The 2018-19 NBA free agent market will officially begin on Sunday, with the league’s 30 teams competing against each other for the players they want. There are both game-changers like LeBron James and Paul George and good specialist players including Clint Capela and Avery Bradley on the market like usual. The difference is with the buyers: Teams had to tighten their finances.

The sudden big rise of some 24 million US dollars in the NBA salary cap during summer 2016 has made the two off-season periods into a Black Friday for the teams that started to spend in a big way. The irrational consumption was good news for players but has also led to multiple toxic contracts:

The Los Angeles Lakers gave to four-year contracts to Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng of 64 and 72 million US dollars respectively. The Charlotte Hornets signed a four-year contract with Nicolas Batum who will receive some 120 million US dollars. Ryan Anderson joined the Houston Rockets for 80 million US dollars for four years. Chandler Parsons accepted a four-year contract of 94 million US dollars from the Memphis Grizzlies.

Some of these contracts have been headaches for the teams’ general managers since then and limited their payroll space. With such lessons in mind, teams in summer 2018 were much more careful than before with their checkbooks.

Eight teams will be able to offer contracts bigger than non-taxpayer midlevel to free agents on the market this summer. The Lakers and the Philadelphia 76ers were clearly chasing the big fish like LeBron and George. The Atlanta Hawks, the Chicago Bulls and the Sacramento Kings are rebuilding and are not attractive to super stars. The remaining three - the Phoenix Suns, the Dallas Mavericks and the Indiana Pacers - may be the only options left for good contracts, though they still have problems.

The Suns just selected DeAndre Ayton in the 2018 NBA Draft and already have young talented players such as Devin Booker and Josh Jackson. The benefits of rookie contracts will give the team enough time to observe instead of rushing to the market without thinking. Anyone seeking easy money from Phoenix will probably be disappointed.

Though the Pacers did not pick any genius players in the Draft, their guard Victor Oladipo has proved that he’s a qualified leader and they were able to make their rivals suffer in the playoffs. Besides, their current chemistry was going well with a sound combination of differently aged players. Without a specific, appealing target, Indiana has no reason to gamble on big contracts.

The Mavericks has made it clear that they were, once again, chasing, DeAndre Jordan who may opt out of his final year of contract with the Los Angeles Clippers. The team already have Harrison Barnes and the European genius Luka Doncic from the draft. Considering that their owner Mark Cuban never hesitated to write big checks, Dallas may be looking for better contracts.

The free agent market this summer may still be as lively and noisy like it has been in the past, as most free agent players will not be able to share the benefits of salary cap rise, even though the cap will probably exceed 100 million US dollars in the 2018-19 NBA season.