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I find it ironic that the New York Knicks essentially spent two seasons doing nothing but clearing cap space (and losing badly in the process) to prepare for this epic summer of free agency.

That’s because despite that, they still don’t appear to be the front runner for the most coveted free agent of them all, LeBron James.

At this moment in time, that appears to be the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat.

By the way, I refuse to call this the “Summer of LeBron”, because frankly, there’s some amazing free agents to be had that aren’t named LeBron.

Both Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh are franchise players, and Amar’e Stoudemire (if he becomes a free agent, and that’s almost a certainty), David Lee and Joe Johnson are fantastic, big name All Stars.

For the casual observer, this year’s NBA Draft came and went quietly. John Wall and a few others aside, this was not an amazingly strong draft on face value.

However, two significant trades were made around draft day last week which had great significance to the race to sign some of the best NBA players in the game.

First of all, the Miami Heat traded away their 18th pick in the draft along with Daequan Cook to Oklahoma City. In other words, they cleared even more cap space. It’s possible the Heat can sign two top free agents, along with re-signing Dwayne Wade. That’s a very attractive proposition for all those big name free agents, because that would be some team. Wade, Bosh and Johnson? Amazing.

The Bulls made a similar move, shipping off their 17th pick and Kirk Hinrich to Washington, freeing up more cap space of their own. Like Miami, the Bulls can now afford to sign two top free agents as well. Just like that, both teams in my eyes put themselves ahead of teams like the Knicks who have spent some time trying to free cap space.

It’s not just cap space that will land you the best free agents this summer, it’s having a team with the ability to win. LeBron himself has already stated that winning is important to him, and so it should be. The Knicks may well be able to woo him with their cap space, big stage and New York life, but what they can’t do is offer him a decent team with a few pieces already in place.

Instead, you have to fancy the Bulls’ chances of wooing LeBron and/or others. In addition to their cap space, they have a solid young core to go with it, including Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Britain’s own Luol Deng. And no, I don’t expect this ridiculous Joakim Noah/LeBron James argument to make any difference whatsoever to the Chicago appeal:

Having a decent core of players already on the team is far more valuable than what the Knicks could offer, even if they managed to snag another of the top free agents this summer.

The same goes for Heat. Assuming they re-sign Wade, adding two more big names to a team which already has decent players like Michael Beasley and Jermaine O’Neal would also make them a far more attractive proposition than what the Knicks appear to have at present.

As always, there’ll be plenty more twists and turns in the future destinations of LeBron, Wade, Bosh and co, especially once free agency officially begins on July 1st. Right now however, it’s hard to see how the Bulls and Heat don’t have the slight edge, not only over the Knicks but also over the Cavs who we mustn’t forget, still want to re-sign him.

And then there’s the Nets, the Mavs, the Clippers…

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