For the San Antonio Spurs, most of the summers over the past few years have been about adding a few minor pieces to the roster. Their core was usually intact, and the team never had too much cap space in free agency. However, this past July was a memorable one for the Spurs as they were actually a serious contender in the free agent market with maximum cap space available. The Spurs not only re-signed core pieces in Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili,
One couldn’t have imagined a worse outcome for the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2014-15 season. A massive plague of injuries kept the team below full strength for the entire campaign. Specifically, Kevin Durant missed 55 games, Serge Ibaka missed 18 games and Russell Westbrook missed 15 games. The other four rotation players who started and finished the season with OKC – Anthony Morrow, Steven Adams, Andre Roberson and Nick Collison – missed between eight and 16 games each. All those missed
After a summer in which the Dallas Mavericks thought they found their franchise centerpiece, they now enter the season with an unfinished roster and a litany of question marks. No more Monta Ellis. No more Tyson Chandler. No more Rajon Rondo. Dallas will start three newcomers in the 2015-2016 season. And, after falling out of the top 10 in the NBA in 3-point percentage last season, Dallas focused all summer on adding floor spacers and succeeded. Now, Rick Carlisle projects to start
Superstars change everything for NBA teams. For any team without one, the goal becomes finding a way to get a hold of one, either via trades or in the draft. Once a team is able to land one, however, everything changes. For the New Orleans Pelicans, everything changed in the 2012 draft when they landed Anthony Davis. Last season, they watched him emerge as – at worst – the third best player in basketball, and everything changed again. Coming off their first playoff
After failing for two decades to pair their franchise cornerstone – be it Kevin Garnett or Kevin Love – with a complementary superstar, the Minnesota Timberwolves finally have reason to believe they have found a perfect two-man combination for sustainable long-term success. With Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns on hand, Minnesota has the NBA’s most promising 1-2 punch since Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook joined forces with the Oklahoma City Thunder seven years ago. So despite finishing last season with an NBA-worst 16 wins,
The 2014-15 Houston Rockets were a feel-good story, shaking off major injuries and muted preseason forecasts to become the Western Conference’s second-best team. The 2015-16 Rockets, on the other hand, shouldn’t come as such a surprise. Following the bold offseason trade for former Denver point guard Ty Lawson, the story in Houston is back to being about what is, rather than what might be. In other words, GM Daryl Morey is finally “all-in” on his roster. While Lawson fills the obvious need of
Under the guidance of Sacramento Kings legend and current VP of basketball operations and GM Vlade Divac, the Kings have assembled the most talented roster they have had in nearly a decade. So why are so many expecting the worst out of Sacramento this season? It’s complicated. The long-term consequences for how Divac went about creating enough cap space to acquire the likes of Rajon Rondo, Kosta Koufos, Marco Belinelli, Caron Butler, Seth Curry, James Anderson, Quincy Acy and Duje Dukan
It takes a lot to make the NBA playoffs if you are in the Western Conference. The West is the grown-up table of the NBA. It has had at least one team finish above .500 and miss the postseason every year since 2007. There will be some shuffling in the West’s playoff picture this season. But who is in the frame, and who gets cropped out? And has any team improved enough to topple the defending champion Golden State Warriors? The staff of