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NBA's best available free agents: LeBron James and the top bigs, ball-handlers and wings

By Dan Devine
July 14, 2026 12 Min Read
Comments Off on NBA's best available free agents: LeBron James and the top bigs, ball-handlers and wings

The first three weeks of the 2026 NBA offseason — from June’s NBA Draft through the initial rush of the 2026 free agency period — have seen scores of signings and trades, with a number of potential needle-movers changing ZIP codes and uniforms. That doesn’t mean, though, that the market’s bone-dry; there’s still a number of talented players of all shapes, sizes, experience levels and skill sets who might be able to meaningfully help a club next season.

Let’s take a look at some of the best unsigned talent still on the board, starting with … well, I mean, come on. There’s really only one place we can start, right?

Yes, he turns 42 in December. Yes, he’s entering his 24th season, after no other player in NBA history had even played a 23rd. Yes, he’s missed an average of 21 games a season for the past six years. There are legitimate concerns!

And yet:

Twenty-eight players were named to the NBA’s 2026 All-Star team, and only 10 players who qualified for the minutes per game leaderboard averaged at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game last season. LeBron’s in both camps, and he’s the only one you can sign on the open market.

Some advanced metrics (player efficiency rating, value over replacement player, box plus-minus) graded LeBron out as a top-25 player last season. Some others (estimated plus-minus, win shares, DARKO daily plus-minus) took a dimmer view, putting him more in the 55-to-85 range. Split the difference, and you’re talking about a top-40ish player — someone who just averaged 23-7-7 in the playoffs and was the best player on a team that won an opening-round series — who’s evidently willing to sign for pennies on the dollar in what feels to him like the right situation.

He’s arguably the best point guard, wing and big (if you consider him a power forward and break-in-case-of-emergency small-ball 5) on the market … which is wild, considering he made his NBA debut while Kill Bill: Vol. 1 was still in theaters. It’s preposterous, hilarious and wonderful. I don’t know if, in 2026, LeBron James can change the shape of the championship chase. But I do know that, in 2026, the entire basketball-watching world is still waiting for his next move — forever the queen on the chessboard, getting wherever he wants, however he wants, whenever he wants.

The prize of the center market, Duren spent the first six months of his 2025-26 season building a case to argue for a max contract in restricted free agency. He posted career-best scoring marks while getting to the line more often than ever, and maintained elite efficiency — leading the NBA in true shooting percentage — while bearing the largest offensive role of his Pistons tenure on those bowling-ball shoulders. Combine that with a notable leap on the defensive end, and Duren profiled as a top-10-to-20 performer last season by a slew of advanced metrics — as significant a driver of Detroit’s rise to the top of the East as anyone besides Cade Cunningham.

And then came the final month of the season, which saw Duren tear a gaping hole in that no-doubt max case, turning in a wildly underwhelming postseason in which his scoring, rebounding, interior defense and complementary playmaking all fell off a cliff.

Which player is Duren most likely to be over the next few years: the one who averaged an efficient 19-and-10 while leading a top-five defense en route to All-Star and All-NBA honors? Or the one who largely looked lost against Orlando and Cleveland, his quiet play leading to loud grumbling in the Motor City as he lost crunch-time minutes to Paul Reed?

Those early-free-agency reports of meetings with the Lakers and Kings came to naught, with L.A. promptly working out a sign-and-trade to make Walker Kessler their center of the future and Sacramento … well, I guess waiving DeMar DeRozan and re-signing Precious Achiuwa doesn’t necessarily preclude the Kings from pivoting back to the center market, but it doesn’t exactly seem like an offer’s forthcoming. With the few teams that entered the summer with significant salary cap space having used it elsewhere, the Pistons control the tempo here.

Getting a Duren deal done would seem to be the top priority for a Pistons team that — with apologies to John Collins, Taurean Prince, Isaiah Joe and Gary Harris — has yet to take a major swing this summer. In the absence of an offer sheet to force their hand, though, Trajan Langdon and Co. appear to be content holding the line in negotiations, preferring to let things drag on toward October if it means bringing back their gifted 22-year-old big man at the price they want — and to keep as much powder as possible dry in their next round of negotiations, with extension-eligible swingman Ausar Thompson.

OK, fine: Draymond’s kind of a free-agent-in-name-only. He declined the $27.7 player option he held for the 2026-27 season to afford the Golden State Warriors the flexibility to chase the fanboy fever dream of pairing LeBron with Stephen Curry for a rage-against-the-dying-of-the-light pursuit of one more title in the twilight of the immortals’ careers. Green, a longtime LeBron pal, has done his level best to help facilitate said fever dream:

Whether James chooses Golden State or heads elsewhere, the Warriors will then almost assuredly pivot to a new deal for Green, a four-time All-Star and nine-time All-Defensive selection who averaged 8.4 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists in 27.5 minutes per game last season. Until pen hits paper on that new deal, though, Draymond’s technically an unrestricted free agent — and, even at age 36, with 14 years, more than 1,100 NBA games and nearly 33,000 NBA minutes on his odometer, he’s one of the best players on that market.

The six-year veteran found himself on the outskirts of Jordan Ott’s rotation in Phoenix, leapfrogged by Mark Williams and Oso Ighodaro and averaging just 9.1 minutes per game. After a midseason move to Chicago, though, the 28-year-old averaged 9.4 points and 7.6 rebounds in 22.4 minutes per game and scored in double figures 11 times in 20 games as a Bull after doing it just once in 28 games for the Suns last season. (He even made five 3-pointers in Chicago, after canning a grand total of one through his first 285 games as a professional.)

The Kentucky product has never graded out particularly well in advanced metrics like value over replacement player, box plus-minus and estimated plus-minus, and has tended to alternate good and bad seasons protecting the rim. (Opponents shot 66.9% on up-close shots when he was the nearest defender last season; buy the dip!) But he is a 6-foot-11, 245-pound dude under age 30 who can screen, dive, catch, dunk and hit the glass — and, apparently, hit the occasional corner 3? — which could have value for teams in need of another big man to round out the rotation.

You might be thinking, “Is Kevin Love, two months shy of his 38th birthday, having played a grand total of 864 minutes over the past two seasons, really one of the best remaining big men on the market?”

I guess what I would say here is: It’s not, like, an awesome market at this stage. And when pushed to choose between highlighting some of the other options available or doffing my cap to a five-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA selection — and, in the process, feeling shocked that both of those numbers somehow aren’t higher??? — I opted for saluting a dude who still shot 37.3% from long range and grabbed 29% of available defensive rebounds in Utah last season, and who might find himself fitting in (not fitting out) as a member of the King’s court yet again in his 19th NBA season.

Also on the market: Jeremy Sochan; Drew Eubanks; the San Antonio Spurs’ veteran trio of Kelly Olynyk, Bismack Biyombo and Mason Plumlee; longtime Mavericks power forward/center Dwight Powell; Trendon Watford; Tony Bradley; Xavier Tillman; Christian Koloko.

Like Green, Harden’s essentially here as a technicality. He declined his $42.3 million player option for next season in what was widely viewed as a precursor to a multi-year deal at a lower average annual value — a move most projected when he landed in Cleveland back in February, and that’s now connected to the Cavaliers’ pursuit of yet another reunion with LeBron.

However that pursuit shakes out, Harden remains at the head of the class of (technically) available facilitators, averaging 20.5 points on 47/44/84 shooting splits to go with 7.7 assists and 4.8 rebounds in 33.8 minutes per game after joining the Cavs. His performance fluctuated in the postseason, as is his wont — and as was the case for a number of his Cleveland teammates — but he did team with Donovan Mitchell to get the franchise to its first Eastern Conference finals in eight years, with the Cavs outscoring opponents by 2.4 points per 100 possessions in his regular- and postseason minutes.

DeRozan became a late addition to the market last week, when the Sacramento Kings chose to waive him after their efforts to find a trade partner for his services proved unsuccessful, with the 17-year vet evidently a tough sell at the $25.7 million he was set to make in the final season of the three-year, $73.7 million contract he inked with the Kings in 2024 (even with just $10 million of that 2026-27 figure guaranteed).

Even so: a player who averaged more than 18 points and four assists per game on 50% shooting could still provide plenty of bang for the proverbial buck on a substantially smaller deal with a team in need of a dose of shot creation and shot-making. That’s particularly true in crunch time, where DeRozan — a perennially elite midrange operator with pristine footwork and the cunning to wrongfoot defenders into ill-timed reaches, bites on pump-fakes and fouls — scored 86 points in 101 “clutch” minutes on .651 true shooting with a 15-to-3 assist-to-turnover ratio last season for the Kings.

(I have been operating under the assumption that he would wind up signing with the Heat — and, in fact, had apparently hallucinated him already signing with the Heat — so let’s all brace for him landing anywhere but Miami.)

Like DeRozan, the former NBA Most Valuable Player spent last season grinding it out in Sacramento, starting and logging major minutes for a circling-the-drain Kings team. Like DeRozan, Westbrook’s still capable of being a productive offensive player when given the opportunity, averaging more than 15 points, six assists and five rebounds per game last season, albeit on declining 2-point efficiency.

And, like DeRozan, he’s still got enough juice left to be able to tilt a game when he’s feeling it. Only four players in the NBA (Nikola Jokić, Josh Giddey, Jalen Johnson and Luka Dončić) posted more triple-doubles last season than the 37-year-old Westbrook.

The Washington Wizards reportedly have at least some interest in bringing him back as a backup to the extended Trae Young. The Miami Heat are also a “team to watch” for Russ pending the resolution of the LeBron saga, according to Stefan Bondy of the New York Post.

The 14-year veteran was something of a surprise addition to the open market, after he declined the $5.6 million player option he held for the 2025-26 season. Beal had inked a two-year, $11 million contract with the Los Angeles Clippers last summer after agreeing to terms with the Phoenix Suns on a buyout of the final two years of the $251 million extension he’d signed with the Washington Wizards in the summer of 2022. The three-time All-Star logged just 121 minutes in L.A., though, before suffering a fractured hip that required season-ending surgery.

The hope, when Beal joined the Clippers, was that he’d be able to rehabilitate his image by replicating his Phoenix production — 17 points, 3.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.1 steals in 32.1 minutes per game on 50/39/80 shooting splits — at a significantly lower price point on a Clippers team intent on contending for a title. The hope now, after surgical repair and many months of rehabilitation, is that Beal can once again approximate the sort of smooth three-level scoring that had made him such an enticing prospective addition in both Phoenix and L.A, that his play and production might perk up in a lower-usage role, and that he’ll be able to hold up defensively with a surgically repaired hip.

Which team is willing to harbor all those hopes, though, remains to be seen.

Also on the market: Brandon Williams, Gabe Vincent, Aaron Holiday, Cam Thomas, Jalen Pickett, Nick Smith Jr.

The 23-year-old forward made a significant offensive leap in his fourth season, averaging 14.6 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and two steals-plus-blocks in 29.6 minutes per game on 49/41/73 shooting splits. Watson ran more pick-and-rolls and shot more efficiently in a larger offensive role, while maintaining strong rebounding and block rates for his position — a profile that marks the 6-foot-8, 200-pound swingman as precisely the kind of potential 3-and-D (and maybe more) wing that every team covets.

That naturally includes his current employer, the Denver Nuggets, who have signaled to interested suitors that they intend to match any offer sheet tendered for the UCLA product in restricted free agency. With a massive luxury tax bill looming, though, the Nuggets have reportedly also signaled an interest in entertaining sign-and-trade talks, with the Clippers, Hawks and Bucks all “on the list of teams trying to pry Watson away from the Nuggets” in such a deal, according to Marc Stein.

After all the drama of his restricted free agency last summer, Kuminga wound up signing a priced-to-move deal with Golden State and then was, indeed, moved to Atlanta at the trade deadline. The 6-foot-7 swingman offered some pop off the bench for Quin Snyder, averaging 12.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 22.1 minutes per game for a Hawks team that finished with the East’s No. 6 seed.

Kuminga became something of a bellwether in Atlanta’s opening-round playoff series against the eventual NBA champion New York Knicks. When he played well, the Hawks tended to look really good …

… and when he didn’t, they didn’t:

Kuminga went 10-for-27 from the field and 2-for-14 from 3-point range over the final three games of that series — all Knicks wins.

After the season, the Hawks declined their $24.3 million team option on Kuminga’s contract for the 2026-27 season in favor of having more financial flexibility, though they reportedly remained open to bringing him back at a friendlier number. Jake Fischer reported that the Hawks are also open to finding Kuminga a new home via sign-and-trade, with the Lakers and Cavs (pending LeBron’s choice) reportedly interested in the 23-year-old forward’s services.

Need somebody who can get to the cup and get himself to the foul line? Mathurin’s your man: Among 199 players who have logged at least 5,000 total minutes over the past four seasons, the 24-year-old restricted free agent ranks 13th in free-throw attempt rate. Among guards and wings, he ranks fifth, behind only Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Harden, Deni Avdija and Young.

On the nights when Mathurin’s converting up-close, getting to the line and knocking down his jumpers, he looks like the kind of one-on-one shot-creating scorer that a team can build its offense around. The issue is how frequently those nights come — Mathurin’s been a below-average shooter at the basket, from midrange and from 3-point land throughout his career — which, combined with a negative career assist-to-turnover ratio and trick-or-treat defensive attentiveness, have led to the Montreal native grading out poorly by a number of advanced metrics.

That eye-test vs. statistical résumé collision makes the question of what sort of role best suits Mathurin, and what to pay him to perform it, pretty thorny. The Pacers punted on it, sending him to the Clippers in the deal that brought Ivica Zubac to Indiana. The Clips, for their part, reportedly want to re-sign him as part of their ongoing youth movement; it’ll be interesting to see for how much, and for how long.

After a quiet couple of seasons in his post-2023 NBA title sojourn through Indiana, Toronto and New Orleans, Brown returned to Denver last season and acquitted himself pretty well, averaging 7.9 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and a steal in 24.4 minutes per game, shooting 47.5% from the floor and 38.5% from 3-point range. He’s not quite a point guard, not quite a shooting guard and not exactly a wing. In the right situation and for the right price, though, he’s helpful — a tough, seasoned vet who can do a little bit of everything, all while wearing the hell out of a cowboy hat.

Also on the market: Matisse Thybulle (still a monstrously disruptive defender when he can actually get and stay on the floor), Spencer Jones, Blake Wesley, Jett Howard, Bryce McGowens, Jae’Sean Tate, Gary Payton II (who’s kind of a wing and a guard and a big all at once, isn’t he?).

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Dan Devine

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