In one sense, the Cleveland Cavaliers are coming off a very successful season. Behind a core of three All-Star players, they reached the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 1991-92 without LeBron James. That alone should instill some optimism, but in a much more real sense, the 2025-26 Cavaliers looked just as peripheral to a championship as before.

They weezed their way to the Conference Finals via two unconvincing seven-game series, and were so thoroughly humiliated by the New York Knicks in a sweep that they besmirched the good name of analytics in a desperate attempt to save face– they posted a -19.5 net rating for the series for fuck’s sake. Not to be that guy, but taking more threes doesn’t mean you’ve won the analytical battle.

While there are far worse places for a franchise to be, the Cavaliers feel much closer to the treadmill of mediocrity than true contention. To put it bluntly, the trajectory is not on the up and up, but that’s not real analysis. Instead of vibe palpating, let’s take a granular look at the Cavaliers’ offseason to see if they have resuscitated their title hopes.

The Tentpole

The most consequential offseason move the Cavaliers made was Donovan Mitchell’s maximum four-year, $273 million extension that will kick in next season. The deal also includes a player option for 2030-31 and a full (15%) trade kicker. All told, the Cavaliers have guaranteed Mitchell $322.99 million to cover his age 30 through 34 seasons.

While this hasn’t been reported, it’s highly likely the nature of the Cavaliers’ offseason was dependent on securing Mitchell’s services for the near future. With Mitchell locked up, the Cavaliers were free to build a team not just for next season, but for the next several. That being said, I think the Cavaliers made a miscalculation.

First and foremost, Donovan Mitchell is an exceptional player. I had him second-team All-NBA, and his 5.1 BPM was the eighth-best mark in the league. Players of this quality get paid, and they get paid handsomely, because they deserve it, but the Cavaliers are paying top dollar for what will surely be Mitchell’s decline phase.

This projection, if you want to call it that, assumes a very basic aging curve of -0.4 BPM per season, and that Mitchell will play 66 games each season and 70% of the Cavaliers’ possessions for those that he suits up; those are his averages over the past four seasons. If Mitchell ages relatively well and stays relatively healthy, this deal won’t be one of the worst in the league, but it certainly won’t be a value.

Outside the comfort of certainty, there was no reason for the Cavaliers to offer Mitchell the maximum money, with the maximum bells and whistles, a season before they had to. The reality is that if Mitchell declines more quickly in his early-30s and has any form of durability issues, which wouldn’t be too surprising for an athleticism-reliant small guard, then this contract could get underwater in a hurry. Remember, even if he hit free agency, the Cavaliers could have still offered him this exact deal that no one else could.

Negotiations should theoretically be a game of give and take. The Cavaliers’ offer Mitchell financial security and take on the uncertainty of his future production, and in return, they get Mitchell’s services for slightly less. Instead, they took on all the risk and gave Mitchell everything, when they were only bidding against themselves.

The Cavaliers aren’t the first team too scared to stare down their star player, and they won’t be the last, but they’ve made their chances of building a true contender around Mitchell much more difficult, which is the whole point of having Donovan Mitchell in the first place. I can’t fault them too much for this deal, but I thought the days of “give everything to a B-Tier star in their decline phase” were coming to an end.

Not so Elementary

Securing Peyton Watson’s services was anything but elementary. First, the Cavaliers had to get James Harden to opt out of his contract and trust that he’d be taken care of at the end of their transaction window– spoiler, he was. Next, they had to trade Dennis Schroder to the Hornets for Tre Mann, then they had to agree to terms with Peyton Watson on a four-year, $88 million deal with a fourth-year player option, then they had to get the Nuggets to agree to the sign-and-trade for the cost of a 2031 first-round pick, then they had to find a taker for Max Strus in the Clippers, and then they had to roll the Schroder trade into the deal and send Mann to Washington for Cam Whitmore. There’s even more to it, but that’s the general gist of this monstrous transaction.

Focusing on Watson, it’s very difficult to know if this is actually a good deal, but I think it’s the right type of risk for the Cavaliers to take. As noted earlier, Donovan Mitchell’s deal means the Cavaliers will have to look for surplus value elsewhere to break through. That could come in the form of Evan Mobley finally leveling up on offense, but why not take another bite at the upside apple?

Watson had a breakout fourth season. He set career highs across the board and showed, for the first time, that he could be a true two-way force. Now, a lot of his production was wrapped up in a short spurt, but playing well is better than not. From December 31st to February 4th, Watson averaged 21.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.1 steals, and 1.5 blocks on a 55.6% eFG%. Unfortunately, he strained his hamstring, played five more games before a recurrence, and missed the entirety of the playoffs.

That hot five-week stretch over 19 games stood in stark contrast to his first 30, where he averaged 10.7 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.0 steals, and 1.0 blocks per game on a 58% eFG%. If Watson is actually the player he showed over five weeks in January, then this contract is a steal, but if he’s the low-usage corner-3-and-D player he showed before, then the Cavaliers just fired a ton of bullets to get a solid rotation piece.

Usually, I don’t think teams should hand out speculative contracts, but the Cavaliers are in a different situation. This is a team that wants to win a title with B-Tier stars. While I wouldn’t advise that route, it’s not impossible, but you really need to knock it out of the park with your role player signings. The Cavaliers moving heaven and earth to land Watson is their attempt to find just that.

There’s a real chance this blows up in their face. Max Strus missed most of last season, but he’s a good, solid NBA player and has shown to be better than Watson. On top of that, the Cavaliers fired their last tradeable pick to land Watson and hard-capped themselves at the first-apron via the sign-and-trade. Even if this deal works out in the long run, for this upcoming season, the Cavaliers will have next to no wiggle room or flexibility to augment this roster.

The Cavaliers are very much all-in on Peyton Watson. It’s an odd player to go all-in on, but that’s the predicament they find themselves in. We’ll have to wait and see if he lives up to the potential.

Between an Apron and a Harden Place

James Harden had himself a nice little offseason. By opting out and waiting for the Cavaliers to conduct their business, he earned a three-year, $97 million deal with a third-year player option. While he did technically take a haircut from his $42.3 million player option, only $13.3 million was actually guaranteed– not that the Cavaliers were ever going to cut him for the savings. Functionally, Harden traded some money up front for more down the line and a better chance to compete for a title. Considering he guaranteed himself over $500 million in career salary earnings, Harden got to have his cake and throw it overboard too.

Regardless of your feelings on Harden as a player, his working with the Cavaliers was key to their offseason. It allowed them to pursue LeBron James and, when that didn’t work out, sign-and-trade for Peyton Watson. The fact that he’s guaranteed nearly $100 million through his age-39 season was simply the cost of doing business, but that doesn’t mean it was bad business.

Harden will make $29.9 million next season, which is more than a fair price for his services. It often gets lost following every disappointing playoff exit, but Harden remains a regular-season Rolls-Royce. His BPM of 3.9 last season ranked 19th, and his offensive BPM of 4.6 ranked 12th. And since we already have so much of his decline phase in the bank, his production is much easier to project going forward.

Harden, over the past three seasons, has had a BPM between 4.3 and 3.9. Chances are, he’ll decline from those figures going forward, but the slope of his decay has been exceptionally gradual in his mid-30s. Assuming he has your standard -0.4 BPM dropoff per season over the life of this deal, the Cavaliers probably won’t regret handing him $34.7 million in 2028-29.

Harden shows up in the regular season, plays big minutes, soaks up possessions, and is generally effective. There’s always the chance he declines precipitously, but his deal looks like a steal compared to Donovan Mitchell’s extension. He’d have to really fall off or suffer a significant physical breakdown for this deal to get underwater.

I’m not going to pretend Harden’s playoff shortcomings are not a serious concern, but this is a reasonable contract for his regular season production, and it also allowed them to add Peyton Watson. Viewed through that lens, I think the Cavaliers did about as well as you can when handing a three-year deal to a player approaching 40. I’m sure he’ll be blamed when they fail to meet expectations, but he’ll also be a big reason the expectations were as high as they were. That’s just the James Harden experience.

Mario Bros. Return

The last time we saw Mario Hezonja stateside, he was playing sparingly for the 2019-20 Portland Trail Blazers. That was his age-24 season, and it capped off an incredibly disappointing NBA career for the fifth overall pick from the 2015 draft. While Myles Turner and Devin Booker would be selected after him, those two had to wait until the 11th and 13th picks to hear their names called. The five players picked directly after Hezonja were, in order, Willie Cauley-Stein, Emmanuel Mudiay, Stanley Johnson, Frank Kaminsky, and Justise Winslow. I’m not trying to absolve the Orlando Magic for a wasted pick, but it wasn’t like the rest of the league had better ideas either.

And while Hezonja had a disappointing NBA career, he was excellent in Europe. Over the past four seasons, he played for Real Madrid in the Spanish League and was a certified star. The question is whether Hezonja can augment his game enough to find a real role in the NBA, because he’s not going to be the go-to scoring option on any NBA team.

For an unguaranteed $2.45 million, the Cavaliers taking a flier on Hezonja makes a ton of sense. The chances he works out are pretty low, but the risk here is functionally a roster spot that they’d have to give to someone around the two-way threshold. It’s likely the same issues that doomed Hezonja’s first NBA run will sink his second voyage, but maybe he really has found another gear.

If you’re 6’6, can hit an average rate of threes (36%), play hard on defense, and handle the ball a bit, then you’re an NBA player. The last time Hezonja was in the NBA, he couldn’t shoot the three, and his defense was spotty. I think more teams in the Cavaliers’ financial situation should be willing to take risks on foreign stars. They might not always work out, but neither do most two-ways.

Less on Whitmore

I’ll briefly mention that the Cavaliers, for the time being, employ Cam Whitmore. As someone who podcasts about the Houston Rockets, I am deeply aware of Whitmore’s game, and I fucking hate it. He is a super athlete, but his basketball instincts are about as bad as they come. His defensive discipline is horrendous, and his only idea with the ball is to shoot. Perhaps the Cavaliers can get him to play some real basketball, but he’ll have to rewire his brain, which is easier said than done.

Farwell

It was always unlikely that the Cavaliers would retain all four of Keon Ellis, Dean Wade, Max Strus, and Dennis Schroder, but their departure represents a significant reduction in quality veteran depth.

Schroder was salary-dumped to Charlotte, leaving a gaping hole at backup point guard. Strus’ salary was moved to accommodate Peyton Watson, and while Watson is a better defender, Strus is the far more dangerous shooter. Ellis signed for two years and $18 million to go to Brooklyn, and his perimeter defense will be sorely missed. And finally, Dean Wade signed a four-year, $39 million contract with the Sixers, which leaves the Cavaliers short another strong defender.

Ideally, the Cavaliers would have retained one of these four, but signing and trading for Watson made that virtually impossible from a financial standpoint. Neither is an assured difference-maker in the playoffs, but they all would have helped this team tremendously in the regular season. The aprons are doing the exact thing the owners wanted, which is forcing good teams to slowly get worse so bad teams can have human trade exceptions.

Cavaliers’ Financials and 2026-27 Outlook

According to Basketball Reference’s salaries, the Cavaliers are a little more than a million dollars over the first apron this season. They’ll either need to make subsequent salary-cutting moves, or Harden’s projected $29.9 million salary will come down a bit. That being said, in future seasons, they should be far and away above the first apron.

To put it bluntly, the Cavaliers have already fallen off the proverbial financial cliff, with 2026-27 representing a brief respite. With Donovan Mitchell’s salary jumping by $10 million in 2027-28, the Cavaliers are projected to have $219 million in salary commitments for only nine players. With the first apron projected for $220 million, they’d have to completely blow up the roster not to zoom by it.

For most teams, being this expensive would be an issue, but Dan Gilbert is built different. He spends on his team and has had no issue paying huge tax bills over the years. As far as NBA owners go, he’s the exact type you want. He’s the rare rich guy who understands that once you have billions, it’s all monopoly money, so why not play with it?

On the court, the Cavaliers should probably be about as good as they were last season. While that might not sound great, they did win 53-games and post a +4.1 net rating despite getting 52 combined games from James Harden and Darius Garland, Evan Mobley missing 17 games, and Jarrett Allen missing 26. In the 92 minutes Harden, Mitchell, Allen, and Mobley were on the court last season, they blitzed opponents for a 123.12 offensive rating and a 97.47 defensive rating.

Now, predicting perfect health is always foolish, but the Cavaliers’ core four should still form a formidable nucleus. Opponents won’t continue to shoot 26.51% from three against them, but their starting lineup has a chance to be one of the best in the league. If the Cavaliers had better depth, I’d be much more bullish on their chances, but they could very easily push 60 wins if everything goes right.

I know the Knicks are probably the favorites to pace the Eastern Conference in wins, but I sneakily think the Cavaliers will coast to the one seed. That being said, when it gets to the playoffs, I have no faith in them breaking through and making the Finals. The Cavaliers are all-in, and this is their best chance to capitalize on that. They’ve made some risky bets, but the payoff could be huge, and even if they don’t hit, they’ll just be a very expensive good team, which isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.

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The Philadelphia 76ers have had a big brotherly offseason. After overcoming a 3-1 series deficit to their arch-nemesis, the Boston Celtics, the Sixers were so thoroughly blown off the court by their other arch-nemesis, the New York Knicks, that ownership decided they had seen enough. They axed Daryl Morey, who might be the first general manager to lose his job thanks to a playoff series win, and brought in first-time lead executive Mike Gansey to spearhead a change in direction.

About that change in direction. I cannot think of a more Daryl Morey offseason than: trade for a star player, sign a star player, and then backfill the rest of the roster with veterans on value contracts. You can kill the man, but you can’t kill the idea.

Thanks to the Jaylen Brown for Paul George trade and the free agent signing of LeBron James, the Sixers have become the most talked about team of the offseason. They have the league’s most 82-0.com starting lineup, but will their massive concentration in talent result in their first Finals berth in 25 years? Well, let’s get to that.

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The Big Trade

I’ve already written about the Jaylen Brown trade. If you want my full thoughts, please give it a read or skim. In short, I think the Sixers improved, but I’m not sure by how much. Brown is probably going to be more available than George, but I much prefer George’s skill set on this team. Elite shooting and excellent defense make more sense beside Joel Embiid, LeBron James, and Tyrese Maxey than volume shot creation with limited playmaking and average at best defense.

Now, I know my analysis of Brown’s value is on the low end, but I don’t think my assessment of his game is genuinely refutable. He has clear strengths– isolation on-ball shot creation, one-on-one defense– clear weaknesses– passing, off-ball defense–and the rest of his game is around average. If the Sixers desperately needed a player who could soak up offensive possessions, he’d be a perfect fit. But outside of his one-on-one defense, his strengths will be muted, while his deficiencies could prove burdensome.

All that being said, Brown shows up and plays, and George is also on an awful contract. From a pure value standpoint, the Sixers got the better end of the deal in 2026-27, but it cost them some draft capital. As long as the Sixers don’t go gungho with an extension for Brown, which they’re limited to a year this offseason, then this will have been a fair trade. It’s just one that I have a hard time getting too excited over. Although, I admit I’m in the minority.

LeBrotherly Love

Even at 41, LeBron James remains an exceptional basketball player. No longer a top-10 player, he resides in the massive, interchangeable glut of players from 11 through 30. However, the big difference between James and the rest of the (veteran) field is that instead of being paid similarly to a top ten player, he’s making the damn veteran minimum. If teams are willing to throw darts at a board with minimums to round out a rotation, there’s really no arguing that this is one of the best contracts– from a value standpoint– in the league.

By the time most legendary players start stacking minimum contracts at the end of their career, they’re usually, at best, a mid-level player. I’m not a basketball history database, but I cannot imagine a player coming off a season as strong as James’ has ever signed for so little. Based on this alone, this is one of, if not the best free agent signing of the offseason. Age-related downside and decline are always there, but if James is cooked, he’s at least not burning a hole in your cap sheet.

As far as team needs go, James is exceptional. The Sixers have had a hole at the power forward spot since Tobias Harris left town, and James will slot in perfectly. Routinely a poor rebounding team, the Sixers are going to need James to crash the defensive glass, but that should tie in perfectly with what should be an uptempo attack. I can already see it now. James grabs a board, shoots a hit-ahead pass to Tyrese Maxey who engages a backpedaling defender, before dumping it off to VJ Edgecombe or Jaylen Brown streaking to the basket.

Defensively, the Sixers will probably need more from James than he can routinely give them. Joel Embiid’s mobility has been severely dampened by a knee that just won’t quit flaring up, and the rest of their starting five is more average than plus on defense. My guess is the Sixers will throw Edgecomb and Brown at ball handlers, hide Maxey the best they can, have Embiid drop, and hope LeBron can clean up some messes. That should work in bursts, but it’s not an 82-game strategy for a soon-to-be grandfather. Still, when he is fully engaged, this defense should be solid enough.

For as great a move as this is, adding LeBron James has two downsides– attention and expectations. The Sixers are now viewed as a real contender and will be under a microscope for the entire season. Every frown, loss, and disjointed offensive possession will be dissected. Even in a Skip Bay-less world, the vultures will be circling for content. I usually try to stick to the quantifiable, but I think completely ignoring the human element– in this case– would be willfully ignorant.

The Other D. Wade

The last time LeBron James teamed up with a D. Wade, he made four consecutive Finals, won the middle two, and claimed two MVPs. Fast forward 15 years, and James and D. Wade are reunited, just under very different circumstances.

I thought the Sixers’ signing of Dean Wade was a great bit of business before they brought in LeBron. He’s a good defensive player, requires no offensive usage, and would more than adequately fill their power forward spot. With James in town, Wade will likely be relegated to the bench, but that’s just fine. James just came off a season where he played 60 games and averaged a career-low 33.2 minutes per game. His minutes load ought to go down again, and having Wade as his deputy is perfect. On top of that, Wade has struggled to stay healthy throughout his career, so capping his minutes is probably for the best too.

His four-year, $39 million contract is about the going rate for useful rotation players. I wouldn’t say it’s an amazing value just due to the injuries and the fact that he possesses one major flaw. Wade’s role on offense is to space the floor. As a career 36.7% 3-point shooter, he presents himself as a perfectly serviceable floor spacer, but there’s one big problem– he doesn’t shoot.

Wade’s career 3-point attempts per 36 minutes (3PA/36) is 5.8. For a player who basically only shoots threes, that’s an insanely small figure. Last season, he paired a 70.5% 3-point attempt rate (3PAr) with just 5.4 3PA/36. Out of 159 qualified players who attempted over 5.0 threes per 36 minutes and had a 3PAr greater than 70% since the 3-pointer was introduced, his 5.4 3PA/36 was the eighth lowest. That’s right, the eighth lowest in history. Now, most of the guys on that list were solid role players– you have to bring something to the table– but Wade’s lack of urgency behind the arc is a real issue.

Hopefully, the Sixers can coax a bit more ambition out of Wade from three, but everything else he brings to the table should fit perfectly next to Philly’s four stars. The only real downside to this contract is it’s a four-year deal for a player who might be relegated to the very end of the rotation come 2029-30, but that’s a small price to pay when you’re chasing a title in the here and now.

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Bench Anferno

The Sixers signing of Anfernee Simons to a two-year, $12 million deal, with a second-year player option, appears to be the front office’s way of apologizing for the Jared McCain trade. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: getting a first-round pick for Jared McCain was great business. He’s not someone who can start for a good team, and despite some splashy playoff performances, he was generally pretty mediocre on offense for the Thunder, and the less said about his defense, the better.

The top-tier outcome for McCain would be developing into Anfernee Simons, so in many respects, the Sixers made out quite well, even if their fanbase is full of a bunch of raving lunatics. Simons is certainly a bench piece for a team with any real aspirations, which makes his current role as their nominal Sixth Man with the Sixers perfect.

He is a one-weird trick type of player, but when your one-weird trick is the NBA offensive META, well that’s a good trick to have. Simons is an elite 3-point shooter. He’s a career 38.1% shooter from beyond the arc, but that figure undersells his ability. Since 2020-21, he’s at 38.6%, and he is a legitimate off-the-dribble threat.

Last season, Simons attempted 3.3 pull-up threes per game and converted them at a 33.7% clip, which was a bit of a down year for him. While that sounds unimpressive, the league as a whole shot 33.01% on pull-up threes. Considering how many “inefficient” threes he takes, his 3-point accuracy is staggering.

The power of the pull-up three is massive. First, it prevents defenses from going under every pick-and-roll coverage. Second, when you’re as good as Simons is, you’re basically guaranteed a possession worth a little over 1.0 points. And third, it’s a great proxy for being a fantastic catch-and-shoot guy.

Unfortunately, pull-up 3-point shooting is the only club in Simons’ caddy. He is an awful defender, and despite being such a dangerous pull-up threat, he isn’t able to weaponize it to score efficiently within the arc or rack up high assist totals. However, that shouldn’t really matter for the Sixers. He’ll be out there to keep the offense humming the few minutes none of their four stars are on the court, and his off-the-ball shooting threat will make him an invaluable floor spacer.

Simons’ role in the regular season should be quite important to the Sixers, but I expect him to veer towards DNP-Coach’s Decision come the playoffs. While that will probably infuriate fans, it’s what you should expect from a $6 million one-trick-pony. In 2026, you have to bring more to the table than just shooting to be a real playoff player, but 82-game players are still valuable.

KCP or DNP

There’s a scene in the Norwegian film Headhunters– which you should definitely check out if you haven’t– where the main character, Roger Brown, explains to a prospective client how reputation is the only reason a painting is worth anything. He then closes his pitch by saying, “let me build your reputation.” (Just in Norwegian) Thematically, it all makes sense. Brown is a corporate headhunter and an art thief. With that tangent out of the way, the Sixers signed Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to the minimum.

Since leaving the Denver Nuggets in free agency, Caldwell-Pope has seen his stock plummet. He was bad for Orlando, then functionally salary-dumped to Memphis in the Desmond Bane trade, and then was bought out, despite still having $17.7 million remaining on his contract. The reason for his decline is quite simple. He simply cannot shoot the three-ball anymore. Over the past two seasons and 504 3-point attempts, he has shot 33%, down from 40.3% over the prior five.

Caldwell-Pope shouldn’t be out of the league, but his joining the Sixers is only newsworthy based on his reputation. He’s 33, his only offensive contribution has become dangerously negative, and defense does not get better with age. There’s a real chance he’ll be marooned at the end of the bench come December, but that doesn’t mean this couldn’t work.

On the off chance that Pope rediscovers his shooting stroke, this will have been a very successful signing. Guys who can defend a bit and shoot are incredibly valuable, but I’m skeptical he can get back to that level. The problem is his shooting will need to come all the way back because I doubt he can reliably be a plus defender.

Fortunately, minimum contracts don’t have to work out. If he can only muster the contributions of a tenth man, that’s basically what he’s getting paid to do. However, the Sixers depth is suspect, which means Pope can’t be a total zero if they want to win a title. That’s not a bet I would want to make, but when chasing titles, it’s usually one you have to.

By Huk by way of Kruk

To round out their center rotation, the Sixers signed Ariel Hukporti to a one-year minimum contract. I really liked Hukporti as a prospect. His combination of size, athleticism, and energy usually leads to solid minutes, but after two seasons, he’s still a complete unknown. Over two seasons with the Knicks, he has played a grand total of 79 games, 715 minutes, and scored 165 points.

Based on the limited sample we have, Hukporti appears to be a solid defensive player and is a plus on the offensive glass. Now, I wouldn’t read too much into the Knicks defense improving by 9.85 points per 100 possessions with him on the court, but it’s at least a point in his favor.

While it probably would have made more sense to snag a more known commodity, this is the type of player teams should take risks on. There’s a better than zero chance that he could be the next Neemas Queta, and for the minimum, that’s a worthy gambit. Chances are he’s just a lower-tier backup center, but there’s more upside here than your usual minimum center.

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The Losses

Like every offseason, the Sixers’ wasn’t purely additive. To stay under the first apron and within league roster size rules, they traded Johni Broome to the Clippers and let Kelly Oubre, Quentin Grimes, and Andre Drummond walk in free agency. Broome’s loss isn’t that big a deal. He was a great college player, but he’s an undersized center that can’t defend the rim, shoot threes, or even really rim run. Simply put, there’s just not a lot of room in the modern game for offensive-leaning four-and-a-halfs.

However, Oubre, Grimes, and Drummond played a little over 5,000 minutes for the Sixers last season and would have had real roles had they stuck around. Starting with the least consequential loss, Drummond is a serviceable backup center at this point, but I’d ideally prefer him as my third big. He’s still an elite rebounder, and one of the best ever, but the rest of his game is lacking.

Defensively, he doesn’t offer much rim protection or perimeter mobility, and on offense he’s one of the worst rim-finishing centers in the league. Basically, he just rebounds, which is great, but I’d prefer my backup to actually provide some value outside of when someone misses. Still, the Sixers certainly need solid center depth to hedge against Joel Embiid missing time, and I don’t think Adem Bona and Ariel Hukporti count as reliable depth, not that Drummond necessarily would either.

Oubre was lured out of Philadelphia and into the heartland when he signed a two-year $16.5 million deal with the Indiana Pacers. For a 6’8 wing who plays hard on defense and potentially can shoot, that’s solid value. Every podcaster I listen to swears he’s a good defender, but over his three seasons with the Sixers, they were 3.13 points per 100 possessions better on defense when he was off the court. So while I’m skeptical of him being good on that end, I think his ability to guard the ball and fight over screens could really help this iteration of the team.

On offense, Oubre is what he is. He is one of the worst and least instinctive passers I’ve ever seen, and he hasn’t seen a shot he didn’t want to try. Last season, he shot 36% from three, but that was a career high, and he shot 32.2% over the prior five seasons. He can actually put it on the deck and create space, which has nominal value.

For $6 million, I think having B-tech Andrew Wiggins is good value for the Pacers, and the Sixers likely wish they could have held onto him for one more season. He’s not really a good player, but every team needs wings who can actually play basketball.

Grimes landed the largest contract of this cohort, but his skillset is the most redundant, which made his salary expectations arduous. The Lakers secured Grimes’ services with a four-year, $60 million deal with a fourth-year player option. Last summer, in restricted free agency, I thought a three-year, $38.8 million deal with a third-year player option would be a fair deal. Considering this current deal pays him 8.46% of the cap in year one, and mine paid him 7.76%, and he would have hit free agency earlier and made $3.25 million more last season, he should have listened to me.

Letting Grimes walk was certainly the right move. He’s not a bad player, but his defense has declined significantly since he debuted and his 3-point shot has been wildly inconsistent. Since 2022-23, his season 3-point efficiency has either been in the 38% or the 33% range. For a player whose main contribution is shooting, that’s not the rollercoaster I’d want to lock in for four years. Grimes on the minimum would have really helped the Sixers, but he’s not a player who you should blow by the aprons for.

Sixers’ Financials and 2026-27 Outlook

The Sixers are locked into something resembling this team for the next three seasons, and it’s going to be very, very expensive. This season, they’ve ducked the first apron (according to Spotrac; Basketball Reference has slightly different salary figures) by the skin of their teeth, but next season, they have $208 million in salary commitments, which assumes LeBron James and Anfernee Simons exercise their player options, for ten players against a second apron projected for $234 million. I’m not saying they’ll be in the second apron, but I am saying they’ll have to work hard on the minimum market to have a functional roster.

Long term, the Sixers’ books are actually in pretty good shape. Once Embiid’s contract expires following the 2028-29 season, assuming he exercises his $67.4 million player option, the only players under contract for 2029-30 are Dean Wade and Labaron Philon Jr. Now, that won’t be the case. By then, Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, and potentially Jaylen Brown will all have signed extensions, but if this season goes poorly, the Sixers have a financial offramp, should they want to take it.

The Sixers’ 2026-27 outlook is both incredibly promising and probably doomed. This is a championship team if Joel Embiid can stay healthy and play at a borderline MVP level again. Unfortunately, the chances of both of those things happening feel incredibly slight. The only hedge against Embiid’s health and/or continued decline is if Maxey levels up again, or Edgecombe really pops in year two. Those aren’t impossible, but predicting either is a gambler’s delusion.

The Knicks just won the title without a top ten player, but that took a black swan playoff run, and their roster construction just made a lot more sense. The Sixers are built to push in transition, but Embiid can hardly run. They have a ton of excellent offensive players, but they all need the ball. They have super durable players, and guys who are always injured or old. And the list of juxtapositions goes on.

The Sixers aren’t going to be a bad team. But I just have a hard time believing this team can get over the hump in the playoffs. How their regular season goes will come down to how quickly they gel and the health of their stars, but anything under 50 wins would have to count as a minor disaster. That being said, they are going to be incredibly interesting to watch.

If everything goes right, this could work at the highest level, but the downside is pretty significant. What if the offense isn’t quite as good as we think because of all the on-ball redundancies? Maybe Embiid continues to be unavailable and declines further. LeBron turns 42; it wouldn’t be crazy if he goes from an All-Star to just a good starter. And Jaylen Brown, didn’t he want his own team? Basically, no team is under more pressure than the Sixers.

When it’s all said and done, I think the Sixers will win about 54 regular season games, win their first round series, and then bow out in the second round. If that sounds like every other Sixers season, that’s because it is. When your wagon is hitched to Joel Embiid, this is what trusting the process looks like.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.

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I have a general roster-building belief that many NBA GMs seem to ignore. If you’re great at something, don’t subtract from that to improve an area of weakness. At the end of the day, the best teams in the league are always great at something, and it’s much easier to go from bad to mediocre or mediocre to good than it is to go from good to great. With all that out of the way, the Detroit Pistons obviously haven’t been listening to me.

The Pistons are coming off the third 60-win season in their franchise history, and got there on the strength of their defense. Their 109.7 defensive rating was second in the league and 6.1 points better than league average, which, in most seasons, is enough to lead the league. On offense, things weren’t so sterling, but hardly unsalvagable.

Despite ranking 15th in team eFG% (54.6%) and 19th in turnover rate (13%), the Pistons managed the tenth-ranked offense (117.9) thanks to elite offensive rebounding (30.3%, 3rd) and free throw generation (26.1 FTA/G, 3rd). If I were running the Pistons, my goal would be to remain an S-Tier defense, tweak the edges of the roster to boost offense, and hope for some internal development to push that eFG% towards the top-third of the league. Instead, the Pistons spent their offseason mostly trying to improve their 3-point shooting and save money, which, fair play, it’s 2026.

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Beef Stew, Off the Menu

The first major move the Pistons made was to salary dump Isaiah Stewart. The Memphis Grizzlies sent Detroit three 2nd-round picks to earn the right to absorb the final two years and $30 million remaining on his deal. While I completely understand why Memphis would jump at this deal, I’m less sure why the Pistons were so quick to move on.

An AAV of $15 million for a good defensive center who can kind of shoot corner threes is a pretty solid deal. On top of that, Stewart only turned 25 in May, and his $15 million salary for 2027-28 is a team option. The Pistons still need to pay Jalen Duren– more on that later– and will likely sign Ausar Thompson to a rookie scale extension, but that won’t kick in until 2027-28.

Right now, the Pistons have 15 players under contract at $153.1 million, well under the 2026-27 salary cap of $164 million, but that doesn’t include Duren. For the sake of discussion, let’s say Duren lands a deal worth 25% of the cap, $41.2 million, in year one. That’d push the Pistons to $194.4 million in salary, still below the luxury tax line of $200 million, and they’d have 16 guys on the roster. Simply adding Stewart’s $15 million to the equation would get the Pistons to $209.4 million in salary commitments, with 17 guys on the roster, which would have made ducking the first apron, set at $209 million, eminently achievable.

Now, the Pistons don’t have Stewart, have yet to sign Duren, and could be staring at a situation where he accepts his $9.6 million qualifying offer with an eye toward unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2027. If that were to happen, the Pistons would have dumped Stewart’s salary for no reason and be staring at a situation where they have no center under contract for 2027-28.

I don’t think moving off Stewart’s salary was a bad idea, but I think the order of operations was out of whack. They could have easily waited until Duren re-signed and then assessed the situation. There’s a world where Duren only lands a deal worth 20% of the cap, $32.9 million, and the Pistons could have had both Duren and Stewart, while being under the luxury tax. I love ‘B-Ball’ Paul Reed as much as the next red-blooded basketball fan, but having three good centers is better than two.

Collins on a Three-for-One Year Deal

After letting Tobias Harris walk in free agency, the Pistons solved their starting power forward problem by signing John Collins to a three-year, $51 million deal via a sign-and-trade with the Clippers, which hard caps the Pistons at the first apron. The move was wrapped into a bunch of other business, which also includes another Detroit move, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

This is a great contract for the Pistons. Only the first year at $17 million is guaranteed, with guarantee trigger dates for each subsequent season set for June 28. Functionally, the Pistons signed Collins to a series of one-year, $17 million deals with team options. There’s virtually no downside to deals structured like this, and they’re incredibly valuable in trades. Regardless of Collins’ performance, this contract is a valuable future asset and worth triggering a hard cap over, even if it saw them too preemptively trade Isaiah Stewart.

Collins is not just a walking trade chip. He’s a very solid starting-caliber power forward, but he is also very different than the now departed Harris. Harris was more of a wing-forward hybrid who was capable of perimeter self-creation. He wasn’t elite at it, but as the Pistons’ trench warfare of a seven-game series with the Magic showed, they did desperately need it at times.

Instead, Collins is more of a front-court power forward who can catch-and-shoot and finish plays at the rim. Over the past seven seasons, Collins has shot 37.2% from three on 3.4 attempts per game, and outside of 2022-23, he has been above 36.4% every season with two 40%-plus seasons and two 39.9% seasons. Now, Collins isn’t really a floor spacer, despite those gaudy efficiency figures. Since 2019-20, his 4.1 3-point attempts per 36 minutes are relatively low, and 37.3% of his threes have come from the corner, where he has shot 38.6%. However, all of his figures are virtually identical to Harris’ over that same span, which means this is not really a floor spacing downgrade.

Where Collins will be an upgrade is on plays at the rim. Dunks aren’t the end-all, be-all, but they illustrate a player’s vertical pop and ability to make plays at the rim. Since 2020-21, 13.8% of Collins’ field goal attempts have been dunks; he was above 20% in his first three seasons, compared to Harris’ figure of 5.3%. In fact, Harris’ dunkiest season (7.7%) is nowhere near Collins’ least dunky (11.3%). The Pistons are sure to use this in the pick-and-roll game, where he’ll hopefully develop chemistry with Cade Cunningham, and his baseline cutting could be a real weapon.

Defensively, I’m not sure if Collins is an upgrade on Harris. He does offer a bit more weakside rim protection, but he’ll give back most of those gains on the perimeter. On top of that, Collins’ defensive versatility is far more limited. He can really only guard fours, while Harris could survive on some threes and was a good matchup against certain centers. All that being said, Collins turns 29 in September, while Harris turned 34 a month ago. There’s every chance in the world that for 2026-27 Collins is the better defender, but I doubt he’ll be quite as good as Harris was last season.

The Pistons undoubtedly upgraded their power forward situation, but it’ll eat into their defense a tad and places even more creation pressure on Cade Cunningham. On top of that, the areas where Collins thrives within the arc are the exact places where Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson need to hang out. I think he’ll make them better, but the Pistons will miss Harris’ undervalued versatility at times.

Modern Monstrosity Mega Trade

The Pistons flipped Caris LeVert and his $14.8 million expiring contract to the Milwaukee Bucks for Taurean Prince and Gary Harris. Technically, all three of the aforementioned moves were part of one mega trade. As such, I’ll list the details as they pertain to the Pistons, so buckle up.

The Pistons traded a protected 2028 2nd-round pick to the Clippers, Isaiah Stewart to Memphis, Marcus Sasser to Dallas, and Caris LeVert and two future seconds to Milwaukee for John Collins, Taurean Prince, Gary Harris, and three 2nd-round picks.

Getting off LeVert’s salary makes a ton of sense. He had fallen down the pecking order, averaging a career-low 19.2 minutes per game, and his notoriously fickle 3-point shooting abandoned him. At 31, he probably wasn’t going to get any better, and the Pistons were -10.4 points per 100 possessions worse with him on the court. Turning his $14.8 million into two guys who make a combined $7.6 million is a move you should make ten times out of ten.

Fortunately, the guys Detroit received aren’t complete stiffs. Prince is a career 38.7% 3-point shooter, and has shot 41.3% from deep over the past four seasons. Harris has had a wild career where he looked like a budding impact starter before completely cratering, before resurrecting his career in Orlando as a reserve guard. He has shot 39.1% from three since 2021-22.

That being said, if Prince or Harris are important to your playoff rotation, you are royally fucked. Prince can shoot and is 6’6, but the man is an abysmal defender. Harris might have resurrected his career in Orlando, but since turning 30, he has faded quickly to the periphery of the rotation. Ideally, neither of them eclipses 20 minutes a game, but they can both put in a shift and hit some threes at the back of the rotation.

On paper, this looks like Detroit upgrading their shooting, but I think this move was all about cutting money. However, if you can cut costs, add a ninth and tenth man to the rotation, and improve your floor spacing a tad, well, that’s not a bad bit of business.

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Say Hello, Joe

Thanks to the Thunder’s need to shed salary, the Pistons were able to land Isaiah Joe for the price of two 2nd-round picks. Joe, unlike Gary Harris and Taurean Prince, will feature prominently in the Pistons’ rotation. He is a career 40.6% 3-point shooter, and over the past four seasons, he has shot 41.5% on 9.9 attempts per 36 minutes. Crucially, only 18.6% of his threes over that span have come from the corners, where he has shot a comical 50.7%.

This is the legitimate floorspacing upgrade the Pistons needed. While I still think Duncan Robinson is a more dangerous floor spacer due to his ability to bomb off movement, Joe is certainly their next most dangerous shooter. With either Cunningham or Robinson on the floor, the Pistons had an offensive rating of at least 118.8 and 124.5 with both on the court. With Joe now in the mix, the Pistons can make sure Cunningham is always flanked by a real floor spacer.

While Joe will certainly bolster the Pistons’ offense, he might eat into their defensive solidity. In Oklahoma City, his defensive limitations were much easier to hide thanks to the Thunder’s never-ending supply of elite defenders, and he saw his minutes per game cut in half the past two postseasons. My guess is he’s a worse defender than we’ve seen, but the Pistons should also be able to cover up for it, just probably not quite as well.

At the end of the day, landing an excellent shooter making $11.3 million with an $11.3 million team option for 2027-28 for the price of two 2nd-round picks is the type of value mining good organizations do. When the Pistons desperately need offense, they can now place two marksmen next to Cunningham to open up the floor.

Red Head Redemption?

Most of the Pistons’ moves, even if I didn’t completely agree with them, I understood. This is not one of those moves. The Pistons re-signed Kevin Huerter to a three-year, $27 million deal, with the third year being a team option for $8.7 million. I’ll say the same thing I said when they traded for him last season: just because he is a white doesn’t mean he can shoot.

From 2018-19 to 2023-24, Heurter shot 38.2% on 5.7 3-point attempts per game. Since then, over 138 games and 716 3-point attempts, he has shot 32.4% from three, and last season he was at 30.8%. For a shooting guard with limited defensive and creation abilities, this is an absurd contract.

If the Pistons had brought him back on the minimum to see if he could recapture his stroke, that’d be one thing. But they guaranteed him $18.2 million over the next two seasons. The man played in five– FIVE!– of their 14 playoff games, totalling 46 minutes. Cade Cunningham eclipsed that in one game.

There isn’t even really the chance that they did some pre-negotiation with him on this deal. They got him as part of the Jaden Ivey trade, which was all about getting off of an insane person and netting a first-round swap to move up in the 2026 draft. Huerter was just in it to grease the wheels and keep the fanbase appeased.

My guess is the Pistons like having Huerter around, have some hope he can recapture his shooting stroke, and decided he was the guy they’d like to use as matching salary. Call me crazy, but personally, I’d rather have Isaiah Stewart.

There’s every chance Huerter starts hitting threes again, but I just don’t see how he’d get anything more than the minimum on the open market. This is one of the more bizarre transactions of the summer, and while it won’t bite them this season, it could be a minor inconvenience come 2027.

Pistons’ Financials and 2026-27 Outlook

The Pistons financial situation is on solid footing, for now. With the Jalen Duren contract still up in the air, and Ausar Thompson’s extension still not hammered out, we just don’t know what their financial future really looks like. However, we can make some assumptions.

First, it’s most likely that Duren ends up with a deal between $41.2 million and $32.9 million, while Thompson will likely start with a first-year salary between $34.8 million and $26.1 million. I didn’t pull those numbers out of thin air; that’s between 25% and 20% of the 2026-27 salary cap for Duren and between 20% and 15% of the projected 2027-28 cap for Thompson. So, let’s split the difference on those figures, throw in your standard eight percent raises, and see where the Pistons, tentatively, project to be.

Alrighty, this upcoming season, the Pistons’ salary situation is under control, but, depending on the extensions for Duren and Thompson, they get expensive quickly. In 2027-28, they have ten players under contract for a total of $195 million. Now, they could easily shave off John Collins’, Duncan Robinson’s, and Isaiah Joe’s money to cut $43.5 million, but that would be a massive outlay of talent, and you’d be at seven players under contract.

Starting in 2027-28, the Pistons are going to be in a perpetual battle with the luxury tax, if not the aprons. While it was great that Cunningham made All-NBA and triggered the super max language in his rookie scale extension, it did add a sizeable amount of money to their books going forward.

This reality makes it imperative for the Pistons to hold the line with both Duren and Thompson. Gone are the days of just auto-maxing your promising young players, and it helps explain why Duren, who is eligible for a 30% maximum contract thanks to a deserved All-NBA selection, remains unsigned.

As for the upcoming season, the Pistons are very unlikely to win 60 games again. That’s not a slight; it’s just basketball reality. The few teams who have done it all have in their prime inner circle Hall of Famers leading the charge, and usually two. Perhaps Cade Cunningham can rise to those lofty standards, but we’re talking about the Birds, Magics, Jordans, Duncans, LeBrons, and Currys of the world.

That being said, the Pistons should once again be quite formidable. They benefited from the worst opponent 3-point shooting in the league last season (34.5%) and probably made their defense a bit worse, but they should still be a top ten unit. Offensively, they certainly added more shooting, which will help, but with Caris LeVert and Tobias Harris’ limited shot creation gone, they’ve become extremely susceptible to a Cunningham injury. Like, seriously, who is their second-best shot creator? Am I crazy to think it’s Daniss Jenkins?

Barring Cunningham missing an extended stretch, the Pistons look like they’ll pair the league’s eighth-best defense with its eighth-best offense. That should net out to around 54 wins in a suddenly very competitive Eastern Conference. There’s definitely some upside here. J.B. Bickerstaff can build a regular-season defense, and Cunningham will have the most room yet to operate. But the Pistons have weakened their defense and built an offense that might be pretty ugly when Cunningham isn’t on the court.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.

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The Los Angeles Lakers have had a busy summer. They let LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, and Marcus Smart all walk in free agency, then traded away Jaxson Hayes and Deandre Ayton. They signed and traded, but not in that order (or maybe, who knows), for Walker Kessler. Then they re-signed Austin Reaves at a massive number, and brought in Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Collin Sexton, and Kevon Looney through free agency.

For most teams, losing five guys who played 60 games would present a massive problem, but when you have Austin Reaves on a sensible cap hold, anything is possible through the power of money.

Walker Texas Laker

To briefly summarize my thoughts on the Walker Kessler trade. If the Lakers had just signed Kessler for four years and $129.5 million, that’d be a solid transaction. Or if they had sent out two first-round picks and two pick swaps to land him on a value contract, that’d also be fine. The problem is they traded all those picks– their last tradable picks for some time– to then sign him to what can charitably be described as a market-rate deal. This is just bad from a process standpoint. You’re willing to pay market rate in free agency because all it costs you is money. Or you shoot picks out the door because the player is on a fantastic contract–think Mikal Bridges. Basically, the Lakers overpaid both in trade and free agency to land a solid center with more question marks than this transaction would suggest. It could work, but the downside is really bad.

Austin Reaves Stays with the Lakers

After being on a value contract for his entire Lakers’ tenure, Reaves has deservedly cashed in. His agreed-upon four-year, $180 million deal will see him take up around 25% of the cap in 2026-27, before a slight drop to 24.68% in 2027-28, and then more standard salaries of 25.31% and 25.83% in the two subsequent seasons. Reaves also has a player option for the fourth season at $49.5 million.

*Reaves’ initial contract was reported at $184.4 million, but further reporting has lowered it to $180 million. The yearly figures are based on $184.4 million, so some of the figures might be marginally off.

Before getting into Reaves’ new deal, it shouldn’t be glossed over how much of a value he has been for the Lakers over the past five and a half seasons. Despite going undrafted, Reaves quickly established himself as a legitimate NBA contributor before blossoming into a true impact player. Reaves was paid a total of $41.4 million over his first five seasons–coincidentally, his 2026-27 salary is $41.2 million– and the Lakers were blessed with 7.5 VORP, or 20.25 WAR. From a pure value standpoint, he was one of the best bargains in the league, and he had one final gift to give. Due to his $13.9 million salary in 2025-26, he only had a $20.9 million cap hold, which allowed the Lakers to spend far more aggressively this offseason.

The $180 million question is if Austin Reaves is worth it? Due to the surrounding talent on the Lakers, Reaves has never had an extended run as a high-volume secondary creator like he will now. That being said, he has improved his OBPM every season of his career, and has been relatively resilient to volume-induced efficiency decay.

While I doubt he’ll be able to maintain a True Shooting percentage 10% greater than league average with a usage that should push 30%, I’m also fairly confident that he can and will keep some distance between the league average. If Reaves is able to shoulder a larger offensive load without falling apart, he’ll easily be worth 25% of the salary cap and should make his first All-Star team.

Defensively, Reaves has always been asked to do too much by the Lakers. He’s not awful on that end, but he’s more in the average range, and could easily be the worst defender on a great unit. Unfortunately, the Lakers have not sufficiently insulated Reaves, and he’ll probably be asked to guard teams’ first or second options far too often. That means he’ll consistently look worse than he is.

The Lakers have committed roughly 25% of their salary cap to Reaves, and that should continue to be money well spent. He was a borderline All-Star last season and will have every opportunity to have a career year in 2026-27. While Reaves is quite old to land his first max contract, that isn’t much concern to the Lakers, for now. They have him locked in for the remainder of his prime at an annual average value that currently ranks 36th in the league. When his player option comes up, things could get dicey, but that’s a problem for a different summer.

Mamu and Grimes

I’m pairing the Lakers’ signing of Quentin Grimes and Sandro Mamukelashvili together for one reason: they signed very similar contracts. Grimes inked a four-year, $60 million deal, while Mamukelashvili agreed to a four-year, $52 million pact. Both contracts have fourth-year player options when Grimes will be 29, and Mamukelashvili will be 30. The pair, combined, will eat up around 15.5% of the Lakers’ cap over the next three seasons, which makes these deals very reasonable, even if they aren’t locked in as starters.

As for the quality of player, Grimes and Mamukelashvili are both solid NBA rotation pieces, but they’re tweeners. Grimes is a shooting guard who really shouldn’t handle the ball too much, and his defense is average, at best. He’s basically a 3-and-D guard, but the “D” part of the equation is a bit lacking, and he has had very sporadic 3-point efficiency over his career. Despite owning a career 36.6% mark from three, over the past four seasons, he has alternated seasons shooting 33% and 38%. If he were wing-sized, his profile would be a lot more enticing, but he fits into the growing group of 3-and-D shooting guards that round out many a roster.

Mamukelashvili is a four-and-a-half, which basically means he’s useless as a defender. At 6’9, he can fake it at center but will provide no rim protection, and while he really should play power forward next to a center, he also can’t defend the perimeter. Obviously, defense isn’t Mamukelashvili’s calling card, but he has consecutive seasons at over 37% from three and has been an incredibly efficient finisher around the basket. His offensive numbers should be very good next to Doncic and Reaves, but I’m a little concerned about these signings.

Grimes and Mamukelashvili are on fine contracts, but they’re offense-leaning players on a roster that should be building defensive solidity around Doncic and Reaves. The whole reason Doncic is a star is that he’ll drag any random group of NBAers to respectability on offense. I don’t hate these contracts, but I have a feeling the Lakers will look back on these deals and wish they had pushed their resources elsewhere.

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One Year* Deals

The Lakers handed out three one-year deals, and another one-plus-one. The most noteworthy being their signing of Collin Sexton for two years and $19 million with a player option in year two. Similarly to the Grimes and Mamukelashvili contracts, this is a perfectly reasonable deal; I’d argue it’s even a plus, but Sexton doesn’t do anything to address their biggest needs and is somewhat redundant with Doncic and Reaves around.

Sexton is a legit scorer. Over the past four seasons, he has averaged 16.9 points per game on a true shooting percentage 5% better than league average. Even though his passing is just fine, that level of volume and scoring efficiency is always valuable. Unfortunately, he’s a tiny, defensively challenged guard. Sexton will probably help the Lakers through the regular season, but I don’t think he’ll have much of a role come the playoffs, because lineups with him, Reaves, and Doncic are just going to hemorrhage points.

This is my favorite of the Lakers one-year pacts. Ziaire Williams isn’t a star; he might not even be more than a seventh man, but to land a 24-year-old, 6‘9 small forward for one-year, $2.4 million is a bet I’ll make every time. After flaming out in Memphis, Williams has had a solid two-season run in Brooklyn. He’s averaged 10.1 points on 34.2% 3-point shooting, and has built up a solid defensive reputation. This might sound crazy, but I think there’s a good chance Williams is closing games over Grimes and Mamukelashvili in the playoffs. He’s a real two-way player, and any step forward on either end should earn him a pretty sizable role.

The one signing the Lakers exclusively made to address their defensive issues was bringing in Matisse Thybulle on a one-year, $3.3 million deal. In 2020-21 and 2021-22, Thybulle made consecutive All-Defensive teams, but he has struggled to stay on the court over the past two seasons. Between 2024-25 and 2025-26, Thybulle has played a combined 45 games, and it remains to be seen how much he even has left. Regardless, this is a good flier for the Lakers to take. They need defense and have more than enough firepower to overcome Thybulle’s pretty stark offensive deficiencies.

The final, thus far, one-year deal the Lakers handed out is almost certainly their most bizarre. The Lakers signed Kevon Looney to a one-year, $3.9 million deal, and he’s currently slated to be their backup center. Looney has had a great career; he was excellent in his role for the Golden State Warriors, but he couldn’t get on the floor for the Pelicans. There’s a pretty good chance that he is cooked as an NBA player, and even if he isn’t, he’s an awful fit for this team. He’s one of the least potent rim runners and doesn’t provide much value as a rim protector. Looney’s unique skillset worked in Golden State because they had Steph Curry on offense and Draymond Green on defense, but the Lakers actually need another traditional center. One year, veteran minimum deals are small potatoes, but this feels like a waste of a roster spot.

Not Ayton in Return

What makes the Lakers lighting a roster spot on fire to acquire Kevon Looney even more perplexing is they had Deandre Ayton on the roster. Ayton is clearly not a starting-caliber player for any serious team, but he’d be a more than serviceable backup, and with how the center market has materialized, $8.1 million for a solid reserve is about market rate.

Instead, the Lakers flipped Ayton to the Wizards for two second-round picks and Jaden Hardy. While this move certainly had some financial motivation, it’s not like Hardy is on a minimum deal, as he’s owed $6 million this season. Frankly, saving $2.1 million to turn Ayton into Hardy and seconds is a ridiculous decision when your only other center is Kevon Looney.

Perhaps the Lakers really like Hardy. The only problem is he’s going to be behind Doncic, Reaves, Sexton, and Grimes. There’s really no defense for turning a center into an undersized combo-guard when you look at the composition of this roster. Chances are the Lakers turn around and use those seconds to acquire a five at some point. Maybe they’ll get someone better than Ayton, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Lakers Outlook and Finances

The Lakers’ financial outlook isn’t onerous in the short term. Their payroll is $198.8 million this season, which is well below the $209 million first apron, and it’ll only bump up to $201.1 million in 2027-28. However, things may start to get complicated starting in 2028-29. First and foremost, Doncic has a player option for 2028-29. Chances are he’ll decline his option and land a 35% max, which would see his salary jump from $57.7 million to $63.9 million. At that point, the Lakers will have $177 million in salary commitments to only six players, but they’d still have Luka Doncic.

In the short term, the only salary the Lakers are likely dying to offload is Jared Vanderbilt’s. He’s making $12.4 million this season and has a $13.3 million player option for 2027-28. His deal won’t put them in too much of a bind if they can’t find a trade partner, but turning his salary into either space or a more useful player is the easiest avenue for the Lakers to improve in the near term.

As for the on-court product, the Lakers’ overhauled roster will probably be about as good as last season’s. Now, that might come with fewer wins because no team outperformed their point differential (+8) more than the Lakers did last season, but for the most part this is, yet again, an above average, but deeply flawed team. The offense needs to be excellent, because they’ll probably see their defense slide well into the bottom third.

If the Lakers can muster a league-average defense, that should be viewed as a massive win, and it’ll probably be enough for them to make a run at 55-wins, should Doncic and Reaves remain relatively healthy. All told, the Lakers got a ton of work done and basically look just as good, although a tad different. If that doesn’t sound like a Beverly Hills makeover, you need a better plastic surgeon.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.

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The Atlanta Hawks are one of the most interesting teams heading into 2026-27. They ended their eight-season partnership with Trae Young midway through 2025-26, and are attempting to reorient their roster around Jalen Johnson on the fly. Their midair course correction has left them with an imperfect roster, but the infrastructure is sound, and they’re quietly building a roster ripe for a star looking to make a splash.

The Hawks appear not to have overindexed on their strong kick to the 2025-26 season, which bodes well for their future. Entering the All-Star break, the Hawks were 26-30 with a -1.3 net rating, but blitzed the bottom of the league to a 20-6 record and +10.3 net rating to finish the season. Of those 20 wins, 11 came against the Nets (x3), Wizards (x2), Bucks (x2), Mavericks (x2), Grizzlies, and Kings. On top of that, they picked up two wins over the Sixers without Joel Embiid or Paul George and beat the Warriors without Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler, or Kristaps Porzingis.

When you add it all up, 14 of their 20 wins came against tanking teams or sides that were seriously depleted. Now, they did beat Detroit (without Cade Cunningham), Boston (without Jayson Tatum), Cleveland (without Donovan Mitchell), Portland (without Deni Avdija), and Orlando twice (without Franz Wagner once, and on a minutes restriction in game two). Needless to say, their mighty-morphin post-All-Star break form came with some significant caveats, and instead of believing their own hype, they’ve continued to build up their roster while maintaining future flexibility.

Before we get into any roster moves, the Hawks’ decision to decline Jonathan Kuminga’s $24.3 million team option is a noteworthy move simply because Kuminga is far more famous than he deserves. At no point has Kuminga been a good player, and his inability to space the floor or consistently defend has left him on the periphery of a rotation. There might be a player there, but the Hawks not paying a premium to find him was a wise decision. Now, onto the moves.

One More for McCollum

The Hawks’ retention of CJ McCollum for one-year, $21 million is a fantastic bit of business. While McCollum’s heroics were seemingly the only thing capable of beating the Knicks in the playoffs, he’s more of a solid veteran than a go-to option at this stage. Fortunately, he and the Hawks are a perfect fit, even if their pairing was simply a result of salary machinations from the Trae Young trade.

The Hawks need shooting, secondary creation, and a guy who can get a shot in the halfcourt– hey, sounds like CJ McCollum–, and McCollum needs defensive insulation– hey, sounds like the Hawks. He’s a great fit next to Jalen Johnson as an off-ball spacer who can shoulder a relatively large creation load, and his and Dyson Daniels’ skill sets cover for each other’s deficiencies. Throw in Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s growth as an elite 3-and-D guard, and the Hawks’ three-man backcourt rotation has everything a modern team needs.

With how well McCollum fits this roster, it’s no surprise that the Hawks were +10.8 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor, and keeping him around on a one-year deal was a no-brainer. When you throw in the fact that he is one of the smartest players in the league, even if his performance falls off a cliff, he’s still a guy you want around. Plus, there’s never a bad time to have $21 million in expiring salary.

Dirty Dorture

While I loved the Hawks keeping McCollum, I’m not quite as sold on their acquisition of Lu Dort from the Oklahoma City Thunder. Dort is a known commodity, both good and bad, at this point. He’s an excellent on-ball defender who haunts the dreams of the league’s lithe wings. On offense, he has shot the 3-ball well enough to punish defenses that ignore him, but his work within the arc is borderline pitiful. And there is the open question of just how good a 3-point shooter he is.

Between 2020-21 and 2022-23, he shot 33.5% from three; then, across 2023-24 and 2024-25, he shot a scorching 40.3%; and in 2025-26, he came crashing back to Earth at 34.4%. Over the past six seasons, he’s right at 36% from three, which is generally the league average, but he has never had a season approaching that figure. Dort’s offensive viability is tied exclusively to his three-ball, and somehow, after seven seasons, we have no idea if he’s a good, bad, or merely okay 3-point shooter.

Dort’s defense is enough to carry his profile and see him play heavy minutes. Every team needs a hound, and Dort is of the Baskervilles breed, but there’s a chance his offense is poor enough to muzzle him in the playoffs.

To acquire Dort and his $18.2 million salary, along with Ryan Nembhard, the Hawks sent the Thunder three second-round picks and shipped Zaccharie Risacher, the first overall pick of the 2024 Draft, to the Dallas Mavericks. While the pick outlay is trivial, giving up Risacher is not. While Risacher isn’t going to live up to his first-overall pick status, he only turned 21 this April and is a living, breathing NBA wing.

The Hawks have more intel on Risacher than anyone, but the chances that he’s better than Dort in a year or two are not insignificant. There’s also the reality that if Risacher were to show real improvement in year three, his trade value could help them land a star. At the end of the day, I think the Hawks sold very low on Risacher. They functionally traded him for Ryan Nembhard, which is an insane sentence to write.

As for Nembhard, he is an incredibly small guard (5’11) who you can trust to run an offense. Ideally, he’s your third point guard, but he’s definitely worthy of an NBA role and should help the Hawks backcourt rotation, which was short a true point guard.

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Wiggin In

The Hawks were again the beneficiaries of the Thunder’s need to shed salary. To land Aaron Wiggins and the three years and $25.9 million left on his deal, all they had to do was send the Thunder two second-round picks. When you factor in that the third year is a team option, this is one of the better contracts in the league.

Wiggins is a one-trick pony. He’s a shooting guard who can shoot. While that can see him become an afterthought in the playoffs for a team like the Thunder, his floor spacing will have much more room to shine in Atlanta. Over the past four seasons, he has shot 39.2% from three, and I’d expect him to come up from last season’s 35.6% showing.

I doubt Wiggins will start much, but he’s more than capable of filling in for one of Daniels, McCollum, and Alexander-Walker in spot duty. When the Hawks need to go all-in on offense, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s out there next to McCollum, Johnson, and Alexander-Walker bombing threes and playing at a breakneck pace.

Value contracts are worth their weight in gold, and getting one for just two second-round picks is excellent work by the Hawks. Wiggins isn’t a game changer, but he fills an important role and crucially doesn’t make much money.

Jock Jams

My favorite contracts are the human embodiment of a trade exception, and Jock Landale’s one-year $14 million contract to stay with the Hawks is just that. Landale is coming off a solid season where, for the first time, he shot the three-ball well at a decent volume. He converted 38.3% of his threes on 4.6 attempts per 36 minutes, and while the sample is too small to confidently say he’s a stretch-five now, it’s a positive indicator nonetheless. Other than that, Landale is an unremarkable player, but he’s serviceable as a backup, although I’d prefer if he was my third big.

The real value in this deal is his salary, which sounds insane. Landale is undoubtedly overpaid, but since he’s only on a one-year deal, he’ll be easy to flip at the deadline to create a trade exception for future moves, or his salary could be used in a consolidation trade. Every NBA role player deserves one of these contracts, but Landale is just lucky enough to get one. If he finishes the season on the Hawks, then things will have gone terribly right.

Mr.Carter

The Hawks landing Devin Carter and a second-round pick from the Sacramento Kings was a very under-the-radar move. Selected with the 13th pick in the 2024 draft, it’s somewhat surprising that the rebuilding Kings were willing to part with him so soon. Now, there are plenty of players selected at the end of the lottery who don’t amount to much, but paying a team to take on $5.1 million in salary for a guy you just drafted is still a rarity.

For the Hawks, hey, if you have the cap space, why not take a second-round pick and a flier on a player who could maybe give you some minutes? Carter hasn’t been good by any stretch of the imagination, but the Hawks just need him to be worth the 15th roster spot. His inability to shoot the three might doom him, but the Kings were +3.1 points per 100 possessions better with him on the court the past two seasons. If he gives them anything resembling solid back-of-the-rotation minutes, then it’ll be a nice little victory on the margins. If not, who cares? You got a second-round pick in a salary dump.

The Books and Season Outlook

In this new second-apron era, team books have never been more important, and the Hawks are well-positioned to be free-agent and/or trade players. The Hawks have $221.3 million in salary commitments this season, but that figure falls to $143.1 million in 2027-28 with 12 players under contract. With the salary cap projected to be at $174 million in the summer of 2027, the Hawks could easily retain Lu Dort and add a marquee piece to put themselves in the title picture.

As for 2026-27, the Hawks will probably finish with around 46 wins, but that would constitute a massive improvement. The new lottery rules have made shameless tanking less profitable, which means fewer free wins down the stretch. However, I expect the Hawks to enter the All-Star break a few games above .500, as opposed to four games below.

Outside of the obvious injury caveats, the downside for the Hawks is if McCollum really starts to show his age, Daniels continues to be a complete zero as a shooter, and Dort’s true talent from deep is closer to 33% than 36%. However, the Hawks aren’t without upside. Jalen Johnson and Alexander-Walker keep getting better, and they are surrounded by a ton of shooting and defense. That probably doesn’t lead to them crashing the contender party, barring a massive leap from Johnson, but the Hawks are as well-positioned for the present and future as any team in the Eastern Conference.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.

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The connection between the Phoenix Suns and Michigan State is one of those uncomfortably true jokes. Their owner, Mat Ishbia, is a Michigan State alum, and he appears intent on trickle-double-downing on building a Michigan State Sun Conveyor Belt. First, he hired Brian Gregory as his top executive, a former Michigan State assistant coach. Then he hired Jordan Ott, another former Michigan State assistant. And now, he finally landed a former Michigan State player in Miles Bridges. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Ishbia’s white whale is current Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo, who will undoubtedly be brought in as a consultant of some sort once his coaching career concludes.

The Suns trade for Miles Bridges is a head-scratching deal. They sent Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale, and a 2033 unprotected first-round pick to the Charlotte Hornets for Bridges, a 2029 first-round pick, which will be the least favorable between Charlotte, Utah, Cleveland, and Minnesota, and a 2027 second-round pick.

If this sounds like an overpay, that’s because it is. The cost to acquire average rotation players in the final year of their deal has usually come at the cost of a few second-round picks (think Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu), and the Suns fired an unprotected first into the Sun and jettisoned two players who are arguably better than Bridges in the deal for good measure.

Last season, Bridges had a BPM of 1.1, while Allen posted a BPM of 2.1, and O’Neale came in at 0.7. Considering Allen, a career 40.3% 3-point shooter, had his lowest 3-point percentage (34.9%) since his rookie season, there’s a good chance he is more valuable next season than Bridges in the eyes of VORP (Value Over a Replacement Player). And while O’Neale isn’t the same offensive player as Bridges, he has shot 39.2% from three over the past six seasons and has a career 1.4 Defensive BPM, compared to Bridges’ -0.5 DBPM. If you want to gripe with BPM, that’s fine, but Bridges benefited from playing for the better team according to net rating (+5.0 compared to +1.5), which forms the basis of BPM.

While it’d be fair to argue, although I wouldn’t make it, that Bridges is a better individual player than Allen or O’Neale, it’s pretty hard to make the case that you wouldn’t rather have both of them over one Bridge. Now, this trade wasn’t solely about adding Bridges’ talent. One half of it was that the Suns had a gaping hole at power forward– that I guess Bridges solves– and the other half is the financials.

Allen and O’Neale are slated to make a combined $29 million in 2026-27 and $31 million in 2027-28, while the Suns are now just on the hook for Bridges’ $22.8 million in 2026-27. By shaving $6.2 million in salary off their books, they’ll save roughly $20 million in luxury tax payments this season, and their books for 2027-28 will look a lot rosier, but that comes with a massive if.

The “if” here is extending Miles Bridges. When you factor in that the Suns sent their 2033 unprotected first out in the deal, it indicates that they’re interested at some level in keeping him around for the long haul. Allen and, in particular, O’Neale would have been tradable this offseason for any team looking to upgrade their rotation. While they wouldn’t have netted a first-round pick, it’s better to land an underwhelming package of second-rounders to shave salary than blow your last tradable first-round pick for a guy you’re probably going to pay that $31 million to anyway.

The only mitigating factors here are that the Suns have yet to extend Bridges and they did land another first-round pick, even if it projects to be outside the lottery. As a rule of thumb, it’s never a good sign when you’ll like a trade a lot more if the team doesn’t extend the guy they just traded for.

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While the Suns’ decision to add Bridges was suspect, their retention of three free agents was a lot better. They brought back Collin Gillespie for four years, $48 million, Jordan Goodwin for three years, $19 million, and Mark Williams for three years, $38 million. The trio are each coming off excellent seasons, and will eat up a combined 17.16% of their projected cap in 2026-27, 17.57% in 2027-28, and 17.97% in 2028-29.

Gillespie produced a 2.5 BPM, which led the team; Williams posted a 2.0 BPM and played 60 games; and Goodwin came in at 1.8. Even if they can’t replicate their sterling 2025-26 seasons, the Suns just need them to be league-average players (0.0 BPM), and they’ll still all be on value contracts. Of particular note, with how much centers have made this offseason, getting Williams’ deal done and dusted was an excellent piece of business.

Their final bit of business, for now, was the free agent signing of Luke Kennard for two years, $12.4 million with a player option for year two. Kennard is an excellent 3-point shooter, which will help offset the losses of Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale, but that’s pretty much all he has to offer. Despite being a career 44.2% 3-point shooter, he’s not a particularly high-volume 3-point shooter, with a career average of 6.7 attempts per 36 minutes. To put that volume in perspective, it would have ranked 65th last season, tied with Miles Bridges and Patrick Williams. Kennard is a solid rotation piece, but pretty much every team has viewed him as surplus to requirements. For about $6 million, that’s fine, but it wouldn’t be a shock if he opts into that second year and the Suns eventually salary dump him.

The Suns, unfortunately, are in purgatory. They’ll be paying Bradley Beal $19.38 million each season through 2029-30 and still owe Devin Booker $224 million over that same span. With the salary cap not projected to rise as quickly as before, they’re locked in financial jail for the foreseeable future and have no pick capital to land a marquee player through the draft or trade.

Throw in the fact that Jalen Green has a $36 million player option for 2027-28, and Dillon Brooks and Bridges looming free agency, and the Suns are either locked into an incredibly expensive and mediocre roster, or they’ll be forced to trade Booker for an underwhelming return. I’m sure last season was incredibly fun for Suns fans, but 45 wins is probably the ceiling for this unit, and that’s not going to change anytime soon.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.

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It’s incredible how fast life can change in the NBA. By the end of the 2022-23 season, Ja Morant had received MVP votes in consecutive seasons, made the All-NBA second team in 2021-22, led the Memphis Grizzlies to consecutive 50-win seasons, winning a combined 107 regular-season games, and was still only 23. Flanked by Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr., the Grizzlies and Morant looked poised to be “fine in the West” for at least another half-decade. In the three seasons since, the Grizzlies have won a combined 98 games, and each of their big three has been traded.

Without doubt, some intrepid reporter is already working to chronicle this collapse, but the root cause, the rot that festered, was the precipitous decline of Ja Morant. His decline from being one of the league’s brightest stars to one of its saddest stories borders on a Shakespearean tragedy. The only question is which Act we’re in, and if redemption is in the script.

The Portland Trail Blazers sent Jerami Grant and Kris Murray to the Memphis Grizzlies for Ja Morant. That’s right. No draft picks, no swaps, just one bad contract and a player hanging onto his NBA life by a thread for a soon to be 27 year old who made an All-NBA team three seasons ago. The only real way to analyse this trade is to ask, “Can Morant rekindle any of the fire that made him a shooting star?”

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First and foremost, Morant needs to stay relatively healthy. Even at his best, he has never been particularly durable. His games played peaked in his rookie season at 67– accounting for 91.78% of the Grizzlies’ 73 games– and it has been all downhill since.

However, even if the Blazers can get Morant healthy, they still need to get him back to his old self because his ability has declined as much as his availability.

Calling Ja Morant a one-trick pony is not completely fair, but everything he does flows from one weird trick– rim pressure. Morant, for his career, has shot 31.1% on 3-pointers, 34.5% on long-twos, and 43.1% on mid-range jumpers ten to sixteen feet from the basket. Seeing as those are all well below average, Morant is not what you’d call a jumpshooter, but at his best, it didn’t matter.

In 2021-22 and 2022-23, Morant posted Offensive BPMs of 6.2 and 5.2 thanks to his ability to get to the rim, finish, and spray the ball out to shooters. The two’s athletic and shot profiles might differ, but he and Trae Young were playing roughly the same game. Low efficiency from the field offset by tons of free throws, with the real value coming from playmaking.

Last season was undoubtedly a low point for Morant. He saw the bottom fall out on his efficiency, and continued to see his turnover percentage spike to 16%, the highest since his rookie season (17.4%), and a far cry from the 12.5% he averaged between 2021-22 and 2023-24.

The smoking gun of his decline is almost certainly his diminished ability to generate buckets right at the rim. Not only has he seen his frequency of shots right at the basket decline, but his efficiency has fallen off as well.

This isn’t rigorous analysis, but the linear correlation between his OBPM and field goals zero to three feet from the basket per game is 0.81. The concern for the Blazers is that Morant’s ability to get to the basket has been trending down his whole career. That’s very normal for guards, but it does present the possibility that Morant, barring a massive shooting improvement, is already done as an All-Star-caliber player.

For all the concerns I have over Morant’s ability to recapture his best form, I have even more concerns over what the actual fuck the Trail Blazers are thinking. In a vacuum, the Blazers turning Jerami Grant’s bad contract into Ja Morant is a sensible decision. Sure, Morant is going to make roughly $8 million more each of the next two seasons, but that’s a fine price to pay to maybe catch lightning in a bottle, instead of knowing you have a hot bottle of piss in the backseat of your car.

The part that I do not understand is how the Blazers expect to get the best out of Morant with their current roster construction, and how they expect to find minutes for four point guards. Due to Morant’s injury issues and general decline, the best environment for him to recapture his mojo would be in a wide-open, spaced-out attack with an excellent rim-running threat. The Blazers sort of have the rim-running threat in Donovan Clingan and Robert Williams III, but they absolutely do not have the shooting.

The Trail Blazers finished the 2025-26 season 28th in 3-point shooting at 34.3% and just traded away Jerami Grant and his 6.1 3-point attempts on 38.9% shooting. Yes, they will be getting Damian Lillard back, but Damian Lillard is a small, defensively challenged point guard that you’d have to be insane to play next to Ja Morant. Did I mention Jrue Holiday is on the team? How about former third overall pick Scoot Henderson? And that doesn’t even take into account that their best player is Deni Avdija, a downhill driver and distributor from the wing.

The Trail Blazers now have four point guards who all expect to play significant minutes, and even if you think Holiday and Henderson can play off the ball, I just don’t see the upside for this. Unless the Blazers really believe Henderson is a lost cause, it would have made way more sense to finally see what they have in him, instead of throwing yet another veteran roadblock.

The Blazers’ decision-making has had no overarching organizational strategy to it for the past few seasons. Some moves seem future-focused. Others seem like they’re win-now. Now, they’re taking on a reclamation project. What’s next? Trading for Zach LaVine? Maybe I’ll be wrong, and getting Morant basically cost nothing, but I just don’t see the upside.

The Memphis Grizzlies side of this equation probably stings for the fans, but as I laid out, Morant has not been good and was owed $42.1 million and $44.8 million the next two seasons. I’ve intentionally stayed away from the off-court stuff, but I would have traded him the second his friends threatened Pacers’ staffers by shining a laser pointer at them from a car.

Fortunately, the Grizzlies already have a new franchise player in Cameron Boozer, have tons of picks coming in from the Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson trades, and now have relatively pristine books to take on teams’ bad salaries going forward. It feels impossible how quickly the Grizzlies went from having the brightest future in the league to seeing it all fall apart, but they’re already well on their way to a successful rebuild. Life comes at you fast.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.

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On the heels of a 46-36 season, the Toronto Raptors weren’t satisfied with just a nice little playoff fling. Despite Scottie Barnes continued growth, the Raptors appeared capped as a good but not great team. To remedy the NBA’s most dreaded situationship, they hit up the one that got away to hopefully claw their way back to the top.

The Raptors traded Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, unprotected first-round picks in 2031 and 2033, a 2027 first-round pick swap, and two second-round picks (2030 & 2033) to the Los Angeles Clippers for one Kawhi Leonard. For a player who just turned 35 and has one year left on their deal, that sounds like a massive package, but that’s just the going rate for one guaranteed season of elite production.

Starting with Leonard, not enough has been made over what an absurd upgrade this is for Toronto. I had Leonard fifth on my Above the Break MVP ballot, and based on the advanced metrics, no one else should have even been considered for the fifth spot. He’s one of the great players of the 21st century, and by many measures, is coming off the best offensive season of his career. He set new career highs in points per game (27.9), True shooting (62.9%), 3-point attempt rate (.354), usage (33.5%), Offensive Box Plus/Minus (7.4), and On/Off net rating (+14.5).

For as great as Leonard was, it’s not like he doesn’t come without risk. He’s 35 and hasn’t played more than 70 games since 2016-17. His 12.8% field goal attempt rate zero to three feet from the basket was the lowest of his career and has been steadily trending down. None of this means Leonard is a ticking time bomb from a production standpoint, but we should probably expect him to have an OBPM around 5.0, which would still leave him a top ten offensive player, just not in the top five.

However, even 50 games of a slightly diminished Leonard is far more valuable than 70 games of Brandon Ingram. To put it politely, Ingram is the definition of empty calories. He scores his 20 points a game at about league-average efficiency, takes far fewer threes than you would like, doesn’t create much off the bounce, plays lackadaisical defense, and turns too many possessions into 2001: The Art of the Contested Mid-Range Jumper. The end result is a player who has produced a 1.7 OBPM over the past five seasons and an On/Off net rating of -0.3, but that obscures a worrying trend.

Ingram has been trending down since his early-to-mid 20s, and simply getting off his contract a year early would have been justifiable. It’s not that he’s a bad player, per se; it’s that he’s owed $40 million next season with a $41.9 million player option for 2027-28 to be relatively mediocre. Leonard might be making $50 million next season, but the gap between his and Ingram’s production is worth far more than $10 million.

Now, the trade wasn’t a simple one-for-one swap. Gradey Dick has the label, “former lottery pick,” but NBA history is littered with 13th overall picks who never amounted to much. When a former lottery pick largely falls out of a team’s rotation in their third season, that’s generally not a good sign. He could certainly revitalize his career in Los Angeles, but he was unlikely to land a rookie-scale extension, which tells you everything you need to know.

The real cost for Toronto was the draft picks. Flipping 2031 and 2033 unprotected first-round picks in 2026 for a 35-year-old with an injury history as long as Hammurabi’s code is about as all-in as you can be. For reference, the 2031 draft will follow Leonard’s age-39 season. The 2027 first-round swap is mostly window dressing as it’s highly unlikely that the Clippers have a better record than the Raptors this upcoming season, and second-round picks are like the mints restaurants leave a bowl of at the greeting stand.

The best recent comparison for the Leonard deal is last summer’s Kevin Durant trade. Durant was entering his age-37 season, had one year left on his deal, and cost the Rockets the 10th pick in the 2025 draft, Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, and five second-round picks. While the Suns landed less first-round capital, knowing you’re getting the tenth pick is far more valuable than hoping you get the tenth pick five years from now.

Regardless, I love this move by the Raptors. They used two first-round picks to make a massive upgrade, and their financial future also improved. They’re going for it, and while it probably won’t result in a title as it did in 2019, lightning, contrary to popular belief, can strike twice.

The Clippers have continued to remodel their team, and I have to say, I like what they’re doing. The franchise will never live down the Paul George trade, but they nailed not extending him on a max contract, killed the James Harden and Ivica Zubac trades, and have now turned Kawhi Leonard’s expiring contract into Brandon Ingram and two unprotected first-round picks.

Ingram isn’t a particularly good player, but he’s perfect for a team aiming to make the middle. He can soak up offensive possessions, keep your offense from bottoming out, and give your fans an unironic All-Star vote. Most importantly, he’s making $40 million this season and has a $41.9 million player option. If he opts in, he’s excellent salary ballast in a star trade, and if he reworks his deal to lower his annual average value, he might suddenly be on a desirable contract.

While I doubt the 2026-27 Clippers will make the playoffs, they have a shot to challenge for a play-in spot. Darius Garland, when healthy, is a borderline All-Star, Ingram is solid, and Ty Lue is one of the better coaches in the league at getting the most out of a hodgepodge roster. However, the Clippers went from having a bleak future to at least a salvageable one.

As of today, the only players the Clippers have under contract for 2027-28 are Garland, Isaiah Jackson, Yanic Konan Niederhauser, Cam Christie, and Keaton Wagler. That’ll likely change, but their long-term books are remarkably clean, and they’ve gone from an incredibly veteran roster to a relatively young one.

There’s still a ton of work to build another contender, but they’re remarkably unencumbered and now have actual draft assets, young players, and movable contracts. With Los Angeles’ drawing power in free agency, Steve Ballmer’s stacks on stacks on stacks, and real flexibility and assets, the Clippers are once again primed to microwave a contender. It didn’t work out as they hoped the first time, but lightning can strike twice.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.

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The Lakers finally found their once and future center, but one can’t help but feel that this is more Moby Dick than Arthurian legend. To land Walker Kessler, a restricted free agent, the Lakers had to pay top dollar for his services and then convince the Utah Jazz they could live without him. All told, it took the Lakers dishing out a four-year, $130 million contract and then sending the Jazz unprotected first-round picks in 2031 and 2033 and first-round pick swaps in 2028 and 2030. While the contract isn’t an absurd overpay, although one could make that claim, the sheer volume and quality of assets make this one of the more puzzling moves of the offseason.

Walker Kessler excels at your quintessential center work, but he doesn’t really possess any additional layers to his game. Listed at 7’2, he puts his massive frame to good use by being a deterrent at the rim, finishing with elite efficiency, and dominating on the boards, particularly on the offensive glass. Everything he does is incredibly valuable, but it’s not hard to find players with the same skillset for a fraction of the price.

Assuming his deal contains eight percent raises, Kessler’s $30.2 million salary will see him be the tenth highest-paid center next season. For comparison, he’ll be making more than Jarrett Allen ($28M), Isaiah Hartenstein ($25M), and Ivica Zubac ($20.3M). Now, Kessler won’t turn 25 until later this month, but the Lakers are banking on him to perform like a top-ten-ish center for the duration of his contract. That’s not impossible, but it’s hard to parse out just how much upside he has left.

Kessler’s on/off impact was at its best in his rookie season, when he had a +7.72 on/off net rating swing and improved the Jazz’s defense by 4.14 points per 100 possessions. In the two subsequent seasons, the Jazz were only slightly better with Kessler, but the overall quality of the team was greatly diminished. Of particular note is how his ability to impact opponent 2-point efficiency has waned.

I wouldn’t point to these figures as a smoking gun, but it’s another layer of uncertainty, and that’s before we get to his health. As I’m sure you noticed, this chart doesn’t include the 2025-26 season, which is because Kessler only played five games before his season ended due to labrum surgery.

For a non-shooting big, a labrum injury isn’t career-altering, but he has played fewer games in every season of his career, going from 72 to 64 to 58 to five. The Lakers nixed a similar Mark Williams trade with the Hornets due to injury concerns, and while the nature of Williams’ injuries was more concerning, he has missed 60 games over the past two seasons to Kessler’s 101. I’m not suggesting that Kessler is more of an injury concern than Williams going forward, but if games played is the best predictor of games played, there has to be some level of concern over his durability.

While it’s fair to question if Kessler is worth four years, $130 million, with a player option, that’s not really the perplexing part of this pact. The Lakers shooting their last two unprotected picks and two swaps to land him simply boggles the mind.

It’s not a one-to-one situation, but the Indiana Pacers trade for Ivica Zubac offers a relatively solid comparison. The Pacers sent the Clippers a 2026 first-round pick that would convey between five and nine or become a 2031 unprotected first, a 2029 unprotected first, a 2028 second-round pick, Bennedict Mathurin, and Isaiah Jackson.

The overall draft pick compensation for Zubac and Kessler was quite similar, but there are a few key differences. First, Zubac had already established himself as a better player than Kessler and was coming off a season where he finished sixth in Defensive Player of the Year voting. Second, Zubac is one of the more durable centers in the league. Since 2018-19, Zubac has missed a total of 85 games, compared to Kessler missing 129 over the past four years. And third, he’s slated to make $10 million less than Kessler in 2026-27 and 2027-28.

It’s reasonable to project Kessler as the superior player to Zubac going forward, but it’s certainly not a given, and he’ll have to be significantly better to overcome the salary gap. In my estimation, the Lakers overpaid the Jazz to overpay Kessler, which is just bizarre to land a player with a relatively common skill set.

The final bit of this deal that makes me wonder what the Lakers were thinking is the constraints it places on them going forward. The Lakers owe first-round picks in 2027, 2029, 2031, and 2033, along with swaps in 2028 and 2030. Due to the Stepien Rule, the Lakers have no tradable first-round picks and will have to wait two entire seasons for their 2035 pick to become available to trade.

When you add it all up, the Lakers paid out the ass to land Walker Kessler. Upgrading the center position was a clear and obvious priority, but the lengths they went to secure their white whale are borderline reckless. It’d be one thing to overpay a free agent, or pay a premium in trade, or to shoot all of your pick capital on one player, but they did all three just for Walker Kessler, a good but not great player.

The Lakers are betting heavily on Walker Kessler being an All-Defensive team-level center, elite lob threat, and dominant rebounder. It’s not the worst bet I’ve seen a franchise make, but they paid a premium to take on a lot of risk. If it pays off, they’ll be lauded, but the chances this transaction hamstrings them for the next half-decade are higher than it being what pushes them into the title picture.

By the way, the Utah Jazz were involved in this deal. Guess what, ten out of ten, no notes. The Jazz got two unprotected firsts and two swaps for a player that they could only retain if they overpaid. Do they have a gaping hole at center right now? Absolutely, but you don’t need much more than rebounding and screen-setting center, the cheapest traits to acquire, when you have Jaren Jackson Jr looming on the weakside.

Speaking of Jaren Jackson Jr, if you combine the Jackson and Kessler trades, the Jazz functionally turned Kessler, Taylor Hendricks, Walter Clayton Jr, Kyle Anderson, Georges Niang, and a first-round pick into Jackson and two first-round swaps. That’s excellent business, and the Jazz are set up to compete both in the short term and have some pretty tantalizing long-term upside.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.

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