FanHouse Ronnie Price

Not everyone is waiting for 2010 – the mother of all free agent summers – to try to improve their team by throwing big money at the seasoned veterans.

Even in hard economic times, the top players like Carlos Boozer, Hedo Turkoglu and Jason Kidd will leave teams and get their financial reward in other places. The squeeze will be on the lower-level free agents who must settle for minimum or various exceptions.

What hurts this class is that only seven teams really have major room under the salary cap to make something happen, and they usually aren't the NBA's biggest spenders. Unless the free agents stay with their current teams, only Memphis, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Atlanta, Portland, Toronto and Detroit have major room.

Although there has been plenty of dancing and unofficial talks the last few days, the real dealings can't start until 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

Here is a breakdown by position of the five most intriguing – and unrestricted – free agents.

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. FreeDarko: Why Deron WIlliams has it in for Chris Paul.

2. Third Quarter Collapse: Looks like the ref got cold feet on the final play of the Pistons-Magic Game 4.

3. Alan Hahn, Newsday: Did the Knicks hire Mike D'Antoni to entice LeBron James?

4. Ross Siler, Salt Lake Tribune: Ronnie Price doesn't think Ronny Turiaf should be suspended.

5. Hardwood Paroxysm: "I never noticed the Maginot line had rims on it."

6. The Hype Guy: A singing Shaq comes to Will Ferrell's rescue.

There's no question that this foul (at about the :35 mark) from the Lakers' Ronny Turiaf was a little harder than necessary, and to put a stop to excessively physical play, the referees felt the need to call it a flagrant. I understand that. But just because Ronnie Price landed awkwardly and gashed his head on the hardwood doesn't mean that the foul was more intentional or violent, yet because of the blood, the officials called Turiaf for a flagrant-two and ejected him from the game.

Looked like your run-of-the-mill flagrant-one to me, and in no way did that deserve an ejection. Now, is it that big a deal in the grand scheme of things that Turiaf was unavailable for most of the game? Probably not, although there was a stretch to start the fourth quarter where DJ Mbenga was in there as part of a lineup that allowed the Jazz to quickly push their lead back up to 10.

The officials are allowed to review flagrant fouls right there on the monitors to determine the extent and the severity of the foul before tossing a player. I think it's clear that Turiaf wasn't intentionally trying to take out a seldom-used role player like Ronnie Price, and had the officials taken a closer look, I think they could have easily seen that and allowed Turiaf to remain in the game.

We break up important, consequential reportage to give you this trinket of probable irrelevance: Utah signed ex-King Ronnie Price to a multi-year deal, says the Salt Lake Tribune's Steve Luhm. Why does it matter?



Every day in practice, Carlos. Every day.

(After the jump, an alternate interpretation from Miss Gossip, and some heartfelt words of want from a dear Ronnie Price fan.)