The NBA draft took place last Thursday night, with free agency set to open this coming Sunday. However, a proposal put forth by the Rockets to the league’s competition committee in April suggests that the NBA should consider flipping those two big events on its offseason calendar in the future.
As Zach Lowe of ESPN.com details, the idea of having free agency open before the draft takes place – which the NFL already does – has the support of a number of executives around the NBA, including several prominent general managers. However, it had never been formally put on the table until the Rockets proposed it this spring.
“As a staff, we have been kicking this around for a couple of summers now,” said Rockets executive VP of basketball operations Gersson Rosas, who presented the idea to the league’s competition committee. “Is there a better way?”
Lowe’s piece, which is worth checking out in full, lays out a handful of reasons why it might make sense to flip the order of free agency and the draft. For one, teams could be better positioned to address positional needs in free agency and then draft the best player available.
A new-look calendar also might help stimulate trade activity during the draft — under the current system, clubs are often hesitant to complete deals in June that compromise their cap outlook prior to the start of free agency.
Additionally, under the current format, teams that miss out on top free agent targets often panic and give big contracts to lesser players in order to use their cap space. If the draft took place after free agency, teams who don’t sign their top targets could preserve cap room for potential draft-night trades.
According to Lowe, it’s not clear exactly what Houston’s proposal looks like. It may involve opening free agency in late June, with a draft around July 10 and the start of Summer League about a week after that. Lowe suggests that people around the NBA are worried about pushing events back into August, which is typically a quiet period on the league’s calendar — however, he notes that the Rockets’ proposal addresses that issue by including a two-week window in late August and early September in which no team would be allowed to complete any transactions. In other words, execs would still get a little vacation time.
While it’s unlikely that the NBA will make any significant changes to its offseason calendar anytime soon, Houston’s proposal is one worth keeping an eye on in the long term.
