NBA Free Agency Tracker: Kevin Durant requests trade

Free agency is almost officially here. Once 6 PM hits, teams can emerge from the shadows where they’ve done business until now to openly do business for all of us to see. 

This is a weird free agent year. Yes, James Harden and Bradley Beal have opted out of their contracts, but those are seen as procedural moves necessary to free themselves from the limits of extending a contract (extensions only allow raises based on the previous salary. Free agency allows them 35% of the cap). 

The biggest name right now is Jalen Brunson, who is expected to sign with the New York Knicks for four years and more than $100 million. His current team, the Dallas Mavericks, will have a chance to make their case, but all the reporting out there right now suggests he’s New York bound. 

Boston doesn’t really factor into any free agent spending right now, which makes me wonder how active they’ll be on day one. They could be a little like Billy Ray Valentine and Louis Winthorpe trading frozen concentrated orange juice in Trading Places -- just biding their time and letting the market get to where they want it before they strike. 

Of course, that's my own dramatic way of saying they might just have to wait and see how the top of the market shakes out. I just wanted to make a Trading Places reference. 

What are we watching for when it comes to Boston? 

- Swooping in to pick off pieces of another trade, like the Dejounte Murray/Danilo Gallinari deal. If Gallinari is waived, then Boston might offer an enticing deal that can be the minimum since he’s already getting his salary from San Antonio. 

Side note: That deal could be delayed a little bit. 

- Finding a trade partner for their Fournier TPE. That expires on July 18, so we could be waiting a little while for that to work itself out. 

- Letting the dust settle and finding a taker for the Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception. Those guys aren’t dying to sign on day one because you never know which owner is going to over-reach for someone. Guys want to keep their options open. 

I’ll keep track of everything down below, so feel free to keep refreshing to see what’s new. Also, use the comments to chat and have fun with it all day. 

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I'll just add a thought here about Durant's trade request. It's going to be a messy process if he's going to get to his reported preferred destinations of Miami or Phoenix. CBA rules won't allow Miami to trade Bam Adebayo to Brooklyn as long as Ben Simmons is there (this is the same rule that prevented Danny Ainge from trading for Anthony Davis while Kyrie Irving was here). A different rule makes a sign-and-trade of DeAndre Ayton extraordinarily difficult (it's hard to explain, but basically his salary, for matching purposes, would count for half of what it actually is for Phoenix, while counting for all of what it is for Brooklyn). 

I still stand by my take that Boston should not trade for Durant, but they should call Brooklyn and Phoenix (or whichever other trade partner) and say "hey, we've got a big TPE over here, consider us if you need to dump salaries."