Luka, PG, Towns? Which NBA deals provided the biggest lessons?
The NBA is a copycat league. When teams advance deep into the playoffs, their rivals study their success to see what strategies can be stolen. When teams fall flat, opponents see what approaches to avoid.
After a particularly hectic year of trades and free agent signings, let’s examine what the league might have learned about how to construct a winning roster. The upcoming postseason might change views, of course, but many of the most important transactions from last summer and the trade deadline have already borne fruit, one way or the other.
Here are eight lessons from the past year of transactions, for all the teams trying to improve this summer.
1. Don’t trade a 25-year-old generational superstar with no warning
This lesson seems as if it should be self-evident, but apparently, it needed to be learned through experience.
Since the start of February, the Dallas Mavericks have traded Luka Doncic, incited a spirited fan revolt and lost almost all of their top remaining players to various injuries. (Thanks in part to the return of Anthony Davis, working his way back from a strained left adductor, Dallas has won four of its past five games to climb back into the play-in picture.)
2. The easiest way to help a young star is to surround him with shooters
Detroit Pistons point guard Cade Cunningham is the heavy favorite to be named Most Improved Player this season. But which has improved more: Cunningham’s own skill set or his broader team situation?
En route to finishing an NBA-worst 14-68 last season, the Pistons regularly used anachronistic, no-spacing lineups that were a better fit for 2004 — the last season the franchise won an NBA title — than today’s game. Beyond the arc, the 2023-24 Pistons ranked 29th in makes, 27th in attempts and 26th in accuracy. Jaden Ivey was Cunningham’s only teammate who reached triple digits in made 3s, and Ivey sank them at just a 34% clip.
But over the offseason, Detroit fired coach Monty Williams and brought in a host of new shooters to give Cunningham space to operate. Malik Beasley signed a one-year deal, and he now leads the league in made 3s with 292. Fellow shooters were added via a multiyear deal (Tobias Harris) and a trade (Tim Hardaway Jr.).
And while the Pistons overall still rank as an average 3-point-shooting team, the additional spacing has done wonders for both their team — now fifth place in the Eastern Conference with a 42-33 record — and Cunningham’s performance. In his first season as an All-Star, the fourth-year point guard has assisted on 75 of Beasley’s 3s this season, the most for any passer-shooter duo. Cunningham’s 60 3-point assists to Hardaway are fifth most.
This lesson could apply to several teams this offseason but most of all the Orlando Magic, who rank 30th in 3-point makes and percentage and desperately need better shooters to surround Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner.
3. Beware pricey free agents in their 30s
Here are the largest contracts signed last summer by free agents who changed teams:
Paul George (34 years old): four years, $212 million
Isaiah Hartenstein (26): three years, $87 million
DeMar DeRozan (35): three years, $74 million
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (31): three years, $66 million
Tobias Harris (32): three years, $52 million
Klay Thompson (34): three years, $50 million
Only two of their six teams have improved this season, and one of those success stories comes from the youngest free agent on the list (Hartenstein). The outcomes for the free agents in their 30s is grim.
That starts with George, whose debut season with the Philadelphia 76ers was nothing short of a debacle before ending prematurely due to multiple injuries. His scoring dropped from 22.6 points per game last season to 16.2 while struggling to pick up the slack with Joel Embiid sidelined. The Sixers probably expected a season like this from George at some point over the duration of his contract — but at the end of it, not the beginning.
Caldwell-Pope also has failed to live up to expectations in Orlando. The Magic have stumbled this season primarily because of injuries, but they surely hoped for more from their free agent splash. Caldwell-Pope had been a 40% 3-point shooter over the past five seasons before cratering to 32% in Orlando, while also putting up his lowest scoring average since he was a rookie.
And while DeRozan and Thompson have posted fine surface stats for the Sacramento Kings and the Mavericks, respectively, they haven’t boosted their teams to greater heights; the two veterans are currently slated to face each other in the Western Conference’s 9 vs. 10 play-in game. On top of everything else in Dallas, Thompson’s sign-and-trade deal hard-capped the Mavericks at the first apron, which has severely limited their options in recent weeks as they cope with a rash of injuries but can’t legally sign replacement players.
4. Don’t sacrifice talent from a win-now roster because of long-term apron concerns
The Minnesota Timberwolves’ blockbuster trade of Karl-Anthony Towns in the fall was primarily a financial move rather than a basketball one. The 2015 No. 1 draft pick was about to begin a four-year, $224 million extension, and the Timberwolves were staring down years of hefty luxury tax payments and second apron restrictions as extensions for Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels kicked in simultaneously.
So, the Timberwolves — whose financial situation was extra complicated because of the franchise’s ongoing ownership drama — were proactive, shedding Towns’ contract in exchange for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo. The problem is, in doing so they made an NBA Finals contender worse.
Towns will almost certainly make an All-NBA team as a member of the New York Knicks, and it’s clear his former team has taken several steps back without him. The Timberwolves already had lost more games by the end of February than they did all of last season, and they’re fighting to avoid the play-in tournament after reaching the conference finals a year ago.
The primary purpose of owning an NBA team — particularly a team such as the Timberwolves, which has never reached the Finals — should be to win as many games as possible, not to make as much money as possible. This might be a tough lesson for owners to hear, but it’s especially relevant for the Boston Celtics, who are in the midst of a sale process and must balance a frightening luxury tax bill with one of the best rosters in the NBA.
5. You don’t need to trade your unhappy star
In the player empowerment era, teams almost always deal their disgruntled franchise superstars. A trade is inevitable when stars are unhappy, the thinking goes, so why not rip off the Band-Aid and move on?
The Cleveland Cavaliers offer a counterexample. Rumors swirled last summer that Darius Garland would want to be traded if Donovan Mitchell signed an extension; but Mitchell signed, and Garland stayed. As ESPN’s Tim MacMahon reported, the Cavaliers “never entertained the possibility of exploring Garland’s value in the trade market. Nor did Garland ever indicate a desire to leave Cleveland.”
It turns out the backcourt was big enough for both of them: Mitchell and Garland were both All-Stars this season, and the Cavaliers could finish with the best record in franchise history.
That’s not to say every situation with a dissatisfied star can resolve peaceably. (The Miami Heat probably wish they’d traded Jimmy Butler III last summer instead of suffering through a half-season of drama.) But it’s not impossible.
6. Players on midsize contracts are valuable both on the court and in the trade market
Contenders have a tendency to shift their roster into a stars-and-scrubs structure, often with little in between in the apron era. The Denver Nuggets, for instance, have four players with a cap hit of $22.8 million or higher and no one else with one higher than $8.9 million. In Phoenix, meanwhile, Grayson Allen is the only Sun with a cap hit between $9.4 million and $49.2 million.
But midsize contracts can still pack plenty of value, particularly when constructing trades, due to tighter salary-matching rules.
The Golden State Warriors’ pursuit of Jimmy Butler III provides a perfect illustration of how this works. Last summer, they signed Buddy Hield, De’Anthony Melton and Kyle Anderson to contracts worth between $9.2 million and $12.8 million per season. Hield has turned in a solid campaign and ranks second on the team in total points. Meanwhile, the Warriors swapped Melton for Dennis Schroder (and his similarly sized contract) in December, after Melton tore his left ACL, then used Schroder and Anderson to help match Butler’s salary when trading for the six-time All-Star in February.
The Suns, conversely, were unable to acquire Butler without trading one of their mega-salary stars, because they didn’t have the midsize contracts to add together. They needed to exchange a dollar bill for a dollar bill, while the Warriors could match with some quarters and dimes because of their more diverse salary sheet. As a result, the Suns are stuck in 11th place in the West while the Warriors are one of the hottest team in the NBA, with a 18-4 record when Butler plays.
7. Don’t pay superstar prices for a non-star in trade
The Knicks were on a transactional hot streak: They’d struck gold by signing Jalen Brunson, Isaiah Hartenstein and Donte DiVincenzo, and they’d filled out the wings by trading for Josh Hart and OG Anunoby. Despite an injury-riddled end to their 2024 playoff run, they were an ascendant contender in the sport’s biggest market. And what better way to continue that hot streak than to trade for another of the Villanova boys and swing a deal for Mikal Bridges?
But the price was steep, as the Knicks sent five future first-round picks and a swap across town to the Brooklyn Nets. It was a similar cost that other teams had recently paid in deals for Kevin Durant, Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert. But Durant, Mitchell and Gobert were all perennial All-Stars, while Bridges had never been one of the top dozen players in his conference. Role players shouldn’t cost a handful of first-round picks.
It would be one thing if Bridges were the kind of role player who could push a fringe contender over the top. But his efficiency with New York is much lower than it was when he was a secondary option in Phoenix, and the one-time All-NBA defender has fallen off dramatically on that end. The Knicks rank 13th in defensive rating and have actually been worse with Bridges on the floor. Against top-10 offenses, the Knicks rank 19th in defensive rating, per Cleaning the Glass, the worst mark of any playoff-bound team.
Ultimately, with an 0-7 record against the Cavaliers, Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder, the Knicks are clearly still below the top tier of contenders — and the haul they surrendered in the Bridges trade means they have few avenues left to keep improving.
8. Reinforce your strengths
The Thunder would have been an excellent team this season even if they’d stood pat last summer; they had the West’s best record last season despite the second-youngest roster in the league. But Thunder general manager Sam Presti made two key moves to improve his roster: He signed Isaiah Hartenstein and traded young, offensively oriented guard Josh Giddey to the Chicago Bulls for veteran wing stopper Alex Caruso.
The Thunder already had the fourth-ranked defense last season, but they sought more ace defenders anyway. Caruso ranks as the most impactful per-possession defender in the sport — a smidge ahead of Victor Wembanyama — and Hartenstein ranks fifth, according to estimated plus-minus. The result is one of the best defensive units in NBA history, which is fueling the Thunder to the best point differential the league has ever seen.
In the NBA, you can never have too much of a good thing. Already have a top defense? Add Caruso and Hartenstein, the latter of whom also addressed a Thunder weakness by adding size beyond Chet Holmgren). Already stuffed with knockdown shooters? It can never hurt to draft another. Already full of playmaking? Sign one more creative whiz. The sport’s best players complement and boost each other, and that philosophy has propelled the Thunder into the history books.
Source: espn.com