NBA Odds – Fly Free, Free Agents!

Selfish James Harden’s Game 3 heroics could only delay the inevitable as the Houston Rockets were mercifully dispatched from the NBA Playoffs in five games. Now with basketball season finally over, Dwight Howard can focus on his one true passion, free agency.

Exhausted by the dysfunction in Houston, Howard will almost certainly be changing teams for the fourth time in his NBA career. But what will the market be for a declining big man for whom trouble seems to follow? Is another team going to be foolish enough to give him a max-money deal?

Of course! NBA Free Agency has gone past the point of complete absurdity, capping superstars’ earnings and passing those savings on to the likes of Chandler Parsons and Eric Gordon. With the salary cap increasing from $70 million to around $90 million this offseason, teams will suddenly have an injection of cash to help showcase their stupidity. That’s why, despite not a having a particularly strong class of free agents this year, we’ll still see buttloads of money spent trying to ink guys before the salary cap explodes again in 2017.

There is one true prize pooch of this year’s free agent crop though, and for now he’s lifting the Thunder to the second round of the playoffs. Where Kevin Durant will be playing next year has been a hot topic of discussion since September and has sparked some truly ridiculous rumors. But other than Dallas – where he and the owner don’t see eye-to-eye – every team seems to have at least a slight chance at landing KD.

While Durant is an unrestricted free agent, 29 GMs are hoping King James will also join the pool by declining his player option in Cleveland at the end of this season. James took the same approach last offseason, but never entertained offers from any other teams. However, to the outside world, it appears James is growing frustrated with the Cavaliers. If Cleveland falls short again this year, would the son of Akron really turn his back on his city again?

The free agency storylines will only grow as teams continue to get eliminated from the postseason and look toward the future. But we’re getting out in front of the race. Here are our odds for NBA free agency.

2016 NBA Free Agency Odds:

Odds on which team woos Kevin Durant:

• Thunder: 3/1
• Lakers: 11/2
• Celtics: 11/2
• Spurs: 7/1
• Warriors: 10/1
• Wizards: 50/1

Odds on which team overpays Nicolas Batum after whiffing on KD:

• Wizards: 5/3
• Lakers: 4/1
• Knicks: 6/1
• Pelicans: 6/1
• Hornets: 8/1

Odds LeBron James declines his player option for 2016-17: 2/19

Odds LeBron James signs somewhere other than Cleveland: 12/1

Odds Dwyane Wade signs with the same team as LeBron: 11/3

Odds on which team signs Dwight Howard:

• Bucks: 13/4
• Hornets: 13/4
• Mavericks: 4/1
• Magic: 5/1
• Rockets: 12,000/1

Odds on whether DeMar DeRozan gets a max-money deal from the Raptors: 5/6

If DeRozan doesn’t get a max-money deal from the Raptors, odds he gets one somewhere else: 1/99

Over/under on how many players get max-money deals this offseason: 7

Over/under on how many restricted free agents actually switch teams: 3

Odds Jimmy Butler gets traded from the Bulls: 2/1

(Photo Credit: Erik Drost (Originally uploaded to Flickr. Photo has been cropped.)[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/].)