2018 NBA free agency: Early predictions for where top 15 players will sign

2018 NBA free agency will be here before you know it, so predicting where the top available talents will land seems like a sensible exercise at this point in the season.

Believe it or not, 2018 NBA free agency will be here before you know it.

As more and more teams are eliminated from playoff contention, the conversation will subtly start to shift to the offseason. Fourteen teams will soon cease playing basketball, meaning all of those teams’ fans will be forced to speculate on the upcoming draft and free agency.

In the spirit of that statement, I’ve decided to take a look at who I believe are the 15 best players set to be free agents in 2018. However, it’s a little more than that. I’m also going to predict where they’ll sign when they hit the open market come July 1.

Be forewarned, though. There are plenty of big names set to become available in a few months. The problem is that, in today’s current salary cap climate, only so many NBA franchises have the financial flexibility to afford high-priced contracts. Years of poor decisions and overpriced contracts have come back to haunt most of the league — only one team currently has more than $10 million to spend this offseason, according to Spotrac.com.

As a result, many of these predictions will end up being of the “re-signing” variety. I know it’s boring, but it’s the realistic approach for many of these pending free agents.

So now that we’ve got that disclaimer out of the way, let’s take a look at my predictions for where the Top 15 players of 2018 NBA free agency will sign. There’s a very good chance at least a few of these are off the mark, but you never know in the wacky world that is professional basketball.