A new Hall of Fame class has been enshrined in southern Massachusetts. There are questions to be answered. When will the Kawhi Leonard/Clippers investigation wrap up?
Will the Pistons finally re-sign Jalen Duren? But here in late August, we're going to take a look back at the summer that was. Here now are our NBA Summer Superlatives for some of the most memorable parts of the last few months.
Sure, the new lottery odds dictate that a team like the Wizards can no longer aspire to be the bottom of the league's barrel, and there might not be a player more equipped to lead you straight into the "not good but not terrible" zone than Young. But did Washington have to give him a four-year, $212 million contract to do it? We all heard about this supposed mystery team that was threatening a max offer for Young, but come on.
This dude was straight-up salary dumped by the Hawks, who didn't even want to be in the business of Young at this kind of annual money for one more player-option year. They pretty openly tried to trade him for more than a year and nobody wanted him at anywhere near max money. And here the Wizards handed it to him like it's nothing.
Do you have any idea how sure you have to be of a player's superstar value to commit a max contract to him in the NBA's current financial landscape? The bar is way higher than Young. The Celtics didn't even want to be in a max relationship with Jaylen Brown, who won Finals MVP in 2024 and finished top-five in MVP voting last year.
You could argue James Harden is still, even at 37 years old, the better version of Young and it feels like the Cavaliers overpaid for him at $97 million across three years. There is no world in which Young is worth $212 million. He's an offense unto himself, I get it.
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