NBA Free Agency: Winners and Losers of week 2

Week 2 of the Free Agency in the NBA had the lots of big names making their decision about their future with LeBron James’ first essay in Sports Illustrated to return and resign with his home state franchise of Cleveland Cavaliers being the biggest news. Within a few hours of the James’ announcement, Chris Bosh resigned to a 5 year max deal worth 118 million dollars with the Miami Heat.Carmelo Anthony and Pau Gasol followed suit with the former staying and resigning with the New York Knicks while the latter moved from the bright lights of Los Angeles to the town of the Bulls franchise-Chicago. In the days that came next the rest of dominoes fell into place as teams looked to go to their Plan B with James and Anthony not being free agents any more. For the Houston Rockets they had to go to their Plan C.The number of signings, resignings or trades that followed in the couple of days after LeBron James’ decision have never been seen before. So which teams were the Top winners and Losers of week 2. Here they are:

#5 Losers: Houston Rockets

The Houston Rockets does come as a surprise in the losers list given their recent track record in off-season free agency markets. The Rockets have been the most successful team over the past couple of off-seasons acquiring James Harden in 2012 and Dwight Howard in 2013, however their most recent has been nothing but disastrous.

They made their intentions very clear of building a Big three with Anthony or Bosh alongside the current duo of Howard and Harden, but eventually the team ended with none and had to settle for Trevor Ariza. For the Rockets, their cap space was the biggest issue when it came to acquiring any of the big players.

In an attempt to make cap room, the franchise traded Jeremy Lin to the Los Angeles Lakers and Omer Asik to the New Orleans Pelicans.

Despite having the cap space the team failed to sign Anthony, but Houston failed to sit quiet and focused strongly on Plan B-signing Bosh. Within 24 hours the Rockets missed the two biggest fishes they had as their target this summer.

To make matters worse, they decided not to match the offer sheet that Chandler Parsons received from Dallas Mavericks, having already signed Ariza who plays a similar position as Parsons.