Kristaps Porzingis ended up in Boston after a particularly strange NBA career. While he entered the league as one of the most exciting European prospects in recent memory — a gigantic, skilled big man who could stretch the floor and protect the rim — his tenure with the New York Knicks was filled with ups and downs before he was traded to the Dallas Mavericks, and signed a big extension. Things just flat out didn’t work out in Dallas, though, so he was salary dumped to the Washington Wizards, where he spent a year and a half rehabbing his career before joining the Boston Celtics in a deal where Boston netted two first-round picks, too.
Sometimes, NBA players follow weird paths to get to the mountaintop. Porzingis is one of the best examples of this — he started off on some truly awful Knicks teams, then his fit on the Mavs wasn’t nearly as smooth as it seemed. In Boston, he got put into a perfect role, one which accentuated what he does well.
The Celtics are not the first championship team to find a guy like that — another really good example of this, funny enough, came with last year’s champs, as the Denver Nuggets saw that Aaron Gordon was overextended as the guy in Orlando put him into a perfect role alongside Nikola Jokic. The NBA has had plenty of champions like this over the years, as identifying guys who are not in the right role and giving them a chance to play that role on their team can help get them over the top.
With the NBA’s free agency period beginning soon, we tried to identify guys who could stand to benefit from a smaller role on a team that would let them lean into what they do well.
Mikal Bridges
There may not have been a more miscast guy in the NBA than Bridges, who is a spectacular player that was overextended as the main guy in Brooklyn. It was especially hard to watch because we’ve seen what happens when Bridges is in a role that leans into the stuff he does well: catch-and-shoot threes, some occasional self-creation and playmaking for others, switchy perimeter defense where his length is used as an asset.
He was great for the Nets after the Phoenix Suns traded him for Kevin Durant, then did not look like the same guy this past season, which is ok. Now he’s on the Knicks, who traded five first round picks to complete their Villanova collection, in what appears to be an ideal fit for him to slide back into that role that made him such a valued player around the league. While the rest of the players on this list are waiting to find a potential new home, Bridges has that across the river in Manhattan where he’ll join Jalen Brunson, Julius Randle, OG Anunoby, and the rest to form what they hope will be a dominant force in the Eastern Conference. New York is hoping less is more for Bridges (similar to how Anunoby thrived last year after his arrival from Toronto), and they’re happy to pay to have guys that can thrive in a defined space rather than asking them to do more than they’ve shown to be comfortable doing.
Zach LaVine
By all accounts, LaVine’s stock is as low as ever right now. Between the insane amount of money he’s owed on his deal and his injury history, all the reports about the Bulls trying very hard to find a deal for him and coming up short make a ton of sense. He’s not a bad player by any stretch of the imagination, but last year was such a lost season for him that it’s understandable why teams would be leery of acquiring him. And with Alex Caruso now in Oklahoma City, one of the best pieces the Bulls had to sweeten the pot in a LaVine deal is now gone.
It is fair to say that LaVine as the guy your offense is built around just can’t happen anymore — even when he is 100 percent, his inability to consistently set up his teammates makes this a non-starter, while his defense is always going to be a weakness. Still, he’s such a dynamic scorer when he’s healthy that it’s not hard to imagine him doing well if he ends up as a second or third option on the right team — putting him on a team like Philadelphia, where everything will run through Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid on offense and the big man can clean up his mistakes on defense, would be reasonable, if they’d want to take on his salary.
Brandon Ingram
Kind of similar to LaVine — I think it’s pretty safe to say that Ingram as a No. 1 option, or Ingram as a 1A alongside Zion Williamson, is just not a winning formula at the highest level. Sure, New Orleans can (and will) win a bunch of games in the regular season, but we’ve seen that this group has a pretty apparent ceiling on it, and if the decision gets made to build entirely around Williamson and their collection of talented, two-way wings, suddenly Ingram doesn’t fit especially well, and would give them a trade chip as they build out their roster.
Still, as a scorer, Ingram would bring value to a team that needs a shot in the arm on offense, especially if they’re able to take advantage of his feel as a playmaker and can hide his deficiencies as a defendere. It’s a delicate balance to figure out, because you don’t want to over-correct for your need to get better on offense by really hurting your defense, but if you can strike that balance, Ingram is a good option — especially if he won’t get checked by an opposing team’s best perimeter defender, as he showed that guys like Lu Dort can really give him trouble this postseason. That hypothetical with the Sixers and LaVine makes sense here, too.
Jerami Grant
It’s been quite the journey for Grant. Going from a second-round pick who grinded away on the Process Sixers to a guy who has made nine figures in his basketball career and has a lot of money coming his way is legitimately very impressive. He also hasn’t played for a team that has won more than 33 games since his 1-year pit stop with the Denver Nuggets back in 2019-20. And while he’s owed a lot of money over the next three years (or four, if he opts into his player option in 2027-28), it’s more palatable considering how the cap will go up in that time.
Grant is a good player who has shouldered a ton of responsibility in Detroit and Portland over the last few years, and while that responsibility has turned him into a better player and got him a monster payday last offseason, he’d be a very smart acquisition for a team that wants to try someone in the Aaron Gordon archetype. Gordon is a more athletic and versatile defender, while Grant is a better shooter. For a team that can use reinforcements on the wing and a little more shooting out of their third option, Grant would be one heck of a pickup.
Kyle Kuzma
If a team is going to bet against the Wizards again, Kuzma seems like a pretty good guy for that. It’d make sense if they want to move him — Kuzma turns 29 in July, his contract descends each of the next three years, and he only has about $65 million left owed to him over that time. Maybe he likes life in D.C. and the team values him as a veteran who has won a ring, but he’s like Grant in that he’s grown to a point where he’s a good player asked to do a lot on a team that doesn’t win a bunch of games. In a sign of how ridiculously gigantic his role was on his team, Kuzma took the sixth most field goal attempts per 36 minutes in the NBA last season — only Luka Doncic, Jalen Brunson, Steph Curry, De’Aaron Fox, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander took more.
Kuzma was a little better than he got credit for on the Lakers’ championship winning team — he embraced a role off the bench after putting up big numbers on bad teams to start his career, and while he probably won’t want to end up in a situation where he takes that small of a role, he’d be a nice third or fourth starter on a team that wants someone who can score a little and guard bigger wings. Like Grant, he’s not the same player archetype as Gordon, but in the right context he could be a very good 4-man for a contender.
Lauri Markkanen
The way Markkanen’s career has gone draws some parallels to Porzingis — a nice player who didn’t quite work out for the team that drafted him, a stop elsewhere before going to the team where he’s really blossomed. Would Utah actually want to trade him, or would the team view him as an important piece for whatever they are building around some of their younger dudes and whomever they bring in going forward? An important piece of the puzzle here: Markkanen is on an expiring deal, and he only makes $18 million before he hits unrestricted free agency next summer.
He’s been a very good player in Utah, earning an All-Star bid two seasons ago, but if there is one executive who you have to think would make a deal if the right one comes along, it’s Danny Ainge. Markkanen’s flaws defensively and as someone who doesn’t really create shots for others mean it’s hard to see him being the best player on a championship team, but his size, shooting, and rebounding mean it’s very easy to see him being a member of one. It’s hard to imagine a team with championship aspirations that he couldn’t help, particularly if they already have a really good core in place that he can help take to another level — I love the thought of him being the guy Oklahoma City cashes in some of its trade chips to acquire as a running mate for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
