Originally Published: July 5, 2007

Grading the impact of the early free-agent deals

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Hollinger By John Hollinger
ESPN Insider
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Well, so much for this free-agency season being a buyer's market.

Five days into free agency, it's become clear that the laws of supply and demand aren't tilted quite as much toward teams as we had supposed. We've already seen a couple of huge paydays with Rashard Lewis' max deal with Orlando and Vince Carter's package to re-up with New Jersey. Chauncey Billups, Gerald Wallace, Mo Williams, Anderson Varejao, Andres Nocioni and Darko Milicic all are likely to have deals for more than the midlevel exception before all is said and done.

But even more eye-opening has been what's happened in the middle of the market. Role players such as Steve Blake and Morris Peterson are demanding the full midlevel yet seem to have several suitors, while specialists like Jason Kapono and Matt Carroll already have deals in hand for near that amount.

To help evaluate the league's annual silly season, I thought I'd take a look at the deals completed thus far and hand out two grades -- one for its short-term impact, and another for its long-term impact. By short-term, I basically mean this upcoming season -- how does it help the team immediately? Long-term is anything beyond that, which is where we get into the uglier ramifications of some of this summer's lengthy contracts.

The report cards please:

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