By Jordan Hamel.

Remember going to birthday parties when you were young? Hanging with kids your parents made you befriend, watching that spoilt shit Trent get a Nintendo 64 when you’ve only got a Sega back at home, and of course the endless diabetes-inducing lolly scrambles. Over the past few years the NBA has been eerily similar to a 6-year-old’s birthday party. Players get jealous and restless when their league mates get huge contracts and, in an attempt to placate the players, their exhausted parents (the franchises) hold a lolly scramble. But unlike those childhood parties, it’s the parents who are getting sick.

In the 2016 offseason things were looking up for struggling franchises. There was a deep and exciting free agent class, the salary cap had just risen from 70 million to 94 million (USD) and was projected to keep rising over the next few years. As a result teams spent freely and carelessly: Nic Batum got 5 years/$120 million, Chandler Parsons got 4 years/$94 million and Mike Conley received the biggest NBA contract ever at the time of 5 years/$153 million. I could list another 20 players who received ridiculously outrageous contracts that summer but you get the idea. All these players are either mediocre, heavily injury prone or both. All were overpaid by desperate middling teams. All have turned out to be bad investments that are crippling their respective franchises.

The salary cap this season is $99 million, next year it’s expected to rise to just $101 million. The sky-high cap that was projected seasons ago never materialized. As a result a lot of these contracts went from potential bargains to immovable assets. Not that this has stopped teams trying to move them. Charlotte is reportedly only willing to give up Kemba Walker if they can get off Batum’s onerous contract, the Magic have been shopping Fournier, Biyombo and anyone else making double figures since the offseason, The Knicks are offering a valuable first round pick to get off Noah’s contract after he tried to go one-outs with the coaching staff recently and was exiled from the team.

But with so many of these bad contracts spread across the league there aren’t many teams with cap room and even fewer that are willing to give up that space for overpaid players that don’t move the needle.

I’m writing this 12 hours before the trade deadline and I may be proved wrong by the time this article is published but the unusual lack of trades is highlighting the league-wide tightening of the purse strings. The biggest moves so far (Blake Griffin to the Pistons and Nikola Mirotic to the Pelicans) are being made by desperate teams already stuck in terrible situations who have no choice but to throw all the chips in and hope for a flush.

The Clippers went all-in on Griffin in the past offseason (5 years/$171mil) despite an injury history that would warrant his own ACC advisor and rumours of being disliked in the locker room. But then a miracle happened! Almost-certainly-getting-fired Detroit Pistons Coach/GM Stan Van Gundy saw a chance to bring a star to the Motor City, maybe fill the fancy new stadium with some fans and keep himself employed a little longer. So he pulled the trigger, sending a picks and promising players to the Clippers who probably couldn’t pack Blake’s bags quick enough.

This is the kind of short-sighted move that may work initially (the Pistons have won five in a row since Blake arrived) but ultimately could condemn the franchise to mediocrity for years. The Pistons have a punchers chance at snatching the 8th seed this year and then maybe a scrappy first round playoff exit at the hands of Boston, but then what?

Is that the ceiling with this team, who gave up the option of improving, either through free agency or the draft as soon as they made the trade? What’s this contract going to look like in three years? Will Griffin be able to stay on the court for more than 30 games a season? Is Reggie Jackson going to become the point guard everyone thought he could be three years ago? Will Stanley Johnson develop a jump shot and become good enough to replace the two wings the Pistons just gave away?

The Pistons’ future is proverbial house built on sand right now. But this article isn’t just about shitting on the Pistons. There’s a small chance that Griffin goes injury free for the rest of his contract, learns to play next to Drummond and Jackson and turns the Pistons into a perennial contender in the East. But it’s highly unlikely and this is the kind of hopeful thinking that has dogged careless and free-spending teams over the past few years and condemned them to NBA purgatory.

Will teams learn from their mistakes this summer when there’s a whole shiny new bunch of free agents looking for new homes and new deals? It’s hard to know. There’s one player coming onto the market who will be worth every penny he can get, LeBron James, after that the class is filled with players who could be problematic on big money deals. The Pelicans were set to give DeMarcus Cousins the max in an attempt to keep Anthony Davis from looking elsewhere in two years time, but then he tore his achilles. He’ll be out for a year and as a big man who relies so much on explosion and power he’ll be lucky to come back as 80% of the player he once was.
What do the Pels do? They’re already capped out for the next few years, they can sign him to any contract regardless since they have his bird rights. It's not like they could spend that money otherwise and if they let Cousins go for nothing it sends a message of defeat to Davis that will surely have him out the door not long after. So as risky as it is, they have to sign him and hope for the best. Its an unenviable position with a small chance of success, but by giving huge long term contracts to mediocre players over the last few years the Pelicans, like so many others have been the architects of their own demise.

OKC have a similar issue with Paul George; if OKC manage to re-sign him they’ll be staring down the barrel of a 300 million dollar roster. DeAndre Jordan is due for a pay day, but after the Griffin saga I doubt the Clippers want to commit more long term money to an aging star big man. Then there’s a host of restricted free-agents (Julius Randle, Jabari Parker, Aaron Gordon) who will command big pay rises with teams who have no business signing them to big deals, but will probably feel obliged to.

There’s a growing hesitance to give out long contracts to anyone who can’t help you win a title or who shows enormous promise, a lot of free agents are going to be underwhelmed by the offers they receive this off-season as NBA teams come to terms with some harsh fiscal realities. While the cream of the crop will get their fair share of the Allens’ Party Mix, as they always do, the remaining free agents will be left to fight over a few milk bottles, Cherry Ripes and maybe a Werther’s Original.

This could be the summer that franchises embrace the austerity that has been missing in the league over the past few years and set a new tone for the player market for years to come.