This year will be described by NBA Historians (Is that an actual job? Because I want it.) as "the year all hell broke loose." The new TV deal opened the floodgates on unprecedented salary cap money and some of the teams drowned under pressure by offering guys like Mozgov 64$ million or flooding their roster with six (SIX!) true centers. Sorting through the fallout of this is not so much trying to find a needle in a haystack as much as it is using tweezers to clean up the site of a collapsed building.
Winner: NBA Role Players
Let me read out some names and some numbers for you:
- Timofey Mozgov -- 64 million
- Kent Bazemore -- 70 million
- Matthew Dellavedova -- 38 million
- Evan Turner -- 70 million
- Chandler Parsons -- 94 million
I can theoretically keep going to list of more than half of the business done within the last two weeks, but you get the idea. In the year where teams had more money than they knew what do with and only about two to three star players worth the value, the cash went elsewhere.
Look, with another cap spike looming we will classify these contracts as "market value" and simply move on. Some of these may even shake out to be good deals. The major overreaction is to the unprecedented jump. Remember first time you had sex? Even if it was the worst sex ever (which it probably was because you had no clue what you were doing) it seemed pretty damn good. This is how teams feel, they don't know what to do with all this cash and it all seems like a good investment. At the end of the day, role players this year stand to make more money than EVER in the history of the NBA and hey, good for you guys. Get paid. Get paid.
Winners: Golden State Warriors
Well, no shit.
They can split their starting five down the middle, fill it out with people from my YMCA pick-up run and still have two of the top units in the league. Depth isn't really an issue when you get to stagger Durant, Curry, Klay and Draymond across your starting and back-up units.
Losers: Oklahoma City Thunder
See Warriors, Golden State.
There is a "TBD" marker by how far the plummet extends following KD's departure. The Brooklyn Nets are still feeling the ripple effect of Billy King trading everything that wasn't nailed down in his office for three aging stars. This year, they get to evolve Russell Westbrook Basketball Player into Russell Westbrook Mongolian Conqueror and work with their young core of Oladipo, Adams, Kanter and Sabonis to see what shakes out, but should Westbrook leave the whole franchise could potentially be in trouble for the foreseeable future.
When I say that, I don't just mean win shares in the division or conference. The Thunder have maintained a certain level of appeal in the free market mostly due to the presence of two of the top five players in the league. I assure you, the city of Oklahoma is about as appealing as being stuck in the elevator between Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich. With that gone, the franchise may not only struggle to attract stars, it may see problems in attracting its own fans into the arena on a nightly basis. Seattle is watching patiently.
Loser: Parity, CBA, Fans
The previous lockout happened mainly to restructure the way caps work to prevent super teams from forming. It was supposed to make this kind of situation harder. Yet here we are. The issues of hard cap and restructuring of superstar max deals will once again be on the table, and the union will be staring down with a few additional questions.
One of the main ones will lead back to salary distribution. The feeding frenzy of this year and the impeding free agency of 2017 favours guys hitting the market at the right time. There's plenty of free agents signed before this with deals that feel proportionally out of whack. Think about how much John Wall and Steph Curry are making per year proportionately to someone like Bazemore. The new structure and the seismic jumps in camp will push players to consider taking the LeBron/Durant 1+1 deals to take advantage of all the currency flooding the market. Owners won't necessarily be happy with that structure either.
Let's also address the competitiveness of the league as a whole. When the NBA quietly ousted Czar Hinkie just as The Process was breaking fruit, they justified it with wanting to keep the league competitive. With one move Durant threw out the last rivalry we had in the League and swung the pendulum to one side. It is widely accepted by casual and hardcore fans that the Warriors are on a path to get their championship without much trouble. While fans will tune in to watch Steph and Durant basically break the laws of basketball, the seeming inevitability of the outcome makes it a lot less interesting to follow than say the NFL where anything can truly happen. This kind of lack of competitiveness (at least the perceived competitiveness) is not good for business in the long run.
Winner: Boston Celtics
Missing out on Kevin Durant has to hurt, especially when you had the whole league holding their breath for close to 24 hours thinking you might get him, but Danny Ainge made sure the Celtics weren't left empty handed.
Depending on how high you are on Isaiah Thomas II, Al Horford may be the best player on this team and he was just signed in the free agency. If you don't share this sentiment, it's hard to argue that he's not the best big man they have. His versatility and savvy basketball IQ will allow him to plug into many of Boston's existing sets and run in both small-ball and more traditional line-up. Brad Stevens runs a motion heavy offence which requires mobile big men with solid instincts. In Horford Ainge got his ideal specimen while establishing Boston as a free agency destination.
There's a lot of guys here on manageable deals that turn into trade assets when peppered with a backlog of picks that Celtics still hold, in particular from their ransacking of Billy King a few years prior. If they can turn one of their legion of guards and a pick into another fringe star Celtics can easily elevate themselves to the elite status of the East. Holding on to a bunch of young two-way guys on cap friendly contracts can be good, but hoarding is just that. At some point your grandkids have to sort through your attic and put something up for garage sale. Either way, it's a good start, now it's time to see what the stopper-bys are willing to pony up for some of your wares.
Winner: Denver Nuggets
Think of the addition by subtraction principle. It's how the Raptors got significantly better when trading away Rudy Gay. In Denver's case it was more of an addition by staying put. Sure, they punted and missed out on Dwayne Wade, but one can argue that not paying an aging 34 year old guard with no three point shot and declining athleticism 20$+ million over the next two years is a good thing. Especially when you can keep developing Emanuel Mudiay into a version of that guard. Plus, there's this:
Getting praise from players who didn't sign for you may be as bronze of a silver lining as it gets, but it speaks to Denver's ambition. They have a solid backcourt with Mudiay, Harris, Barton and Murray plus vet contributors signed to some very desirable figures under the new cap. Then there's guys like Jokic, who became a revelation last year as a traditional five and seems to be headed for a strong career. Nuggets have both an eye for identifying good talent, proven with Jokic who is both a savvy passer (6th among all centers in assists this year) and scorer (top 25 among centers when it comes to scoring on post touches).
They are sitting on a slew of young talent and a collection of assets, none of which are off limits if a right trade offer comes along. Having flirted with the possibility of Blake Griffin in the past, the Nuggets are in position to both trade into conversation (not contention, see Warriors, Golden State) this year or wait it out and spend some of the cash they didn't this year on impact players in 2017.
Loser: San Antonio Spurs
Bringing the Spurs into this the week they lost a living legend to retirement seems both unfair and unusually cruel. However, the franchise has long served as a geiger counter for stability and if theirs is shaking then we should at least document it.
Losing Tim Duncan will be hard, but plugging Pau Gasol in his place should at least soothe the aftershock. Pau is the kind of passing big man with a defensive presence that can plug straight into the Popvich system without skipping a beat. He averaged 11 rebounds and 4 assists last season and should pair well with Kawhi Leonard.
The real problem here is LaMarcus Aldrdige who doesn't seem to fit the Spurs movement heavy offence. He was 31st among all forwards in passes made this year (Gasol was 4th) and only averaged 1.5 assists per game. While the second stat is circumstantial in the Spurs "extra-pass" philosophy, the 2.1 adjusted assist rating (which takes into consideration secondary assists) should worry fans (by comparison Pau is 5.7, Duncan - 3.3)
There is a slew of other problems here however, one of which was indicated by the Spurs even fielding the Durant meeting. They're getting older and they haven't addressed the question of Parker's age and growing inability to zip around with younger, more spry guards. Manu is up there old and losing Boris Diaw basically relinquished their second unit fulcrum. The core of LA, Kawhi, Danny Green and Pau is a good start, but for the first time in 19 years it feels like the Spurs moved backwards.
Loser: Orlando Magic
What the hell is going on in Orlando these days. For a few years, Rob Hennigan seemed to be in tune with the modern market, making smart personnel decisions that were good for the team long-term. His only downside appeared to be appropriate coaching selection. Rookie coach Jacque Vaughn refused to adopt any system that made sense and Scott Skiles was probably the last person you want coaching a group of talented young guys.
Hennigan must be feeling the pressure and looking at what happens to the guys like Hinkie if the team stays in the basement too long, because this year he put some dynamite at Amway and let it loose. They're now sporting too many big men with no cohesive idea on how any of them will fit together. On a team that had trouble shooting and that doesn't have a long-range threat in Elfrid Payton, it's going to be hard to find productive minutes for Gordon, Vucevic, Biyiombo and Ibaka to share. There's a log jam that is not helped by bringing in Jeff Green on a massive contract, especially considering they traded a more efficient and cap friendly version of the same player just half a year ago for basically nothing.
Loser: Washington Wizards
Things must be rough when your hometown hero won't even take a courtesy meeting to make you feel better. The Wizards went from "KD2DC" to basically what Frank Underwood is on House of Cards in a space of one NBA season. That must be tough to swallow for the team who does not appear to have had a contingency plan in place for this exact situation.
Resigning Beal was a no brainer, and while NBA has a history of two guards maligned with tragic knee injuries (see Hill, Grant or Roy, Brandon), he's young enough and the cap spike was so significant this one was worth the risk. The rest of their free agent signings seem more like patch work at this point until the flood gates break again. With the rest of the East improving rapidly Washington missed out. While teams like Boston had an established trajectory should KD snub them, the Wizards put all of their eggs in one basket and literally none of them hatched.
Winner: Utah Jazz
Quietly but surely the Utah Jazz are crawling back into the conversation using the OKC model of team building. They've been savvy through the draft, retained their best assets on manageable contracts and have cultivated a strong basketball culture without really blowing the lid off the salary cap. Gobert is a team altering collection of limbs on defence who showed flashes of improving in the pick and roll and Favours is still one of the best 20/10 guys in the league at his position and a strong pick and roll big.
In Hill they got the right point guard to shore up their offensive system. He is smart with the ball and efficient on both ends of the court. Additionally, Hill happens to be the perfect candidate to coach Exum into existence as he runs the offence and should slide right in between Hayward and Hood. Playing as the linchpin of the offence last season, Hayward should be able to take a few more possessions off with Hill around and spot up for easier jumpers.
The additions of Joe Johnson and Boris Diaw bring a mix of veteran leadership, tertiary scoring (iso Joe can still ball) and a savvy big who can slide right into smaller units at the five or play off the sharper shooting Lyles as a bigger ball handler. Outside of the Spurs, this may be the best fit for Diaw with enough scorers around him to focus on being the facilitator off the elbow and a mentor for a guy like Lyles.
This season should serve as a litmus test for Utah who are rounding third on extensions to Gobert, Hayward, Favors (getting to that coveted 7th year mark in the league) and a few other guys. There is going to be a lot of money locked up and even with the new cap it may prove detrimental to keep all of those guys on roster. However, if they gel and propel the Jazz into talk of contention for say, 2018, it may be worth taking the luxury plunge.
Winner: Charlotte Hornets
Following a solid run against the Heat (despite the eventual loss), the Hornets had a tough task of preserving a very efficient roster with a lot of outgoing free-agents, but they seem to have prioritized correctly. Resigning Batum and a Marvin Williams was a mini coup under the current cap-spike and deals for guys like Sessions and Hibbert were practically steals with how much comparable talent got in the open market.
Still, the Kemba Walker deal we criticized early on is looking more and more like astute financial decision making. All this compiled with the return of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and the Hornets may have just improved without necessarily bringing in new big talent.
TBD: Memphis/New Orleans
Memphis retained Mike Conley and managed to entice Chandler Parsons to join their raiding party on the NBA. Parsons is just the kind of wing that can do a bit of everything missing in the Grizzlies' offence which stagnated more often then not. Playing with both Gasol and Conley will take the playmaking responsibilities off his shoulders and (as Memphis hopes) inject a little bit more fluid scoring into the team's offence. However, given the team's maladies in the past and the fact that Gasol is coming off an injury that ruins careers of men over 6'10 it's all a long shot as he remains the fulcrum of anything this team wants to do offensively.
The Pelicans are under pressure to start making the case for Anthony Davis to stay and they need to make moves quickly. Omer Asik's albatross of a contract that seems hideously disproportionate even under a current cap is still a noose around their neck, but they have done a good job structuring smaller deals and setting themselves up for the right opportunity. Hopefully Tyreke Evans and Jrue Holiday (both heading into later years on their contracts) can muster some of the flashes they showed when NOLA made a play for them. This seasons decides both of their futures in Louisiana. At least the Pellies made a few smart low money pick ups with Solomon Hill, E'Twaun Moore and Langston Galloway to fill out their second unit. The addition of Buddy Hield through the draft demonstrates that they understand the necessity to fill out shooters outside of Anthony Davis to take advantage of his talents. A few smaller moves do not unmake 3 years of poor navigation of the market, but it's a start in the right direction.
Huh: Chicago Bulls
Initially, it seemed the Bulls were jettisoning contracts and talent in order to launch a rebuild. With the departure of both Rose and Noah the road was open to make Butler the number one option as well as start sneakily tanking for top talent. Plan B was trading Butler, with Minnesota as a potential destination on Draft Day. Instead, they signed aging Rondo and Wade, both of whom do nothing to address the lack of space in Hoiberg's preferred pace and space system. As it stands, Nicola Mirotic is the best shooter on this starting five.
Both moves seem financially unsound and more than suspicious. To say Rondo has been volatile for a multitude of franchises would be an understatement and if he threw fits under Carlisle, who is a card carrying wizard guild member and Popovich's true NBA apprentice, I am not sure Fred Hoiberg will still be alive by April. The only thing that makes any sense in this pairing is that Wade has always been an exceptionally smart operator off the ball. If Rondo can regain even a modicum of his passing talents from the Boston days, the two can gel. That still doesn't address the team's need for shooting or young talent to entice Jimmy Butler to stay.
There is a distinct lack of plan in the Chicago organization as to what to do with their future and present and where they stand on Butler. Both Wade and Rondo are on short enough deals that it makes sense to flip Jimmy for picks and youth as they cycle into a rebuild, but beyond that there is no tactical rhyme or reason as to how this team will operate in its current composition.
Originally posted to Armchair Society.