This may have been talked about before, but which summer free agency were we most successful in?

2010: Stoudemire, Felton, Randolph, Turiaf, Azubuike
1996: Houston, LJ, Childs, Buck Williams

Similar to this season, we missed out on a couple big names in 96 but got some great talent and it was an overall successful free agency.

Comparing our 96 FAs to current ones in this market, here are some comparisons i would make.

Houston: young 20 ppg scorer with upside: 2010 similarity Rudy Gay
LJ: explosive 20ppg scorer coming off injury: Not quite Stoudemire or Joe Johnson, but kind of like joe Johnson if he were coming off injury.
Childs: Role playing PG who can defend and run team: similarity Randy Foye
Buck Williams: former all-star well past his prime, but a leader and contributer: similarity ben wallace

After looking at the breakdown, they are very similar offseason impacts, but i would still say this summer was more impacting. Reason is we got a big time frontcourt player who is amongst the most dominant in the league and we got a PG who is a clear-cut starter who will fit alongside stoudemire and in the system perfectly. Also, a young potential stud and 2 solid role players that are guaranteed to have impacts. This was a huge summer and good thing is it will continue in the future as we still have plenty of flexibility.

Feels like we did better this time around.

While Houston and LJ turned out very good, neither was a top 3 player at their position. LJ used to be, but he was coming of a really bad injury.

Amare is a top 3 PF in his prime, one could argue the best PF out there right now.

Childs was a big mistake. I feel like we got the right PG this time around with Felton.

And Turiaf and Azebuke will certainly have more value then Buck.

It was a different situation cause we had Ewing so we were bringing in reinforcements not really rebuilding just reloading. Allan Houston was the guy I wanted on this team that summer and had his knee not given out I feel the guy would get more respect than he does and his number would be hanging from the rafters. LJ played a different role and hit clutch shots and played hard even though he lost a step because of his back. Childs was a huge letdown he played ok but never like a starting point guard in this league which is what we thought we were getting.

until these moves gets us to the Finals, no one can say we were more successful this summer.