Charlotte Hornets free agency preview – At The Hive

Today (Sunday) marks the kind of official start of free agency. The league year starts on Monday July 1, but teams are allowed to contact and start negotiating with free agents for definitely the first time at 6:00 today. We’ll probably see a handful of agreements made in record time right after that 6:00 window opens.

The Charlotte Hornets will probably be a little more active this offseason than in seasons past (which is a floor-level bar to clear). They have two players that they’re reportedly interested in bringing back–Miles Bridges and Seth Curry. Bridges’ contract is expiring and he’s free to sign with any team. He’ll be one of the more coveted targets for teams with cap space since so few good players are hitting free agency these days. The team has said that they want Bridges back and Bridges has said he wants to be back, but we’ll see how that actually plays out. Things are always tougher when Klutch is in play.

The Hornets waived Seth Curry the other day, but it’s been reported that both sides are interested in a reunion. That may mean coming back on a smaller or longer term deal, or it could just be to do some maneuvering with the salary cap. There are a handful of other players around the league in similar situations, like Mo Wagner and Richaun Holmes.

If the Hornets bring Bridges back, they’ll be over the cap. They’ll have the midlevel exception to use, but part of that is presumably going towards the Reggie Jackson trade unless the Hornets find another trade partner to offload him to. The total value of the midlevel exception is about $12.9 million. Reggie Jackson’s current cap hit is $5.25 million, for what it’s worth. The Hornets can find a decent role player for that kind of money if they choose to do so.

Elsewhere, the big name to watch is Paul Geo7rge. He opted out of his contract and intends to actually test free agency. He’ll be taking meetings with the Clippers, 76ers, and Magic. If he leaves the Clippers, that’ll shake the league up pretty significantly.

Deals that are agreed to in the coming days can’t officially be signed until July 6, but it’s exceedingly rare to see teams or players back out on the deals agreed to during the moratorium period.