The Opening Tip

• We compiled a flow chart of what happened to the 22 worst free agent signings from 2016 
• The Last Dance is two days away
• Why a five-star recruit’s decision is bad news for the NCAA 
• Obligatory H O R S E update

1. The Lead: The 2016 mega free agency disaster flow chart

(This is a condensed version of our 2016 mega free agency disaster flow chart. The full spread is simply too big for one email. Click here to view it in full.)

The thing about the 2016 NBA free agency spending period, which mostly happened in early July, 2016, is that it gets more and more unbelievable with age.

And, with those contracts -- mostly four-year deals -- finally running out this season, there’s no better time than right now to reflect.

The who-what-when-where-why of July, 2016:

• Average or below average players who wouldn’t have approached eight figures annually in any other year got paid Christian McCaffrey money.
• It happened because, with the league set to take in cash from the new, massive ESPN TV deal -- which was signed in 2014 and went into effect for the 2016-17 season -- the salary cap was suddenly injected with mass cash, jumping from a $70 million cap in 2015-16 to a $94 million cap in 2016-17. 
• With higher spending ceilings and rosy salary cap projections that turned out to be fool’s gold, general managers across the league lost their minds. 

The spike is why Kevin Durant was able to sign with Golden State, and why contracts like the following happened:

• Ian Mahinmi’s four-year, $64 million deal with Washington.
• Timofey Mozgov’s four-year, $64 million deal with the Lakers.
• Luol Deng’s four-year, $72 million deal with the Lakers.
• Joakim Noah’s four-year, $72 million deal with New York.
• Chandler Parsons’ four-year, $94 million deal with Memphis.
• Bismack Biyombo’s four-year, $72 million deal with Orlando.

(In case you were wondering: Mahinmi hasn’t averaged more than seven points per game since; Mozgov hasn’t played in the NBA since 2018; Deng played 57 games in L.A. and was waived and stretched in 2018, then retired in 2019; Noah played 53 games with the Knicks, and is out of the league; Parsons has played 99 games since the 2016-17 season; Biyombo hasn’t eclipsed 20 minutes per game since 2016.)

In all, nearly two-dozen indefensible and expensive long-term deals were handed out by the gild-laced pockets of clueless front office members, which have since resulted in two general outcomes:

1. A contract became so untradable that the player and the team were forced to get along, like Mahinmi or Evan Turner in Portland, who was finally traded this past February in the final year of a four-year, $72 million deal. 
2. Other, smarter front offices saw these terrible contracts as ways to obtain assets. For example, Brooklyn took Mozgov’s contract off of the Lakers’ hands; in exchange for the cap relief, the Lakers had to include D’Angelo Russell in the trade, who bloomed into an All-Star with the Nets. 

Every move -- from trades, to waives, to salary stretches, to retirements, to trips to China -- is included in our massive flow chart, which is sampled above and can be viewed in full here.

2. The wait for The Last Dance is almost over

The Last Dance, the 10-part, 20-hour documentary on Michael Jordan’s last year as a Bull using never-before-seen footage of the 1998 regular season and title run, is premiering with parts one and two on ESPN on Sunday night starting at 9 p.m.

A few links to get you ready…

• The first five minutes of episode No. 1
• Mike’s interview with Robin Roberts from earlier this week
• The final three minutes of Game 6 of the 1998 Finals
• Every Mars Blackmon x Nike x Mike commercial
• An excerpt from David Halberstam’s Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the world he made
• Remembering Sam Smith’s classic book, The Jordan Rules
• Raw footage of The Shot from 1989

3. The NCAA’s G-League problem

• You can read the details of the contract here. (In short, he’ll be part of a “select” G-League team that plays in Southern California, which was created to make the G-League more attractive to elite prospects, so as to avoid having to play in G-League outposts like Fort Wayne, Ind. and Portland, Maine.)  

For the NCAA, this continues a trend of top prospects like LaMelo Ball and RJ Hampton -- two projected 2020 lottery picks who played the past season professionally in Australia -- simply saying no thank you to college basketball.

Here’s Yahoo’s Pete Thamel on the NBA’s play to poach big-time talent from the NCAA:
 

4. Mike Conley’s magnum H O R S E-us

The H O R S E finale happened last night. Mike Conley beat Chauncey Billups in the semifinals and Zach LaVine in the finals.

Conley’s best shot was the one GIF’d above. Here’s the entirety of the final round, if you’re into that.

PS: In case you were wondering, 668,000 people watched the first round matchups this past Sunday.

5.  Off the press

• How old is too old to play pickup basketball? [The Boston Globe]
• Tell us your favorite NBA team and we’ll give you a book to read [SB Nation]
• The Last Dance syllabus [The Ringer]