Things in the NBA went bonkers on Friday. The Warriors magically unloaded Richard Jefferson and Andris Biedrins to free up enough space to land Andre Iguodala. Jose Calderon signed with the Mavericks. Paul Millsap landed with the Hawks. The Bucks picked up O.J. Mayo. And in a huge move with massive repercussions all over the league: Earl Clark went to the Cavaliers. (That might have actually happened on Thursday; sorry, I'm a little punch-drunk.)
In actuality, the Dwight Howard decision should set the remainder of the free agent period on its head. The Rockets will almost assuredly pitch out Omer Asik. (The rumored deal for Ryan Anderson has been debunked, so Daryl Morey is no doubt shopping the Turkish center right now.) Andrew Bynum, Josh Smith, Nikola Pekovic, Andrei Kirilenko, Jeff Teague, Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis all remain available. (All were among my top 19 free agents of the 2013 class.)
But that's just a fraction of the players who are actually in play right now. The trade game is going to be nuts over the next two weeks, in my opinion. So while we consider current free agents who could be the Kings' choice as a stopgap small forward (Kirilenko, Dorell Wright, Carlos Delfino, Corey Brewer), consider that there are any number of options on the trade market. And we all know Vegas Summer League is a veritable hotbed of action for GMs.
There are teams going into rebuild mode that haven't finished dissembling. There are teams looking to break through in needs of another veteran piece or two. Pete D'Alessandro vowed to be aggressive in the offseason, and he aggressively went after Iguodala before making the decision to cut bait after hesitance from the wing. Look at how the Rockets got to here -- I can't recommend Mike Prada's breakdown enough. It wasn't through a whole lot of free agency signings. It was through trades and the draft ... until it came time to ink Dwight.
There's still a helluva lot of time this offseason for D'Alessandro, and then we'll have the trade deadline, the 2014 draft and 2014 free agency. That's all in the next year. Untold numbers of good players will switch teams between now and then. Stay tuned. This movement period isn't close to over, and three more are on the way.