We’ve been waiting for the bottleneck to break. We’ve been waiting for the first big domino to fall in NBA free agency.
It has, LeBron James is headed back to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
[RELATED: How LeBron changes NBA landscape]
So now what happens? Here’s a list of just some of the things to expect in the next 24-48 hours.
• First, don’t expect a Carmelo Anthony decision to immediately follow, he apparently is still torn between the Lakers, Bulls and Knicks.
In regards to a decision for Knicks free agent forward Carmelo Anthony, a source said: "It's coming... Not today."
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) July 11, 2014
• The team on the clock is the Rockets — they have about 48 hours to trade Jeremy Lin and others on their roster with contracts going forward (save Dwight Howard and James Harden, obviously) then renounce the Bird rights on others so that they can offer Chris Bosh a near max contract and still match Dallas’ Chandler Parsons offer sheet. The clock is ticking on the second part of that, they had 72 hours from when they got the contract on Thursday.
Houston and Chris Bosh moving quickly on securing deal, and with Bosh, Rockets will match Chandler Parsons offer sheet, source tells Yahoo.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 11, 2014
Rival GM: "Houston is trying to clear the deck. Everyone in play except for their main guys." Max space for Chris Bosh, on the way.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 11, 2014
• Trevor Ariza, Lance Stephenson, Luol Deng, Pau Gasol and Paul Pierce among others likely start to see firm offers come in, although some of them still may end up having to wait on ‘Melo (particularly Gasol and the Chicago situation, if they don’t get Anthony they will come hard at Gasol). The Lakers, Mavericks (if they lose out on Parsons now ) and others have the cap space to be aggressive if they so choose.
• Miami will still re-sign Dwyane Wade, maybe for a little more than they previously would have. This will be a three or four year “
• Losing LeBron and Bosh will leave Miami with a ton of cap space — even without renouncing Dwyane Wade they have $28,417,242 (by Dan Feldman’s estimates) and assuming they sign him for four years but at less than the $20 million he was going to make you add that difference to the numbers. Which means they can be players for a lot of those free agents.
• Cleveland is going to try and go hard after trading for Kevin Love. The questions are will they throw Andrew Wiggins in the offer (they basically have to) and will that be enough for Minnesota? All reports are Flip Saunders is not going to rush this, he knows as things start to shake out teams will see the landscape and get more desperate. If Bosh and Parsons land in Houston, does that freak out Golden State enough to throw Klay Thompson in its deal? Maybe, maybe not, but those are the kind of scenarios Saunders is willing to wait to play out.