But one of our favorite shows of the year is here the first day of free agency and it seems like more and more happened sooner and sooner these days.

Almost makes you think that these things are getting negotiated a little bit ahead of time.

How dare you even insinuate something like that could happen.

It's not like it's possible that one-mitted into free agency, the very first thing that was reported,

was a side-in trade that involved negotiations between two teams and two players that weren't under contract.

Yeah, that was amazing that the Lonzo side-in trade was the first thing.

The Lonzo double side-in trade, including Garrett Temple, was the first thing that got reported.

But another thing that clearly was in the works for quite some time was what the Miami Heat did and they have brought in one Kyle Lowry while staying over the cap.

A move that was augured by their exercising the team option on Goran Droghitch over the weekend.

Yeah, and it was an interesting series of decisions for Pat Riley and presumably heavily involved Andy Ellsberg, their cap guru.

And what Miami ended up choosing to do, and I think this made complete sense, was using Goran Droghitch as salary ballast to structure the Kyle Lowry signing as a sign-in trade.

Lowry getting a reported three years, approximately 90 million, I think it's going to be a little bit less than that, just depending on the matching of salary and everything.

I think there's some unsolved things here, but also because the hard cap actually becomes a very real concern for the Miami Heat.

We should start there with Lowry. I mean, three-year deal, no options, going to play in Miami and join this intriguing core, but he's not going alone, but let's stay with what Lowry means to the Heat and what not Lowry means to a lot of these other contenders that really wanted it.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

So, I mean, this is a big contract for an old player, and maybe there's some evidence that players are able to continue to perform at an older age than they used to.

Also, Lowry, he did fall off some last year, but they also had this crazy year with Tampa and Corona virus.

And so, if you're someone who's interested in Lowry, it's easy to talk yourself out of any potential decline.

And also, you can point to the fact that he really has held his value exceedingly low. And you remember back in the summer of 2017, he basically got this exact same contract when he was four years younger.

In part, and couldn't get a fourth year because teams were worried about his age at that point in time.

And now, of course, he has the championship brand from 2019 as well.

And also, this is a different year where, amazingly, there were more good teams with Cattrace, and he was the best player probably that's going to change teams.

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