Free agency is a difficult game to play. A team like the Cleveland Cavaliers has to entice players to agree to move their lives to Ohio, but without overpaying them to harm their team-building in the future, all while 29 other teams are trying to entice but not overpay all at the same time. Who to pursue? How much to pay them? It’s a wild maelstrom of business.
One of the reasons the Cavaliers have not been huge players in free agency in recent years has been that they overpaid players in previous seasons, including a massive contract extension for Kevin Love that he failed to live up to in any of its four seasons.