HOUSTON ROCKETS: The Rockets finished with the
NBA’s worst overall record (17-55) and worst home record (9-27),
and lost their season finale to Atlanta by 29. Since March 29, they
lost 23 of 27 games. And let’s just say it wasn’t supposed to be
this way when they opened the season with James Harden, John Wall
and DeMarcus Cousins on their roster and immediately started
getting huge production from Christian Wood. Not yielding to
Harden’s trade demand in the preseason cost them; the deal that
brought them Victor Oladipo actually didn’t turn out all that bad
for them when they flipped Oladipo for a very productive Kelly
Olynyk, but now there is talk of a buyout for Wall, who is owed
$91.6 million over the next two years if he exercises his player
option, as a long rebuild ensues. Olynyk will be an unrestricted
free agent and will likely leave, which means the core they are
building around includes Wood, Jae’Sean Tate, KJ Martin, Kevin
Porter Jr. and whatever they can get for Eric Gordon, who injured
his groin in early March and did not return. The next big date on
their calendar is the June 22 draft lottery, and because they
finished with one of the three worst records, they have an equal
chance (with Detroit and Orlando) of winning the No. 1 overall
pick, which is projected to be Cade Cunningham of Oklahoma
State.
DETROIT PISTONS: A season that began with
Derrick Rose and Blake Griffin on the roster ended with a 13-point
loss to a Miami Heat team that rested most of its regulars, and
Troy Weaver heads into the offseason with decisions to make on Cory
Joseph (non-guaranteed $12.6 million), Rodney McGruder
(non-guaranteed $5 million) and Dennis Smith Jr. (eligible for a
$7.7 million qualifying offer). Assuming all of those are declined,
but Hamidou Diallo’s $2.07 million qualifying offer is extended,
the Pistons will have somewhere in the area of $20 million in cap
room, depending on where the salary cap comes in following a season
of vastly reduced revenues. Jerami Grant was a nice signing a year
ago, and now the Pistons need to find some offense from the wing
positions and hope Killian Hayes can have a full healthy season.
Detroit had the league’s fourth-worst offense in terms of points
per game. With Isaiah Stewart finishing the season so strongly, is
there a market for the underrated Mason Plumlee?
ORLANDO MAGIC: A bottom-three finish seemed
unlikely after they started 4-0 and had Nikola Vucevic playing at
an All-Star level, and it never quite made sense that they
offloaded Vucevic at the same time they got rid of Aaron Gordon and
Evan Fournier. All-Stars do not grow on trees, and Wendell Carter
Jr. (acquired from Chicago) was being outplayed by other bigs on
the Bulls and now the same thing is happening on the Magic. They
will have Markelle Fultz and Jonathan Isaac back next season, Otto
Porter and his expiring $28 million contract now comes off their
books, and the only contract decision they have to make soon is
whether to pick up Dwayne Bacon’s $1.8 million non-guarantee. R.J.
Hampton just won Rookie of the Month for
May and Cole Anthony has shown plenty of promise as well. John
Hammond, Jeff Weltman and Steve Clifford have roughly $28 million
of cap space to work with, and the Magic have their own pick along
with Chicago’s (top-4 protected). Choosing three of the top-33
draft picks will keep the scouting staff busy.
OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER: The only NBA team that
never opened its arena to fans, the Thunder made the questionable
decision to shelve Al Horford immediately after the trade deadline,
after which they lost 26 of their final 29 games, and Shai
Gilgeous-Alexander's injury was handled with extreme caution. Their
victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on the final night of the
season actually hurt them because it prevented a tiebreak situation
with the Magic, who finished with a 21-51 record to OKC’s 22-50
record. Sam Presti is going to do what Sam Presti wants to do, and
it will be interesting to see whether NBA commissioner Adam Silver
addresses the unprecedented move that was made with Horford –
something his predecessor, David Stern, never would have allowed.
If the veteran big man and Gilgeous-Alexander had finished the
season, we probably would not have the Spurs in the No. 10 spot.
OKC was just five games under .500 in late March.
CLEVELAND CAVALIERS: Cleveland's trophy
acquisition is Jarrett Allen, who was a superb pickup by Koby
Altman. Still, they were unable to turn Andre Drummond into
anything, and the loss of Darius Garland for most of the final
three weeks of the season kept him from further developing
chemistry with fellow backcourt speedster Collin Sexton. The Cavs
still owe Kevin Love $60 million, and they must pay Taurean Prince
$13 million next season unless they can find a taker on the trade
market. He averaged only 10.1 points and 3.7 rebounds after coming
over from Brooklyn, but Altman had to take him for salary-matching
purposes. The Anderson Varejao re-signing was pretty cool, so we
will give them that. Otherwise, the rebuild figures to be slow
unless Love and Prince can be moved, which seems unlikely.
MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES: The A-Rod era will
begin next season, and keeping Karl-Anthony Towns happy will be
Project A, B and C. One of the league’s best people and best
players, he has been in the NBA for six years after being the No. 1
overall pick of the 2015 draft, and he has a nice running mate now
in Anthony Edwards along with his buddy, D’Angelo Russell. Ricky
Rubio, entering the final season of a contract that will pay him
$17.8 million, seems superfluous and could be moved if a pick was
coming back in return. The Wolves’ pick in this year's draft will
go to Golden State unless it is top-3, in which case Minnesota's
2022 pick becomes unprotected and will go to the Warriors. Chris
Finch will have a training camp for the first time to work with
whatever the roster looks like, and help will not come through free
agency, as the Wolves are projected to be over the cap.
TORONTO RAPTORS: The future of team president
Masai Ujiri seems very much up in the air. He is the director of
Basketball Without Borders, and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski has
suggested Ujiri will look elsewhere for his next
job and hand the reins over to general manager Bobby Webster.
The Raptors get a pass for their failure of a season because they
had to relocate to Tampa, Fla., which meant that they basically
played 72 road games when not working on their tans and fighting
off mosquitoes and alligators. Webster/Ujiri will likely look at
all possible sign-and-trade scenarios for Kyle Lowry, who may feel
it is time to move on. Decisions must be made on the non-guaranteed
contracts of Rodney Hood, Aron Baynes, Chris Boucher, DeAndre'
Bembry, Paul Watson Jr., Yuta Watanabe and Freddie Gillespie. If
all are declined, the Raps would have about $30 million in cap
space to play with.
SACRAMENTO KINGS: It would not be surprising to
see the Kings lose Richaun Holmes, who has turned into a terrific NBA
player and may want to play in a bigger market for a franchise
that has not grown as accustomed to bad seasons as the Kings have.
They have not won a playoff series since 2003-04 and have not
played a playoff game since 2005-06. Does Vivek Ranadive keep head
coach Luke Walton around? De'Aaron Fox, Harrison Barnes and Buddy
Hield account for more than $70 million of next season’s payroll,
and Marvin Bagley III adds an additional $11.3 million. General
manager Monte McNair came up under Daryl Morey in Houston, so he
has seen proactive roster turnovers when the situation called for
it. What is in question is whether Bagley or Hield could bring
anything of value in return on the trade market because both have
not lived up to expectations. They seem likely to appear in a
similar column approximately one year from now.
CHICAGO BULLS: The Bulls made so many deals at
the deadline and did not have enough acclimation time following
March 25. Getting Nikola Vucevic at such a small cost was a coup
for executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas
Karnisovas in his first season. Now he must decide on
non-guarantees for Thaddeus Young ($14.1 million) and Tomas
Satoransky ($10 million), and the franchise should expect to see
Al-Farouq Aminu exercise his player option and thereby remain on
the roster with a salary of $10.1 million. Lauri Markkanen should
receive his qualifying offer of $9.026 million, and perhaps the
biggest question is whether this team will stick with Coby White as
the point guard of the future or try to find a way to get a player
such as Kyle Lowry to be their primary playmaker.
NEW ORLEANS PELICANS: All in all, it was not a
good season for David Griffin, Stan Van Gundy, Zion Williamson or
Brandon Ingram after the previous campaign ended with so much
promise. The JJ Redick episode did not make anyone happy. The
season ended with four-consecutive losses and Ls in six of the
final eight games, a $50,000 fine for Griffin for complaining that
Williamson’s broken finger was the result of rough treatment of the
former overall No. 1 pick that was being overlooked by the
referees. Not one single player appeared in all 72 games – although
Eric Bledsoe came up closest with 71. James Johnson and Willy
Hernangomez are the only unrestricted free agents of note, and
Lonzo Ball will be a restricted free agent who could solve some
roster problems through a sign-and-trade. Griffin will have three
extra second-round picks, and next year he gets the Lakers’ pick
unprotected.