Five Free-Agency Surprises The Warriors as we knew them are done, but they still have a Big Three: Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images Marc Stein You have to laugh at yourself sometimes. My trusty colleague Ben Hoffman and I prepared a detailed rundown for last Sunday’s paper to remind the audience how high the bar would be for an N.B.A. off-season to be remembered as an all-timer. Yet even a serial worrier like me should have known that there was no way for Free Agency 2019 to disappoint. Not when so many teams had been plotting for so many months — all knowing that they had to strike now because the free-agent class of 2020 will feature far fewer difference-makers. Nearly 50 players reached agreements on deals totaling more than $3 billion in the first 12 hours after the marketplace opened Sunday at 6 p.m., Eastern time. It was the wildest off-season day ever, supplanting the raucous DeAndre Jordan roller coaster in 2015 when Jordan backed out of a verbal agreement with the Dallas Mavericks so he could stay with the Los Angeles Clippers. The engagement, hysteria and absurdity of L’Affaire Jordan made for a transformative moment in the N.B.A. and its relationship with social media, but that saga involved only two franchises. This year’s free-agent frenzy has reached almost every corner of the N.B.A. Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving have teamed up in New York — but with the Nets rather than the Knicks. Kemba Walker left Charlotte for Boston to replace Irving, while Jimmy Butler moved to Miami via sign-and-trade after it became apparent that Butler and the Philadelphia 76ers weren’t going to work out a deal. Golden State’s Klay Thompson, Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton, Dallas’s Kristaps Porzingis and Orlando’s Nikola Vucevic all stayed put. As of Friday afternoon, we were still waiting for Kawhi Leonard to decide between Toronto and a return to his native Southern California with the Los Angeles Lakers or Clippers. Yet what we can share, with no delay, is our rundown of five more significant surprises that demand your attention: After the Golden State Warriors started each of the last four seasons as the N.B.A.’s supposed sure thing, suddenly no one knows how long it will take for them to return to the N.B.A. elite. Every seat and every meaningful sponsorship have been sold as the Warriors prepare to move into San Francisco’s glitzy Chase Center next season. That’s comforting news for Warriors officials, who still have Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green on their roster but are otherwise confronted with uncertainty. The Warriors will have to cope without the injured Thompson for most of next season. As covered later in this newsletter, they also have to eventually construct a home run trade involving the incoming D’Angelo Russell — unless Russell shocks the masses by making his ball-dominant, pick-and-roll style (and defensive limitations) mesh with Curry and Thompson. The Warriors entered free agency privately vowing to keep Andre Iguodala and his $17.2 million salary on the books if Kevin Durant stayed with Golden State. But Iguodala was advised beforehand, according to two people briefed on the discussions who were not authorized to discuss them publicly, that the Warriors felt they had no choice but to trade him if Durant decided to leave. It looks as though reloading around Curry, Thompson and Green, given the megamillions those three command and how that constricts Golden State financially, won’t be any easier than reaching five consecutive N.B.A. finals. Nikola Mirotic’s decision to spurn a three-year, $45 million deal with Utah stunned the whole league and directly affected at least four N.B.A. franchises. On the eve of free agency Saturday, word began to spread that Mirotic was poised to leave the N.B.A. abruptly to go back to the EuroLeague with Barcelona, even though he would give up millions in the process. The New York Times subsequently reported that Mirotic had a three-year, $45 million promise from the Jazz to leave the Milwaukee Bucks. Mirotic made a life decision. A sharpshooting big man who was born in Montenegro and plays internationally for Spain, he simply wanted to return to Europe. It’s a decision that prompted the Jazz to extend a four-year, $73 million offer to Bojan Bogdanovic to leave the Pacers and take the spot they had earmarked for Mirotic. The Pacers, in turn, pivoted from their plan to sign Ricky Rubio away from Utah and instead swung a sign-and-trade deal with Milwaukee for Malcolm Brogdon to address their need at point guard. And that enabled Phoenix to offer Rubio a three-year, $51 million deal after numerous teams thought Rubio-to-Indiana was a done deal before free agency started. The Northwest Division is the most stacked in the league — for at least one season. The Jazz have made their go-for-it moves by trading for Mike Conley, throwing big money at Bogdanovic and adding the underrated Ed Davis. The Trail Blazers have followed their trip to the Western Conference finals by attempting to fortify their much-maligned frontcourt with the trade for Hassan Whiteside and by adding depth on the wing through deals to keep Rodney Hood and bring in Mario Hezonja and Anthony Tolliver. The Nuggets expect to introduce the promising Michael Porter Jr. this season after winning the West’s regular-season title — and are said to be interested in making an ambitious play to bring Iguodala back to Denver if Iguodala can extricate himself from Memphis. Don’t forget, furthermore, that Oklahoma City still features the star duo of Russell Westbrook and Paul George amid a summer that has been quiet so far because of luxury-tax concerns. Philadelphia was the mystery team for Al Horford. The Times reported on the day after the N.B.A. draft that a mystery suitor had promised Horford a four-year deal in excess of $100 million. Nine days later, we found out that Horford was joining the Sixers, but only after a guessing game that had the whole league flummoxed. You can understand why Philadelphia wanted Horford. For starters, no opposing defender caused Joel Embiid more grief. The former Boston Celtic is also a positive locker room presence, which the Sixers could use after all of last season’s tumult. The defensive potential alone of Horford alongside Embiid and Ben Simmons justifies the shuffling, but there are still plenty of curiosities here that must resolve themselves. The Sixers lost their most dependable crunchtime force (Butler) and their best shooter (J.J. Redick) to make room for Horford and Josh Richardson — and to create the flexibility to give Tobias Harris a five-year, $185 million deal. It’s not a surprise that the Sixers ultimately prioritized keeping Harris over keeping Butler, given how much more they surrendered to trade for Harris. The pressure on Harris, however, rises significantly with that sort of price tag, which exceeded what Milwaukee paid to keep Middleton, who is already an All-Star. No one has had a better summer than the New Orleans Pelicans. Lottery luck landed Zion Williamson in the Big Easy. It’s an immeasurable slice of fortune for a franchise that has feared since September, when Anthony Davis hired Rich Paul as his new agent, that it would have to trade Davis. But David Griffin, New Orleans’s new general manager, has followed up the fortuitous alignment of lottery Ping-Pong balls that led to Williamson with a string of shrewd moves of his own making. Paul successfully persuaded the Celtics and every other Davis suitor to back off, under the premise that trading for his client would be no more than a one-year arrangement before Davis’s inevitable departure as a free agent in July 2020, but Griffin still extracted a haul from the Lakers. Los Angeles surrendered Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, three future first-round picks and the right for New Orleans to swap first-round picks in 2023. There was no drop-off in free agency, either, as the Pelicans came to terms with Redick on a reasonable two-year, $26.5 million deal and acquired Derrick Favors from Utah by absorbing the final year of his contract ($16.9 million) into cap space. It has been some run for Griffin.