Biggest winners in free agency

WHO is the biggest winner in the free-agency sweepstakes in the NBA so far?

It took only one day, or the start of the free-agency period on July 1 during which NBA teams committed to spend nearly $2 billion on player contracts, for Michael Alex (Mike) Conley Jr. to earn the distinction when the starting playmaker of the Memphis Grizzlies decide to stay put with his original employers since 2007-08 on a new five-year maximum pact worth a record-setting $153 million.

This is the richest contract by total value in NBA history.

Moreover, this also marks the first-ever deal with a total amount of $100 million-or-more that averages more than $30 million annually.

A nine-year NBA vet out of Ohio State, the 6-foot-1, 28-year-old Arkansas-born Conley has never made an All-Star team.

Overpaid? Of course, but then again … there’s just too much money in the NBA coffers and teams must spend from 49-to-51 percent of them just to satisfy the NBA minimum for player salaries under the current collective bargaining agreement struck between the league owners and players union in 2011.

Only two other players in NBA history have bankrolled $30 million or more in a single season: Michael Jordan ($30 million in 1996-97 and $33 million in 1997-98, both with Chicago) and Kobe Bryant ($30 million in 2014-15 with the Lakers).

Kevin Durant, the top prospect on the free-agent market and a nine-year NBA vet like Conley, could have also gotten a maximum five-year, $153-million pact had the one-time NBA Most Valuable Player awardee (2014) opted to remain with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Instead the 6-foot-10 Durant agreed to play for the Western rival Golden State Warriors on a proposed two-year, $54.3-million pact that also carries an opt-out player option after one season.

Other prominent players who were able to secure seemingly outrageous contracts in free agency this month (seemingly out-of-this-world but perhaps only par for the course when one considers the immense jump in the NBA’s salary cap from $70 million to $94.143 million for the 2016-17 campaign) include the following:

* DeMar DeRozan, an All-Star guard, re-upped with the Toronto Raptors on a five-year maximum deal worth $145 million (the maximum amount varies depending on a player’s years of experience;

* Detroit All-Star center Andre Drummond, an All-NBA Third Team selection who was the league’s No. 1 rebounder this past season with a 14.8 average, opted to remain with the Pistons on a renewal worth $130 million over five years;

* Washington 2-guard Bradley Beal, a four-year veteran, is back with the Wizards on a new five-year, $128-million pact;

* Versatile Charlotte wingman Nicolas Batum, who along with San Antonio’s Tony Parker and his ex-Spurs mate Nando de Colo helped France gain a ticket to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in the Manila qualifying tournament held July 5-10, re-signed with the Hornets for another five years worth $120 million (Batum, who has a player option in the fifth year of the contract, spent his first seven seasons with Portland before he was shipped to Charlotte in June 2015);

* Alfred Joel Horford, a 6-foot-10, 30-year-old forward-center from Dominican Republic who had spent his first nine seasons in Atlanta and was an All-Star with the Atlanta Hawks February, bolted Peach City following the acquisition of Houston free agent Dwight Howard ($70 million over three years) and decided to relocate to the Hub, where the Boston Celtics will pay him a maximum $113 million over four seasons, including nearly $26.5 million next campaign (it will be the first nine-figure contract in Celtics history); and

* Up-and-coming Miami center Hassan Niam Whiteside, an NBA All-Defensive Second Team selection who ranked No. 1 in the majors in shot blocks (3.68 bpg) and was third in rebounding (11.8 rpg) and field goal percentage (.606) last season while bankrolling just $990,000, is returning to the Heat on a maximum four-year pact worth at least $98 million (believing that the 7-foot, 27-year-old Whiteside, who had only joined the club in November 2014 following a forgettable two-year stint (2010-12) with the Sacramento Kings, was the Heat’s top free-agent signing priority, and not a proven commodity like him, a 13-year Miami vet with three NBA titles, the hurting 6-foot-4, 34-year-old Dwyane Wade left South Beach for his hometown Chicago Bulls).

Aside from the aforementioned players, other NBA players with “live” $100 million-or-more contracts (consummated through contract extensions secured this year or in the previous year) are Portland guard and recent Manila visitor Damian Lillard, whose $140.2 million takes effect in 2016-17; New Orleans’ All-Star forward-center Anthony Davis, who owns a $127.7 million contract that starts in the upcoming wars; and Houston cornerstone James Edward Harden Jr., who on July 9 agreed to a renegotiated four-year, $118.1 million contract extension through the 2019-20 season.

“The Beard” Harden, a seven-year vet who turns 27 next month, had two years and $34.6 million remaining on his original deal through 2017-18. With the contract renegotiation, the NBA’s second-leading scorer with a career-high 29-point clip will be rewarded with a bump of nearly $10 million in 2016-17 and $11 million in 2017-18 aside from getting two additional years at $30.4 million in 2018-19 and $32.7 million in 2019-20 (a player option that could return Harden to free agency in 2019).

Ill-stricken Miami frontliner Chris Bosh, whose recurring blood clots in the legs has cut short his play in the last two seasons, still has three years remaining on a five-year, $118-million deal he inked in the summer of 2014.

Much-maligned forward Kevin Love of the newly-minted NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers has just completed the first year of a five-year, $113.2-million contract that he signed in the summer of 2015 as a free agent.

Memphis center Marc Gasol was signed to a five-year, $110-million maximum pact last summer. The contract extension takes effect in 2016-17 and will pay him $21.2 million.