Every summer it happens the same way. The headlines slow down, the money dries up, and most of the league quietly settles into place. Then, somewhere in the middle of it all, a team makes a signing that barely registers at the time. No fanfare, no real expectations, just a name on the end of the bench.

And then April shows up.

Suddenly that same player is closing playoff games, hitting a corner three nobody saw coming, or giving a contender just enough minutes of stability to swing a series. It's never the stars who change everything at that point. It's the leftovers. The guys who were still sitting around in August because nobody quite knew what to do with them.

That's where we are now. The roster spots are mostly spoken for, the cap space is gone, and what's left is a collection of players who all come with some kind of catch. Not bad players, just complicated ones. 

The Veterans Who Can Still Help

1. James Harden

Harden's technically the best free agent left. He’s also barely a free agent in any real sense.

He turned down a $42.3 million player option in June, but it never felt like some big breakup moment. It was more like both sides quietly agreeing to keep the door open, maybe even trying to make a better run at LeBron. Cleveland's been working through the cap math ever since, and even made a small move this week — sending Dennis Schröder to Charlotte for Tre Mann — that created more financial flexibility while they figure out Harden and the rest of their late-summer puzzle.

On the court, there just isn’t another unsigned player who can still run an NBA offense like Harden can. He averaged 23.6 points and eight assists last season while shooting 37.5 percent from three. After landing in Cleveland for 26 games, he still put up 20.5 points and 7.7 assists a night. The burst isn’t what it used to be, but if you give him a screen and a sliver of space, he can still turn it into a good shot like it’s muscle memory.

The playoffs were the reality check. In May, he averaged 19.2 points and 5.5 assists, but the efficiency dipped and the control wasn’t as steady as Cleveland needed when things tightened up. There were games like 15 points on 16 shots in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, and 12 points with five turnovers in Game 4. The regular-season version that keeps an offense afloat was still there. The version you trust in the biggest moments just isn't — if he ever really was.

At this point, the most likely outcome is still Cleveland. This isn’t really a free agency sweepstakes — it’s cap management and timing. Harden can absolutely take pressure off Donovan Mitchell and keep things organized when he sits, but he can also slow the pace and be a defensive target.

The Cavs would be getting the best name left on the board. They just can’t convince themselves that alone fixes everything in May.

2. DeMar DeRozan

DeRozan is probably the most straightforward scorer still sitting out there.

Sacramento waived him in July after just one season, basically choosing to eat the money instead of pretending the fit was going to magically work itself out.

And to be fair, he still did his job. He averaged 18.4 points and 4.1 assists, shot 49.7 percent, and showed up for 77 games like it was nothing. When the shot clock is dying and everything breaks down, he’s still one of the few guys you actually trust to get to his spot and make something happen.

But you also kind of know what you’re getting at this point. He’s about to turn 37, he doesn’t really shoot threes (32 percent), and he lives in the same midrange real estate a lot of other stars already want to be in. Defensively, he’s never been the guy you feel good about hiding on someone. So signing DeRozan isn’t just “adding scoring.” It’s picking a very specific offensive style and living with the trade-offs.

That’s why the usual suspects make sense. Miami always feels like a fit for someone who can just go get a bucket when their offense gets stuck in the mud. Denver could use another steady scorer for the non-Jokić minutes, even if DeRozan would have to swallow a smaller role than he’s used to. Cleveland's trickier — especially if Harden's actually back in the mix — because there are only so many shots and so many defensive cover-ups to go around.

At the end of the day, it’s mostly about money. DeRozan is reportedly looking for something in the $8–10 million range instead of the minimum. That’s not crazy given what he still brings, but it’s also tough in a league where most contenders have already spent their main exceptions.

He can still help somebody. It just comes down to whether a contender is willing to give him both the role and the paycheck he wants at this stage of his career.

3. Bruce Brown

Brown isn’t anywhere close to the scorer Harden or DeRozan is. And honestly, that’s kind of the point. He might actually be easier to plug into a good team than either of them.

Last season in Denver, Brown put up 7.9 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting 38.5 percent from three. Nothing about that jumps off the page. But nothing about his game is supposed to. He defends multiple positions, cuts hard, screens, makes quick decisions, and just kind of does whatever the possession needs without trying to take it over.

We saw the best version of that in Denver’s 2023 title run, when he averaged 12 points off the bench and ended up leading all playoff reserves in total scoring. Playing next to Nikola Jokić obviously helps, but Brown also made himself useful enough that he was closing Finals games. In August, that kind of trust matters more than any highlight reel skill set.

His path since then kind of explains where the market's at. Indiana paid him like a real piece — two years, $45 million — then flipped that contract into the Pascal Siakam deal. After that, he bounced through Toronto and New Orleans before ending up back in Denver on a minimum. The league basically overcorrected twice: first treating him like a high-end starter, then swinging all the way back to treating him like a guy you can replace tomorrow.

Now Denver seems ready to move on again, and Brown is probably looking at another minimum or small exception deal. Golden State, Miami, and Boston all make sense if they’ve got space.

He’s not going to fix a broken bench or go get you a bucket late in the clock, but he will make a good lineup work a little smoother and a little tougher to mess up. And at this point in free agency, that’s actually a pretty valuable thing.

The Younger Bets

4. Jonathan Kuminga

Kuminga's the weirdest name left on the board, mostly because guys like him aren't supposed to hit unrestricted free agency at 24.

He’s 6-foot-8, explosive, strong enough to get downhill whenever he wants, and still young enough that teams keep squinting at him like, “yeah, there’s another level in there somewhere.” On paper, that’s the kind of player you’d happily talk yourself into at $20 million a year before he even laces them up. In reality, Golden State eventually moved on after years of wondering, and Atlanta declined his $23.4 million team option not long after.

The production is fine, not special. He averaged 12.2 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 2.3 assists in 36 games, shooting 33.3 percent from three. When he gets a mismatch, he can absolutely run through it and finish at the rim. But the rest of it is still inconsistent — quick decisions, off-ball spacing, defensive reads from possession to possession. And that’s really the same question he never answered in Golden State: what does he actually do at a high level when the offense isn’t built around him?

Even the recent stuff didn’t help his case. In Atlanta’s Game 6 playoff loss, Kuminga finished minus-44 off the bench, which is the worst single-game playoff plus-minus by a reserve in the play-by-play era.

One game doesn’t define a 24-year-old, but it’s also not exactly the kind of final impression you want when you’re trying to convince teams you’re more than just a scorer.

The landing spots are pretty obvious. The Lakers and Nuggets both make sense in different ways. L.A. always wants athletic wing size, but they’re not exactly in the mood to give up real assets or flexibility for a project. Denver seems to think anyoen can fix their game playing next to Jokić.

The problem is the same everywhere: Kuminga wants to get paid like a future star, and teams are only willing to pay for what he is right now. If he takes a short “prove it” deal, he could end up being one of the better bargains of the summer. If he holds out for starter money and a guaranteed role, he might find out the market isn’t nearly as patient as he is.

5. Cam Thomas

Nobody left on this list has a more obvious “he can get you 20 on any given night” case than Cam Thomas. At the same time, nobody comes with a louder warning label either.

Thomas has always been able to score in bunches. He averaged 24 points in 25 games for Brooklyn in 2024-25, and even in a tougher follow-up season he still put up 15.6 per game before the Nets eventually waived him at the deadline. Milwaukee picked him up right away, hoping he could give them a scoring spark, but that experiment didn’t last long either. Six weeks later, he was gone again.

When Thomas is rolling, it’s easy to see why teams keep taking swings on him. He can shake a defender off the dribble, hit tough pull-up jumpers, and get to the line when he’s aggressive. The issue is that almost everything about his game starts and ends with scoring. He doesn’t really set the table for others, he’s not a natural off-ball connector, and defensively, teams know exactly where to test him. So when the shot isn’t falling, it gets really hard for a coach to justify keeping him on the floor just for the sake of it.

Milwaukee was probably the clearest reality check. After February 11th, he averaged just 9.6 points, shot 41 percent from the field, and a measly 22 percent from three. And this wasn’t a team that could afford to be picky. The Bucks needed offense. They still decided what he was giving them wasn’t enough to outweigh the rest.

At this point, he’s probably best viewed as a minimum-contract swing for a team that just needs someone who can create a shot off the bench. He’s 24, so there’s still time for things to click in a more complete way, and the price tag makes the risk pretty manageable. But the next step for him isn’t just getting another opportunity — it’s adjusting how he plays.

6. Jaden Ivey

On paper, it’s still easy to talk yourself into Ivey. He went fifth in 2022, he’s only 24, and when he gets downhill, he’s one of those guards who can make a defense feel like their sliding off their axis.

Before he broke his leg in January 2025, there were real signs he was starting to slow down just enough to actually read the game instead of just outrunning it. Even in a messy 2025-26 season, he was still hitting 37.3 percent from three, which is not nothing.

But basically everything since has gone sideways.

Detroit moved him to Chicago in February, and things never really got off the ground there. He played four games, then lingering left-knee pain shut him down for the year. Four days later, Chicago waived him for conduct detrimental to the team after a social media stream where he made some incredibly insensitive comments.

And yeah, that’s not just a “young player makes a mistake” situation. That’s the kind of thing that makes front offices stop and actually think through the whole picture.

So any team even thinking about Ivey is really asking three simple questions: Is the knee actually right? Is the burst still there after everything he’s been through? Can we trust him in our building without it becoming a distraction?

At this point, it’s probably a minimum or non-guaranteed deal just to see what you even have. No one's betting real money on him right now. He’s going to have to show he’s healthy, locked in, and willing to rebuild his reputation from the ground up, not just lean on where he was drafted.

The Specialist and the Medical Gamble

7. Seth Curry

Curry’s case is pretty simple: he still shoots the lights out.

He led the league at 45.6 percent from three in Charlotte in 2024-25, then came back and hit 48 percent in a short 10-game run with Golden State. Small sample, sure, but when you’re a career 43.3 percent shooter from deep, you don’t really need a long sales pitch.

If a contender just needs someone to come in, space the floor, and hit shots for 8–10 minutes without overthinking it, he can absolutely do that.

The reason he’s still sitting out there is everything else around the shooting. He’s 36 this month, plays limited minutes, and at his size, he’s always going to be someone teams try to hunt on defense. In a playoff series, there are matchups where coaches just won’t feel comfortable keeping him on the floor, no matter how hot he is.

Curry has already said he’s open to a return to Golden State, which honestly still feels like the cleanest fit if the Warriors want another small guard who can stretch the floor. If that doesn’t happen, he’s in that classic late-summer spot: just waiting.

One injury somewhere, one bench unit that suddenly can’t shoot, and suddenly that one elite skill looks a lot more valuable than it does right now in August.

8. Lonzo Ball

The idea of Lonzo Ball is still better than what we’ve actually seen lately, and that says a lot about where he is right now.

When he’s right, he just makes life easier for everybody. He pushes the ball without over-dribbling, sees plays a step ahead, defends up a position, and keeps the offense from getting stuck in mud. He’s not trying to be the guy every possession, and honestly, that’s what makes him valuable. Contenders love players like that.

The problem is we just haven’t seen that version in a long time. Ball played 35 games for Cleveland, putting up 4.6 points, 4 rebounds and 3.9 assists while shooting 30.1 percent from the field and 27.2 percent from three. He got moved to Utah at the deadline, and the Jazz waived him right away.

And it all comes back to the knee. He’s missed two full seasons with multiple surgeries and eventually needed a cartilage transplant just to get back on the floor. Even then, it’s been stop-and-start. He’s played 35 games in each of the last two seasons, which tells you everything about the uncertainty teams are dealing with.

Golden State, Denver, and a few other teams have done their homework and checked the medicals, but nobody's pulled the trigger. That’s the key detail here: teams still like the player, they just don’t trust the body.

He’s only 28, which is the frustrating part. In theory, a minimum deal with a contender is a no-brainer gamble if the knee ever stabilizes. Golden State and Denver make sense because they don’t need him to score, just to think the game and keep things organized.

But that’s where we are now. It’s not about upside or fit anymore. It’s about whether he can actually stay on the floor. That’s the whole conversation.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com.

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