We’re barely 36 hours into NBA free agency and the biggest question through most of these bizarre signings is, “Just who are these guys bidding against?” Witness …

Minnesota (which can’t get any free agents to visit): Darko Milicic, 4-years, $20 million. No NBA team with a hint of sanity would have given him this. If he went to Europe, so what?
Toronto: Amir Johnson, 5-years, $32 million. The former D-League star has done nothing to warrant this. Unless fouls count. The Raptors also just drafted PF Ed Davis.
Memphis: Rudy Gay, 5-years, $82 million. This one’s mind-boggling for how it happened. Memphis could have matched any offer Gay received. But it chose to offer Gay the max before he could hear from anyone else. Chris Wallace, ladies and gentlemen.

And yesterday, we briefly covered Drew Gooden‘s 5-year, $32 million deal. The Bucks are also close to giving chucker John Salmons 5-years and $39 million. (They’ll regret it.)

There are signs things could only get worse, especially if Joe Johnson stays in Atlanta, LeBron stays in Cleveland, and Dirk Nowitzki stays in Dallas. (Paul Pierce, to nobody’s surprise, is staying in Boston.) The following players are also likely to get ridiculously overpaid: Luis Scola, Raymond Felton, Josh Childress, Ray Allen, Brendan Haywood, Steve Blake, and Luke Ridnour, to name a few.

The big loser in all this could be the Knicks, who could miss on every target they had, and then get stuck offering too much money to guys like Scola, Childress and Ridnour. And did we mention that in the 2011 draft, the Rockets can swap picks with the Knicks (unless New York gets the top pick, then it is protected); and in 2012, the Rockets will get the Knicks pick unless New York is in the Top 5. So if you can’t build through free agency, and can’t build through the draft …