The NBA’s 2023 free agency window officially opens on Friday at 5:00 p.m. Central, and it might not take long for agreements to roll in.
For the Houston Rockets, who have a league-leading figure of more than $60 million in financial space beneath the salary cap, there’s an incentive to work quickly. If they can’t get a top target, they need to move on to secondary ones before those potentially sign elsewhere.
So, who will general manager Rafael Stone target once negotiations can officially begin on Friday afternoon? According to veteran NBA scribe Marc Stein, rival NBA teams are expecting Toronto guard Fred VanVleet and Memphis wing Dillon Brooks to both sign with the Rockets in the hours after free agency begins.
VanVleet will likely get a two-year offer worth a projected maximum of over $40 million per season, according to Stein, while Brooks could be on a two-year deal worth at least $14 million, annually.
As of Thursday morning, here’s where things stand.