Free agency was fast and predictable outside of one big point guard exchange for the Miami Heat, the Chicago Bulls mortgaging chunks of the future to build something now, and the annual facelift for the Los Angeles Lakers of LeBron James.
Let's take stock!
Winner: the Brooklyn Nets
The Lakers made splashier moves -- discussed in depth on the Lowe Post podcast -- but the Nets, pending good health, enter next season as undisputed favorites.
Losing Jeff Green's versatility hurt, but the Nets recovered well. Blake Griffin is a nice fit on both ends. They retained Bruce Brown on the one-year qualifying offer -- a potential win for both player and team, but more likely team -- and nabbed a bigger, meaner version of Brown in James Johnson.
They can use Johnson just as they do Brown: as the screen-setter and nominal "center" in super-spacing lineups. Johnson doesn't have Brown's pogo-stick floater, but he has more experience in that role -- and he's a better playmaker, though prone to wildness. Johnson meshes with Brooklyn's switch-everything scheme on defense.
Then came Patty Mills, slipping into Green's salary slot. Mills is a beloved veteran. He can play next to Brooklyn's stars as a turbo-charged roving sharpshooter (seriously, Mills scampers like he has a battery pack attached to him), and assume backup point guard duties. (That need may never arise -- James Harden runs second units -- but Mills gives head coach Steve Nash leeway to experiment, and cover for any injury to Harden or Kyrie Irving.)
The capper: retaining Kevin Durant on an extension.
The Nets are never going to be a great defensive team, and maybe not even a good one. But over 12 playoff games, they flashed a good-enough gear.
The Lakers' defense is going to slip a little. Los Angeles faces real questions about how its three stars complement one another on offense, though the Lakers will solve a lot of those questions by go time. The Nets face no such questions. The "only one ball!" pearl-clutching was always overblown given the collective shooting and playmaking of Durant, Irving, and Harden.
Durant has staked an emphatic claim as James' true equal. You can't assume the Lakers have an advantage at the No. 1 spot anymore.
If every team is healthy, the 2022 title is Brooklyn's to lose.
Winner: the always all-in Miami Heat
Covered here. Miami enters next season third in the East pecking order behind Brooklyn and the champion Milwaukee Bucks, but it should be the kind of No. 3 that is one break away from a real chance at the Finals.
Winner: the delicious uncertainty of stasis
Most teams that stood pat -- re-signing their own guys, tinkering around the fringes -- should not feel bad. Many had no other options and got better anyway.
* The Lakers are probably on-paper favorites in the West after trading a third of their rotation for Russell Westbrook and ditching all but four players from last year's team. That said, I don't sense rivals regard them as any more or less fearsome than last season's iteration -- a shoulder-shrugging that strikes me as the correct reaction.
That's no slight. It feels like eons ago, but the Lakers were considered favorites in the West in most corners before James' ankle injury. James was neck-and-neck with Nikola Jokic for MVP.
It will take time and tinkering for the Lakers' to work out their spacing. Their reconfigured team may test Anthony Davis' taste for heavy minutes at center. The Lakers did well finding shooters on the cheap, including two younger guys in Malik Monk and Kendrick Nunn who can act as secondary ball handlers. (Nunn can share backup point guard duties with Talen Horton-Tucker.) But most of those guys are defensive liabilities -- chipping away at the Lakers' core strength.
Trevor Ariza is an exception, but he's 36 with tons of mileage and an uneven stroke. Horton-Tucker has the tools to be a plus defender, but he's 20.
It's also fair to wonder if injury risk is now baked into the LeBron experience -- if the once indestructible superman is more vulnerable. James is almost 37. He'll pass Karl Malone for No. 2 all-time in minutes (regular season and playoffs combined) this season. Injuries have derailed two of his past three seasons.
He's still LeBron. He takes care of his body. A lot of GMs and coaches -- maybe most, maybe half or a smidgen lower considering Durant's last calendar year -- would draft him No. 1 for a winner-take-all game. But it might be time to apply the "if healthy" qualifier here, too.
Meanwhile:
* The Suns filled their only hole by signing JaVale McGee, and should expect normal age-related improvement from Mikal Bridges, Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton, and Cameron Johnson. Jalen Smith has looked good in summer league. Landry Shamet brings needed quick shooting.
* The Clippers and Nuggets won't contend until Kawhi Leonard and Jamal Murray get back, but both did good business around them. The Clips retained Reggie Jackson and Nicolas Batum, took a flier on Justise Winslow, and were aggressive trading up in the first round and into the second.
* Denver retained Will Barton and JaMychal Green, and swiped Jeff Green. (That they failed to sign Javonte Green and corner the market on J. Greens is disappointing.) Zeke Nnaji is ready for more. Bones Hyland is another well-regarded late first-rounder.
* Utah didn't lose ground toggling from the Georges Niang/Derrick Favors bench tandem to Rudy Gay/Hassan Whiteside -- and snagged the potential steal of the draft in Jared Butler. We might even see Gay (and Eric Paschall) play some small-ball center. The Jazz remain way over the luxury tax, but as of now do not plan to dump any of their mid-salaried rotation guys -- Joe Ingles, Bojan Bogdanovic, Royce O'Neale -- for tax relief, sources said.
Failing to reach Game 7 against a Clippers team missing Leonard was an undeniable disappointment, but how does that series unfold if Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley are healthy?
* Dallas fans are tired of the Mavericks doing pretty well in free agency after teasing grand plans. I get that. We don't need to recite the free agents who spurned the Mavericks, or the draft assets Dallas forfeited to crack open cap space.
Unwinding the Josh Richardson trade was painful -- an admission of its failure, and of wanderlust for Seth Curry. I liked that trade at the time for both teams. Richardson represented the two-way wing to shore up Dallas' defense and maybe provide secondary creation around the overburdened Luka Doncic.
Reggie Bullock is an archetypal 3-and-D wing with a quick release. (Richardson's slow release was an under-discussed problem.) Bullock brings zero off-the-bounce juice, but he's fine on a 3-year, $30 million deal.
The Mavs brought back Tim Hardaway Jr. on what should be a tradable contract. He has grown into a knockdown shooter who can pump-and-go, and run some pick-and-roll. He's not a good defender, but he tries and has improved.
I've been beating the Sterling Brown drum for years. He's 6-5, can guard three positions, and hit 42% from deep last season. That will likely prove a fluke; Brown was a league-average 3-point shooter before busting out in Houston. He's not as reliable on defense as you might think given his size and versatility, but he has the outlines of a rotation reserve on a good team.
None of this is as exciting as an alternate reality with Kyle Lowry next to Doncic.
Chasing Lowry evinced an internal belief that the Mavs were one player away from title contention. That was an appropriate mindset. Doncic is that good already.
Surrounding Doncic with shooters is the right Plan B, even if it does not resolve the issue of Doncic wearing down late in playoff games because no one else can orchestrate. (There is hope Jalen Brunson becomes that relief orchestrator, but his size is a detriment against elite postseason defenses.) The Mavs are loaded with good role players on value contracts -- grist for trades, even if the Mavs (pending a Kristaps Porzingis revival) don't have the blue-chip players to get in on superstar trades.
Dallas still has semi-reasonable pathways to Goran Dragic, though they are surely wary of surrendering more picks after forking over two in the Porzingis deal.
And that's what everything boils down to: The Mavs have a hard ceiling as long as the gap between their best and second-best players is gargantuan. Porzingis can shrink that gap by finding his groove again on defense, and playing more center. The Mavs can shrink it by trading Porzingis for someone better, but they won't manage that unless Porzingis rounds back into form.
The Mavs made their bed by punting on the first round of the draft for years (they have done well in the second, and excelled with undrafted free agents) and then dealing their remaining equity for Porzingis. They have reprioritized the draft over the past two offseasons, though the results are TBD.
The Mavs are in a bit of a holding pattern around Doncic. But they will be a dangerous playoff team, and they are doing well on the fringes while in that holding pattern. That is the only way to break out of it.
* Even for true believers in the Stephen Curry-Draymond Green-Klay Thompson trio (me!), it is asking a lot for the Golden State Warriors to vault right back into contention. Green has declined on offense, though the decline is masked with two all-time shooters orbiting him. We don't know when Thompson will return, or how long it will take him to approximate peak form.
Andrew Wiggins has settled in, but you never quite know what you are getting from him on offense. Otto Porter Jr. and Nemanja Bjelica should fit if they get in shape.
Andre Iguodala has one good year left. This is the perfect coda. As I've written before, the dynastic Warriors only really became the Warriors -- more sensory experience than basketball team -- when Iguodala strode onto the floor with his genius anticipatory playmaking and selfless ethos.
As a neutral party, I'm glad he didn't join the Lakers. In the show "The Good Place," about an imagined paradise, architects design homes tailored to the ultra-specific tastes of each resident. I once joked to the writers -- after they appeared on the Lowe Post podcast -- that my "Good Place" home would have a video wall of Iguodala defending LeBron on the wing. That says something about both my own psychosis and how riveting it has been to watch that matchup in so many huge moments -- Iguodala crouched, staring up at James, waiting to mirror his steps and swipe down at the ball. (Iguodala is the greatest swipe-down thief ever.) It is one of the defining NBA images of the past decade.
Beyond that, the Warriors are going young with James Wiseman, Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga, and Jordan Poole (coming off a nice second season). The youth movement has inspired angst about the Warriors getting too cute and wasting Curry's remaining prime. Joe Lacob, the Warriors' governor, has inflamed that angst by trumpeting plans to emulate the San Antonio Spurs -- how Kuminga, Wiseman, and Moody represent a bridge to the next era.
Those are words. Monitor the team's actions. If stars become available, the Warriors will investigate win-now trades. They understand what Curry, Green, and Thompson have meant, and what the franchise owes them.
That debt goes beyond money. Multiple rival executives asked me if Curry's new mega-extension could become a liability on the back end. Hogwash. Who even cares? Everything that has happened to the Warriors -- the titles, the quadrupling (at least) in team valuation, the new arena, record-breaking revenues -- all starts with Curry. None of it happens without him. Pay him everything.
I'm high on this team even as is. If Thompson nears peak form by the playoffs, they could become a real threat to win the West. We are two years removed from the Thompson/Curry/Green trio dusting the Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers in the postseason after Durant's injury -- and carrying a preposterous 31-1 record into those Finals in games Curry played without Durant. Curry is an MVP candidate. Steve Kerr showed last season he can figure out a flawed team.
Even without Thompson last season, the Warriors wallopped opponents by almost 12 points per 100 possessions when Curry and Green played without Wiseman. Small-ball lineups with Green at center -- often with Juan Toscano-Anderson in a key role -- were as deadly as ever.
It would take several things flipping Golden State's way -- Thompson's progress, one of the young guys popping, perhaps another contender or two hitting obstacles -- but there are realistic scenarios in which Golden State contends even without an earthquake trade.
The superstar trade landscape
* About that earthquake trade: Bradley Beal, Ben Simmons, and Damian Lillard all remain with their teams. The Wizards are an undeniable winner of the offseason, having turned John Wall into almost an entirely new team -- and coming out net-neutral in first-round picks.
Simmons is the only one among them who is available, but his availability is very much tied to the other two -- and probably more to Lillard than Beal, though that can swing in time. Several teams -- including the Warriors, Spurs and Minnesota Timberwolves -- have discussed Simmons with varying degrees of interest, sources said, but one reason talks haven't gone far is that the Sixers likely view Simmons as their path to Lillard.
They have a temporary time advantage no one is talking about. There is a good chance the Lillard trade war, should it ever happen, comes down to the Sixers and New York Knicks. (And to be clear: Lillard is not available, and has not asked for a trade, sources said.) Other alternatives will pop up. Any team willing to trade all its future picks and swap rights can butt into the conversation.
But rebuilding teams have no reason to trade for Lillard unless they are 100% confident another star is coming close behind. The Heat are low on trade ammo after acquiring Lowry. The Pelicans are the Lillard wild card, with Brandon Ingram and oodles of future picks from several teams.
If it's Philly versus New York, the Sixers have an edge that will expire on Dec. 15 at the earliest: The Knicks will have a very hard time building an offer for Lillard in a two-team trade until all their big-money signings -- including Julius Randle on a new extension -- become trade eligible at various points beginning midseason. Philly's offer is ready now. The Sixers are surely hoping for some disruption in Portland to happen sooner -- or at least they should be. They recently hired Phil Beckner, a player development ace who coached Lillard at Weber State and remains one of his confidantes.
The flip side is that the Sixers might be on their own clock with Simmons: Can everyone come back to camp and put on a good face? How long can they wait for Lillard?
(P.S. How about this three-team construction: Lillard to Philly, Simmons to Team X, and players and picks from both Philly and Team X to the Blazers?)
* The Knicks had a solid offseason, signing plug-and-play veterans to contracts with neutral-ish trade value. None are needle-movers, but that's not the point. The Knicks are just trying to stay competitive, portray an image of competency, and keep Madison Square Garden buzzing until the first disgruntled superstar points to New York and says: I want to go to there.
They still have all their young players, future picks, and extra first-rounders from the Mavericks and Charlotte Hornets. That is the biggest difference between Chicago and New York after spendy win-now summers: The Knicks have all their arrows in the quiver, but the Bulls have used lots of theirs -- unless they want to trade one of their core players at some point.
The Knicks' issue is whether trading for a Lillard-level superstar would gut their team to the point that said superstar would not have enough talent around him upon arrival. The Sixers, with Joel Embiid, do not have that concern. The Knicks might not either if they believe the first star would attract a second in short order.
* As for Golden State, I've always wondered about its real end game. Beal and Lillard would marry them to three-guard lineups facing major challenges on defense. Simmons and Green together could be awkward, though I wonder if we are over-fretting about that. Both are A-plus playmakers. Surround them with shooting -- the Warriors have plenty -- and they might make magic together, especially in the open court. (There would be some bumpy half-court trips.)
Regardless, the Warriors should have eyes on Karl-Anthony Towns. That's easy for me to say. Towns is not available, and may not be for a while (or ever.) Curry is 33. Talent is talent, even if the fit is imperfect.
There are so many variables in this Simmons/Beal/Lillard vortex. I can't wait to see how it plays out.
* Portland, Toronto, Boston, and Indiana are among solid playoff teams who did very little, sewing unease among fans, but I would caution against overreacting. None had tons of options. The transaction window is basically year-round. Let's monitor them over the next six months.
More from Zach Lowe
Biggest gambler: the wheelin', dealin' Chicago Bulls
I discussed the Bulls on last week's Lowe Post podcast, so I'll be brief. I am somewhere in the middle on their raucous offseason. I see a slightly higher ceiling than those cementing them in the play-in tournament in the beefed-up East. Their offense should be really good. Don't overthink the DeMar DeRozan fit just because he shoots long 2s and won't provide pitch-perfect spacing for Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic, and Lonzo Ball.
DeRozan has become a good passer; he'll get Vucevic and LaVine easy buckets. Redirecting about 10% of LaVine's game from on-ball creation to off-ball marauding is healthy. DeRozan can create for Chicago's shooters -- including Vucevic -- out of the post too.
DeRozan has more gravity away from the ball than a typical non-threat from deep; he's a cagey mover who can play second-side basketball, and defenses respect his long 2s.
But I wonder if the Bulls can grow into a strong top-four playoff seed over the rest of LaVine's prime, assuming the Bulls re-sign him next summer.
Building an average defense around LaVine, Vucevic, and DeRozan will be tough. Chicago's under-25 core now consists of Ball, Patrick Williams, and Coby White -- whose role going forward is a little murky. Chicago whiffed on a bunch of swings at young talent before the Jimmy Butler trade, and as part of that deal. (Lauri Markkanen, one of the key players in that trade, hangs in restricted free agency. He doesn't seem long for the Bulls, but maybe they can salvage something in a sign-and-trade.)
Chicago then traded away Wendell Carter Jr. and three future first-round picks for Vucevic and DeRozan -- two of the NBA's ultimate floor-raisers. (The Bulls are kinda Team Raised Floor.)
I like Ball, and I'm super-high long-term on Williams. You'd just like to have a little more in the young-player cupboard after one megatrade and years in purgatory.
That said, LaVine and Alex Caruso are just entering their primes; DeRozan and Vucevic are still in theirs. The Bulls have a nice age-range mix, which should give them at least some wiggle room to change direction if need be.
Winner: the prudent Charlotte Hornets
Charlotte is quietly building a solid team with future flexibility. The Hornets are probably one really good young player from a high-level long-term nucleus -- depending on the development of Miles Bridges and P.J. Washington -- but they are giving themselves avenues to get there.
Acquiring Mason Plumlee and the 37th pick -- JT Thor, signed to a richer version of the ol' Hinkie Special -- in a salary dump was a nice start. Plumlee is not the lob threat the Hornets dream of pairing with LaMelo Ball, but he's a ball mover who will be in the right place on defense (unless he's defending a buzzer-beater against the Lakers.) His $8.5 million deal for 2022-23 is only half guaranteed.
Plumlee is a stopgap, and that's fine. Snaring him prevented any irrationally aggressive trade. Charlotte has kicked the tires on basically every young center -- including Myles Turner of the Indiana Pacers, sources have said -- and they can continue sniffing around from a position of strength.
They jumped into the first round for Kai Jones, and were careful to protect the future pick they sent the Knicks to do so. They gobbled up another future first-round pick for Devonte' Graham, a player they didn't really need with Ball's emergence and Terry Rozier's central role.
(That move does create pressure to re-sign Rozier next summer, which could wipe out near-term cap space. Rozier had a really good season, redeeming Charlotte's decision -- pilloried at the time, including here -- to effectively swap Kemba Walker for him. He's only 27, and the cap space landscape next summer does not look player friendly.)
Kelly Oubre Jr. -- whose $12.6 million salary for 2022-23 is only 40% guaranteed -- should function better in Charlotte than he did in Golden State's motion offense. He provides insurance against another Gordon Hayward injury.
The next big decision is a potential extension for Bridges. He showed last season he is so much more than a dunker: a switchable forward blossoming as a playmaker and 3-point shooter (including off the dribble.) He has a lot to prove before you can pen him in as a high-level starter on a conference finals team, and pending Bridges' ask, the Hornets would be smart to let things play out in restricted free agency.
Washington's extension follows a year later. Ball looks like a future star. The Hornets have to remain nimble around him.
Loser: the New Orleans Pelicans
You can talk me into next season's Pelicans being better with Graham, Tomas Satoransky, Jonas Valanciunas, and Garrett Temple in place of Lonzo Ball, Eric Bledsoe, and Steven Adams. I'm not sure I'd really buy it, and if it ends up true, it'll likely be driven by improvement from holdovers -- including Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram.
But I doubt New Orleans makes any short-term leap worth moving down 10 spots in the draft to open space for Lowry (whoops!); flinging away two other first-round picks; and losing Ball before his 24th birthday.
Lowry would have been a hand-in-glove fit, and it was not unreasonable for the Pelicans to believe they were one All-Star-level point guard from making a big leap up the standings -- and then one or two lucky breaks from a long playoff run. That was not the most likely outcome, but it was not outlandish. They didn't get Lowry. I'm not privy to their intel, but it clearly was not firm enough.
We know Ball's limitations as a half-court orchestrator. Graham corrects for some of them. He's a more willing off-the-bounce 3-point shooter on the pick-and-roll, though he hit just 29% on pull-up 3s last season and 34% in 2019-20. (Ball has been around 30% on lower volume.) The threat of that shot might open rim runs for Williamson, and steady New Orleans' horrid late-game offense.
Graham has hit 42.5% of his catch-and-shoot 3s over the past two seasons, a few ticks above Ball's mark. A knockdown catch-and-shoot guard is a boon for Point Zion, Post Zion, and every other Zion known to man.
Valanciunas is a nominal perimeter threat in a way Adams has never been. But let's not go wild. Valanciunas is not, like, Dirk Nowitzki. He attempted 0.9 3s per game last season. His defender can leave the court, order a beer, and chug half of it in the time it takes Valanciunas to hoist. Valanciunas at heart is a post-up fiend who will clog the lane a lot.
He is a slight step down on defense from Adams. The gap on that end between Ball and Graham -- a very small lead guard -- is pretty big. Graham is a sixth or seventh man on a good team. The Pelicans were bad last year because their defense was bad, without any consistent identity, and they've done little to repair that. (Satoransky and Temple are decent, but they are 15-minute reserves on good teams. The Pelicans did open a big trade exception for use later.)
Satoransky and Valanciunas are free agents after next season. Valanciunas will turn 30 then. Are the Pelicans excited to pay full freight? One potential benefit of these transactions is the Pelicans carrying a large chunk of cap room into next offseason -- the final summer before Williamson's salary balloons. Paying Valanciunas would jeopardize that.
The Pelicans had picks to play with; burning two isn't catastrophic. But it's two fewer to wield in trade talks -- or have leftover after some megadeal -- and it's hard to justify all this rigmarole when the alternative of just keeping Ball was sitting right there.
Winner: the Detroit Pistons
Ditching the 37th pick to dump Plumlee compounded the Pistons sending four (!) second-rounders to the LA Clippers in last season's Luke Kennard/Bruce Brown/Landry Shamet trade -- which netted Detroit Saddiq Bey.
But the rest of this offseason went well. Cade Cunningham might be a franchise player. Three years and $37 million for Kelly Olynyk -- with only $3 million guaranteed in Year 3 -- is fair and movable. Olynyk killed it in his half season in Houston, and was likely getting the midlevel exception from someone. Detroit outbidding that by a couple million is fine. A shooting center opens the floor for Cunningham, Killian Hayes, and the rest of Detroit's young attacking perimeter players -- making every decision easier as they adapt to the NBA.
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