Latest NBA free agency talk: What I'm hearing

Free agency is (officially) almost here ... read on for coverage of the Sixers, Pacers, Nuggets, Heat, Nuggets, Cavaliers, Rockets, Raptors, Jazz, Lakers, Bulls, Mavericks, Grizzlies and Trail Blazers

We're only hours away now.

Kyrie Irving is the lone current All-Star who will be available in free agency, but the anticipation has been building all week as if there were several headed for the open market at 6 PM ET.

One down-the-list factor driving that anticipation: Some league observers have been openly wondering whether the usual flurry of verbal agreements that gets tweeted out during the first half-hour of free agency may be slowed down by player agents in hopes to dodge the usual aspersions about deals being negotiated with teams well before free agency discussions are legally permissible according to NBA rules. Me? I'm firmly in the we'll-believe-it-when-we-see-it camp.

One wise NBA soul advised me early during the first year of this Substack's existence that "the league's supposed opening bell, in truth, is much closer to the end of free agency than the beginning." It’s a line I’ve leaned on often since and I suspect that, soon enough, we'll be saying the same about NBA Free Agency 2023.

On to my latest around-the-league notes: