How the 2017 Off-Season Restored NBA Suspense
- Jun 1, 2017
- 11 min read
This article was transported from a May 1, 2018 Sports Illustrated Piece
The best argument for Russell Westbrook as the 2016/17 MVP was that he saved the NBA’s regular season from an epic run of fan complacency. The triple-double talk, combined with James Harden’s propulsion back into the atmosphere as a worthy adversary created just enough discussion for sports media that we didn’t spend the entirety of the 24-weeks talking about the NFL.
A third straight Finals featuring the Warriors and Cavaliers became a certainty as soon as Kevin Durant bolted the state whose only city I can name is because it’s the state followed by “City.” Even players in the league, some of the most competitive prideful people on the planet mind you, admitted they knew who the final contestants would be before the season began, as Paul Pierce admitted on a classic Area 21 session last year.
What Westbrook and Harden couldn’t do was save the NBA from a predictable and pointless playoffs. The Warriors rocketed to the championship round without losing a game, while the Cavs lost one game on a buzzer-beating three that hit the rim four times. Everything before the FInals was like watching two children smash ants - I just wanted the ants to go underground so I could watch the kids slug it out instead. Adam Silver tried to claim that it wasn’t a bad thing - that ratings were up and people wanted to see greatness in action. And while the championship did deliver an all-time classic, if something didn’t change it wouldn’t have been hard to imagine this past season’s ratings taking a big hit. What’s the point in watching MLS when we all know every team would get squashed by Real Madrid or Chelsea?
Luckily, the exciting events of last summer bore what was the most enthralling regular season in my lifetime. Four teams in each conference won 50-plus games for the first time in league history. All eight of those teams have advanced to the conference semifinals and each of those fan bases have reason to believe their team can win the title this year. Sure, with four top-25 players in the NBA, the Warriors are still the favorite to hoist their third title in four years. The Cavs still have the best player in basketball, so stopping them will be no easy task. That said, the sense of inevitability is gone and that is all we ever wanted. Sports are supposed to be unpredictable.
So let’s revisit last year’s draft and free agency period and piece together how the six new contenders for the title were constructed. Some of them were obvious candidates for improvement, others were seemingly far from playoff success, but they all now have one thing in common: at least one superstar player with the potential to be the best on the court for multiple games in a series, no matter the opponent.
It has often been lazily argued by pundits that a team needs a top-10 player in order to win a title. This of course is a flawed statement because “Top-10” is not a finite measure of quality. The tenth best player of one generation could be way less relevant than the tenth best of another. The tenth best player can also fluctuate many times within the context of a season. The gap between players of a similar range is too small to expect it to be held week-in and week-out. A more accurate statement is a team needs a player that can best all others for multiple games in a series. Last summer, this ostensibly meant a team needed to have or acquire a player that could outdo Lebron James when he’s not at his absolute best. Here’s a liberal list of those that qualified:
Lebron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns, Joel Embiid, John Wall
This is not a list of the best players in the NBA. Kyle Lowry is a more consistent NBA player than Joel Embiid, but he has no chance of reaching the heights of James multiple games in a series. Isaiah Thomas, Kyrie Irving and Demarcus Cousins can rise to his offensive value at times, but have too many weaknesses that can be exploited on either end of the court to do so consistently. Each of the following six teams identified these players and did their best to build around those they could get their hands on. Let’s recall how.
Boston Celtics
The first shoe that had to drop last summer was the Celtics’ number one overall draft pick. Everyone agreed Markelle Fultz was the top prospect by the time draft night came along, but speculation abounded over whether or not Danny Ainge would move the young asset for a Jimmy Butler or Paul George. Of course we all know now Danny was thinking much bigger. Instead of swinging for a top-15 player with contract uncertainty, he went for a top-5 player with built-in commitment. The Woj Bomb dropped about an hour before draft airing - the Celtics agreed to send Jaylen Brown, Gershon Yabusele, their 2017 first and what has become a top-4 selection in this year’s draft from the Nets (along with Tyler Zeller’s non-guaranteed contract) to New Orleans. Three consecutive top-3 picks for the bonafide stud that is Anthony Davis.
There are few things better than when the NBA Twitterverse gets a hold of a big trade or free agency acquisition. This first trade set off what will likely go down as the greatest three hours in NBA Twitter and /r/nba. The Celtics went into the off-season needing rebounds, rim protection and a transcendent talent. In one fell swoop Ainge checked every box with a move that harkened back to his 2007 trade for Kevin Garnett.
After making the conference finals, winning the lottery, acquiring the best player ever to be traded before his prime, all while not losing a key contributor from the previous season, Celtics fans carried plenty of gusto into free agency and dreamed of a big star taking a discount to form Warriors-East. However, the best they were able to do was Danilo Gallinari. Turns out their best was good enough. The Celtics led the league in 3-point field goals on their way to a conference best 63 wins. Indeed the present and future look bright in a spoiled city that just celebrated it’s sixth Super Bowl title.
Philadelphia 76ers
The Sixers improved the most of any team in these conference semifinals, which seems almost obvious when reflecting on their position entering last summer. Coming off of four consecutive years in which they failed to win 30 games, most pundits seemed to think that with a healthy Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, all they needed to do was hit on their number three pick and The Process would ascend from the cellar. When draft night came around, however, it became clear the Colangelo family didn’t want to sit and wait before the Hinkie assets paid dividends.
Rumors started to swirl all around the green room right after Adam Silver called Fultz’s name at one - the 76ers were shopping the third pick. Was it to move up? Was it to move down? Nay. It was to announce their presence on the NBA scene. The 76ers traded the third pick, the rights to this year’s Lakers pick (no worse than #7), Gerald Henderson and Jahlil Okafor to the Chicago Bulls for Jimmy Butler and Bobby Portis. Immediately two things became clear: The Bulls were switching to rebuild mode and the Sixers were going to be a player in free agency.
With Simmons, Embiid and Butler on board along with solid role guys like Dario Saric and Bob Covington, Philadelphia was suddenly transformed into a winning destination for free agents Kyle Lowry and Paul Millsap. Each signed identical four-year, $100 million deals despite reports of max offers from other teams. Perhaps the funniest/awkward moment of the off-season came when the two held a duel press conference to announce their decision, as if they had the name recognition of the Heatles in 2011 and Joel Embiid snuck in dressed as a reporter and asked “Which of you is the third best player on the team?”
Philly played with a league best +14.2 Net Rating when healthy this year, but
with both Embiid and Lowry having some dings and dents and the collapse of the Wells Fargo Center in the snowiest blizzard on record, there was too much adversity to rise much higher than the 4-seed. Now healthy and playing in front of the rowdy crowds at Temple, they can be considered neck and neck with the other three favorites in the new-look East.
Minnesota Timberwolves
As recently reported by Fox Sports’ Marc Stein, our second seed in the Western Conference may have got there out of sheer luck. Stein tweeted yesterday that the Timberwolves were finalizing a deal for Jimmy Butler before the 76ers swooped in with the 2018 Lakers pick and won the wing away. No bother - Tom Thibodeau had a backup plan. He simply called up the new head honcho in charge in Indiana, Kevin Pritchard, and made the same offer for Paul George. Many in Minnesota were sad to see the exciting Zach LaVine and Kris Dunn leave along with the 7th overall pick, but the MVP-level season that PG-13 just put up has quieted those cries.
Perhaps the key part of that trade was the Pacers willingness to take on the $11 million, dead-money contract of Nikola Pekovic. By offloading the Montenegrin, who we now know was missing all of the 2016/17 season because he was held for ransom in an international drug scandal, the Timberwolves cleared enough space to add JJ Redick in free agency, giving them the full complement of outside shooting needed.
The T’Wolves had sent just five players to the All Star Game in their entire existence before this season, but George, Towns and Wiggins were the talk of the weekend in Los Angeles back in February and also boasted the biggest snub in Ricky Rubio, who led the league in assists at the break. The only questions remaining for this team are the ones related to their lack of playoff experience, but if their first round dismantling of the Grizzlies is any sign of things to come - ignorance is bliss.
San Antonio Spurs
Standing in the way of the Wolves and the conference finals is the Spurs, who for the first time in their existence, were the most exciting team last summer. It started with the rumors of Tony Parker’s improprieties with Pau Gasol’s girlfriend, which set off a chain reaction of events. First, Gasol opted out of the final year of his deal set to pay him $16 million, which led to a number of Spurs players cold-shouldering Tony Parker. With the drama in full tilt, the Spurs offloaded the suave Frenchman to the Charlotte Hornets for Marvin Williams. The trade seemed strange at first - the Spurs could have had oodles of cash to spend in this upcoming 2018 free agency, but instead they acquired a middling stretch-4 with two more years at an average of $14 million/per. Once again, the Spurs were playing Settlers of Catan while everyone else was playing checkers.
The $3 million they saved in the current term was just enough to afford them Chris Paul at a below-max deal of four years for $130 million. When Adam Schefter dropped that news live on the July 5th edition of The Six with Jemele and MIchael it sent shock waves like a soft opening at one of Willy Banks’s casinos. The Spurs were going for it. The Clippers were losing everything. Chris Paul has no more excuses.
The trade made keeping key role guys like Dewayne Dedmon and Patty Mills impossible, as they each got paid by the Hawks and Nets, but their depth would be taken care of after re-signing Jonathan Simmons followed by maybe the happiest story of the season. When Chris Bosh was cleared to play and signed for the bi-annual exception by the Spurs, most thought “That is soooo Spurs.” We also assumed he’d be limited to 20 minutes per game. That was true early on - Poppovich has always been a master of rest. Since the All Star break, however, the 2-time champ has nudged those minutes up close to 30 and has often played over Aldridge down the stretch in a deadly 5-out lineup featuring Paul, Green, Leonard, WIlliams and Bosh. Death, taxes and the Spurs remain the Warriors biggest threat in the west.
Houston Rockets
The biggest news to drop on July 9 was President Trump’s desire to make Mexico a state, but a close second was the Utah Jazz executing a sign-and-trade that sent Gordon Hayward to Houston for Ryan Anderson. It had become clear Hayward didn’t think the Jazz had a legitimate chance at a title after being thrashed by Golden State and Utah GM Dennis Lindsey did the best he could to get a piece that fit his team in Anderson. The move has kept the Jazz afloat, but what Hayward has done this season for the Rockets has been nothing short of amazing.
The two most commonly used groups of five featuring Hayward carried the two best offensive ratings of any quintet in the NBA this season. The most explosive of the two lineups features their other big off-season addition Derrick Rose, who signed for the mid-level exception after the market proved bearish for the veteran point. The signing has been crucial for the 60-win Rockets, as they’ve been able to give Harden a lot more rest both in total minutes and on-court workload. That, combined with an increase in overall toughness provided by under-the-radar gem Thabo Sefolosha helped make for an easier-than-expected first round ousting of the Thunder, who had a great season of their own after trading Enes Kanter and cap-filler for Carmelo Anthony.
Milwaukee Bucks
The Bucks are the most surprising of the eight contenders to make this the most interesting regular season and playoffs of my lifetime. With Greek Freak on the roster, they certainly possess one of the prerequisites for any championship hopeful, but they didn’t have the cap space last summer to make a big enough splash. When Greg Monroe opted in to the final year of his deal, their fate seemed sealed as a scrappy upstart striving to make the second round. Now they hold a 1-0 series lead over the Cavs after Malcolm Brogdon’s game-winner on Thursday night. Thanks, Clippers.
WIth CP3 and Reddick having left Doc Rivers holding the bag, the Clippers became desperate to get something out of free agency. Once Blake Griffin made it clear he wanted no part of a lesser squad, Rivers and Co. opted instead to work out a sign and trade with his desired destination of Milwaukee, who had just hired Chauncey Billups as their GM. Milwaukee! The Clippers agreed to take on Mirza Teletovic, a good fit with DeAndre Jordan, and Monroe’s expiring contract; in doing so they also received the Bucks first round selection Luke Kennard and the rights to their 2019 first.
The Bucks starting 5 of Brogdon, Antetokounmpo, Middleton, Parker and Griffin has been the most exciting group in the NBA since Jabari’s return in January. Their fast breaks are deadly and their ability to switch 2-thru-5 has become troublesome for all opponents. Giannis should finish with MVP votes, Maker will make a push for most improved player (though I’m a believer second-year guys should be ineligible), while Dellavedova, Snell and savvy acquisitions James Johnson and Jeff Green complete a bench unit that can also switch most positions. This team will have luxury tax issues moving forward, but for now they’re racking up the fastest pace in the NBA and breaking attendance records.
Despite this influx of great teams, the Warriors and Cavaliers are still installed as slight favorites to make the Finals. A far cry from last year when Vegas essentially made them guarantees to meet. In the east, I think the winner of the Celtics-76ers match has the best chance of upsetting the apple cart. In the west, I’d actually favor the Spurs to make a run, especially since they took two of three from the Warriors this season and Chris Paul is playing like a man possessed. On the other hand, if we do get the same championship tilt for the fourth year in a row, two things become clear: Golden State is the greatest team ever assembled and Lebron James is the best player this world has ever seen.
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