favors during negotiations with the players' union over the coming year. Stern has predicted $400 million in losses when the books are reconciled this summer, and he has promised to create a new structure that reduces salaries and contract lengths to reward players less for potential and more for performance. And yet Stern's owners are fighting among each other to offer max deals to lesser lights such as Bosh, Johnson, Stoudemire and potentially Boozer. The divide between the owners' actions and their demands makes a lockout next summer very likely.

Lost amid the frenzied speculation were two moves that may be most important in the coming NBA season—the returns of coaches Phil Jackson to the champion Lakers and Doc Rivers to the runner-up Celtics after each had considered retiring. The 2010 playoffs were a repudiation of free agency and quick fixes, as the two teams who had kept their core rotations together the longest were able to knock back challenges from the Cavaliers, Magic, Mavericks and Spurs—teams that had made major personnel changes and didn't have enough time to blend their talent together. Will the money spent this summer turn into fool's gold? That could be the most painful reality of all.

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