NBA free agency 2023: The best of who's left, starring P.J. Washington and Ayo Dosunmu
We are approaching the two-week mark of NBA free agency, and the list of available impact players has dwindled considerably. Here we break down the best of who is left among bigs, wings and ball-handlers, including the top veterans and young players who could be worth short money on the end of a bench.
BIGS
Best available player: P.J. Washington (restricted)
Washington is 24 years old, four seasons into his NBA career, and we have yet to see him appear in a playoff game. He was the Charlotte Hornets' best option in their most recent play-in tournament game, a 29-point loss to the Atlanta Hawks in 2022. None of this is what interested parties want for Washington.
Washington is an intuitive role player who should be a connective piece on a good team. His 7-foot-3 wingspan helps him play bigger than his 6-7 frame. He defends multiple positions and offers enough rim protection to man the small-ball five, even if he is best suited as a stretch forward. He is a career 37% shooter on five 3-point attempts a game despite playing for a team that cannot create high-quality looks.
His point guards have been Devonte' Graham, Terry Rozier, LaMelo Ball and Dennis Smith Jr. — all names you might recognize, none of whom have been all that interested in or capable of maximizing Washington's skill set. Put Washington in a winning environment, where his ability to impact games is more appreciated.
Like a lot of mid-tier players from the 2019 draft class, Washington should want a contract closer to the four-year, $74 million extension that the San Antonio Spurs gave Keldon Johnson. Washington is no less valuable than the four-year, $54 million deal Grant Williams just signed with the Dallas Mavericks. The only difference is the Hornets would almost certainly match a similar offer to Washington, so it is possible that he plays the coming season on an $8.5 million qualifying offer and enters unrestricted free agency in 2024.
Runner-up: Christian Wood
Wood is three years Washington's senior, and we have seen him fail to elevate a Mavericks team that previously made the 2021 Western Conference finals with Luka Dončić as an offensive dynamo. How much of that failure we can assign to Dallas coach Jason Kidd's refusal to elevate Wood is another matter.
The 6-foot-10, 214-pound Wood is less capable than Washington of switching defensively across positions, but he too can provide some rim protection, and he has shot 38% on five 3-point attempts per game over the last three seasons. Wood can score and space the floor, netting 22.2 points per 36 minutes on 52/38/69 shooting splits since his breakout 2019-20 campaign — and that is helpful either off the bench or alongside a more versatile big who can erase some of the inherent defensive issues that made Kidd so apprehensive.
Honorable mentions: Bismack Biyombo, Gorgui Dieng, Wenyen Gabriel, JaMychal Green, Willy Hernangómez, Frank Kaminsky and Meyers Leonard.
Best available vet: Blake Griffin
What has separated Griffin from so many of his once-perennial All-Star brethren is his willingness to accept a limited role. The athleticism that made him the No. 1 overall pick in 2009 has withered, but the bones of his skill set are there. He can space the floor a bit, keep the ball moving, rebound some and his defensive versatility consists mainly of strength and dedication to stepping in front of anyone for a charge. He is open to taking on the dirty work, and that has earned him 15 minutes every other game for the past two seasons.
Griffin has also been a stabilizing force in locker rooms for the Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics that have faced plenty of scrutiny the past two years. He is someone stars respect, rookies learn from and everyone laughs with. That is no small contribution to a contender from a minimum contract at the end of the bench.
Runner-up: James Johnson
Johnson, nicknamed Bloodsport, comes from an entire family of karate black belts, reportedly owns an undefeated record in kickboxing and is repeatedly voted the toughest player in the NBA among his peers. There is nothing else you need to know about him if you're just trying to inject intimidation into a game plan.
Honorable mentions: Dewayne Dedmon, Taj Gibson, Boban Marjanović, Markieff Morris.
Best available flier: Bol Bol
Bol Bol is 7-foot-2 and can do this ...
I do not know a lot of 7-foot-2 people who can do that.
Runner-up: Darius Bazley
The Oklahoma City Thunder gave Bazley two seasons of fairly unfettered freedom on teams built to lose, and he produced (12.1 points and 6.7 rebounds in 29.3 minutes per game), albeit inefficiently (41 FG%, 29 3P%). Thunder executive Sam Presti, one of the league's best talent scouts, also flipped Bazley for a 2029 second-round pick a few months before it came time to re-sign him and the team was ready to compete.
Honorable mentions: Dominick Barlow, Jay Huff, Olivier Sarr and Ömer Yurtseven.
WINGS
Best available player: Ayo Dosunmu (restricted)
Dosunmu, the 38th overall pick two years ago, earned minutes immediately for a Chicago Bulls team that had designs on a deep playoff run and actually looked poised to contend for a couple months to start his rookie campaign in 2021-22. A career-threatening injury to Lonzo Ball in January 2022 miscast Dosunmu as a starting point guard for much of his time since, and his progress stunted some in his sophomore season. His usage rose, his assist rate dipped and his 3-point shooting declined year over year from 38% to 31%.
Still, Dosunmu is good. He competes with size on defense and has shot 38% on corner 3-pointers over two seasons. He is a 23-year-old 3-and-D wing, and those are hard to find. He also boasts the potential to become a productive tertiary or reserve playmaker (four assists to 1.8 turnovers per 36 minutes in his career), and that is even harder to find from someone whose natural position serves a complementary role.
The Bulls are hard-capped at the first apron ($172 million) after signing Jevon Carter to fill the void left by outgoing defensive-minded point guard Patrick Beverley, and they are pushing closer to a luxury-tax line ($165 million) that team owner Jerry Reinsdorf has only ever paid once. A $10.2 million disabled player exception for Ball could open additional room, but there is a path to signing Dosunmu away from Chicago for teams that both believe in his ability and have the non-taxpayer mid-level exception at their disposal.
Runner-up: T.J. Warren
It was three years ago that Warren exploded for 53 points in his bubble debut for the Indiana Pacers, and he has played a total of 55 games since, never even approaching 30 points again. It took his left foot two years to recover from a stress fracture in December 2020, and by then he was on a minimum contract for the Brooklyn Nets. They threw his expiring deal into the February trade that landed Kevin Durant in Phoenix, and Warren could hardly earn playoff minutes on a Suns team that was desperate for depth on the wing.
He is still a couple months shy of his 30th birthday and another year removed from the injury. If ever he can rediscover that bubble magic, this is his last best chance, and that is worth a minimum contract in a market that counts few wings left on the table. At worst, Warren is a 6-foot-8, 220-pound forward who can still give you 20 points on occasion. At best, he has done it far more frequently at a 40% clip from 3-point range.
Honorable mentions: Will Barton, Kelly Oubre Jr., Juan Toscano-Anderson, Hamidou Diallo, Javonte Green, Derrick Jones Jr., Anthony Lamb, Jaylen Nowell and Justise Winslow.
Best available vet: Terrence Ross
After 10-plus seasons on the Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic, all as a beloved teammate, the Ross experiment in three months as a mercenary for the Suns went about as well as it did for Warren. He only cracked the playoff rotation once Phoenix got desperate against the eventual champion Denver Nuggets, and he could not change his team's fortunes. The 32-year-old has never been a reliable playoff performer, largely due to defense, but he is guaranteed to get some 3s up and sometimes make a whole lot of them.
Honorable mention: Garrett Temple
Suns guard Bradley Beal has repeatedly called Temple "the greatest teammate I've ever had," and former National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts has said, "If we here at the PA could create the prototype member, it would be him." He has served as a vice president in the union while playing for six different franchises since 2017, essentially touring his mentoring services around the league.
Honorable mentions: Danny Green, Wesley Matthews, Rodney McGruder, Theo Pinson and Austin Rivers.
Best available flier: Trendon Watford
The Portland Trail Blazers waived Watford to create some cap flexibility in what the team knew would be a wild summer, and no team claimed him at the dawn of free agency. He is 6-foot-9, 240 pounds, plays hard and made 25 of his 64 3-point attempts last season (39%). In two seasons on the Blazers, he averaged a 14-8-4 per 36 minutes, and he does not turn 23 years old until November. These guys do not grow on trees.
Runner-up: Romeo Langford
Langford entered the NBA as a hot-scoring lottery prospect but earned minutes for his defensive energy. He has yet to combine the two, shooting 29% from distance on his four-year rookie contract and often landing on the wrong side of the rotation with both the Celtics and San Antonio Spurs. Hope is running out that Langford will ever make a two-way NBA impact, but what is left of it could land him a two-way deal.
Honorable mentions: Terence Davis, Svi Mykhailiuk, Lester Quinones and Lindy Waters III.
BALL-HANDLERS
Best available player: Kendrick Nunn
It is not the greatest reflection of the market that Nunn is arguably the best available ball-handler. It does show how high Dosunmu ranks among the free agents left, since he could be slotted in this space, too.
Nunn played two seasons for Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, starting the majority of his appearances as an undrafted combo guard, and that is a feat in itself. He averaged 15 points on 46/36/88 shooting splits in that span. Respectable stuff, even if he occasionally fell out of the rotation on Miami's 2020 NBA Finals run.
Nunn signed what might have been a bargain two-year, $10 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2021, were it not for a knee injury that cost him his entire first season in L.A. He never quite meshed in a system built on the brilliant ball dominance of an aging LeBron James, which is a concern, but he flashed signs of his best self both when the Lakers showcased him before the deadline and after the Washington Wizards acquired his expiring deal, along with three second-round picks, in exchange for Rui Hachimura.
There is a very real chance that Nunn is closer to his last season in the league than he is to a promising All-Rookie campaign. There is also the chance that — a season removed from a yearlong knee injury — he can meaningfully contribute in an environment that does not tie his performance to the weight of prolonging a legend's championship window. In limited action for the Wizards, Nunn averaged a 19-5-5 on 45/39/90 shooting splits per 36 minutes over the final 31 games of last season. Those are numbers worth a gamble.
Runner-up: Raul Neto
Neto has carved out an eight-year career as a reserve point guard, including six seasons on four different franchises that resulted in playoff bids. He has shot 39% or better from distance in four of those seasons, and his assist-to-turnover ratio has hovered around 3:1 for the past three years. Neto is a minutes-eating point guard in the regular season, not a playoff rotational staple, but again: This is the state of the mid-July free-agency market, and most teams are already committed to at least a pair of primary table-setters.
Honorable mentions: Saben Lee, Frank Ntilikina.
Best available vet: George Hill
Who knows how much Hill has left in the tank at 37 years old. The Milwaukee Bucks shed his expiring contract at this past trade deadline, once his contributions as a part-time playmaker in three of their past four trips to the playoffs dwindled below replacement level. He landed in Indiana, where he enjoyed the prime years of his 15-year career and reportedly informed the front office in February, "I want to teach."
Hill was the most prominent voice in Milwaukee's locker room when the Bucks opted not to take the court for a playoff game in the wake of the 2020 shooting of Jacob Blake, and that is saying something on a team that features Giannis Antetokounmpo. You want him on the road with you, even if the tank is running dry.
Runner-up: Goran Dragić
Dragić may have played his last minutes of meaningful basketball, too. He is five years removed from his lone All-Star appearance, three years from starting on Miami's run to the 2020 Finals and three months from playing a total of seven minutes in Milwaukee's embarrassing first-round loss to the Heat this past season.
Dragić declined an invitation to play for the Slovenian national team at the FIBA World Cup in August, telling reporters, "It was enough, 16 years, plus the NBA and everything else." He has not closed the door on a return for a 15th NBA season, and wouldn't it be fun to see him play once more with Luka Dončić on the Mavericks? There are few more respected international veterans than Dragić in an increasingly global game.
Others: D.J. Augustin, Matthew Dellavedova, Ish Smith.
Best available flier: Jared Butler
Waived by the Utah Jazz in October 2022, Butler played much of this past season for the G League affiliates of the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder — two respected scouting outfits — averaging 17.8 points on 46/40/80 shooting splits and 5.8 assists against 2.4 turnovers in 30 minutes per game.
He is also a 6-foot-3, 195-pound bull who earned consensus first-team All-America honors two years ago, when he led Baylor to a national title and captured the NCAA tournament's Most Outstanding player award. Another two-way deal may be waiting for him after his Las Vegas Summer League stint with the Thunder, but he is the kind of player everyone should be looking to poach from a rising team that values his ability.
Runner-up: Theo Maledon (restricted)
Maledon became the youngest player ever to win MVP of the French Cup Final at the age of 17 in 2019, meeting milestones Tony Parker had trail-blazed before him. His NBA career has been less promising since the Thunder drafted him 34th overall in 2020 and tossed his deal into a cost-cutting trade two years later.
The Hornets extended Maledon a $1.8 million qualifying offer in June, making him a restricted free agent, but he is not on their roster in Vegas, where it would be nice to see how he sets the table for Brandon Miller in Summer League, since Maledon was a surprising star in Sin City for the Thunder only two summers ago.
Honorable mentions: Mac McClung, Duane Washington Jr.
