Tomorrow is the first day of August, and that means a lot of NBA players—both old and new—will be going on a much-deserved vacation as they get some final rest before training camps open in the fall. This comes after a number of headline-grabbing moves during the July free agency period, with some teams getting better, and others worse. Today, we’ll just focus on those teams who got better.
While there are still some players who are in limbo right now (e.g. Nikola Pekovic and Greg Oden), most of the player movement has concluded this offseason, with a huge crop of players switching teams and conferences, signing new deals and getting ready to show a new set of fans what their general managers have wrought this summer.
Now is the time to take stock and figure out who won and who lost during after this latest transactional period. Some teams are headed for the lottery, while other lottery teams are gunning for the playoffs. There were others who didn’t make many moves at all—content to bask in the glow of a roster that’s already competing for a title, while there are others who made some significant moves in the hope they’ll get over the final hurdle in their march towards the Larry O’Brien trophy. Here are the 5 most improved NBA teams after the summer of 2013:
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5. Detroit Pistons
We know that Brandon Jennings has taken a bit of beating this summer as teams pretended to look the other way during his restricted free agency, but he’s definitely worth the reported four-year $24 million he signed for before heading to Motown. We also know that Josh Smith‘s four-year $56 million deal had basketball Twitter talking about how only the Darko Milicic pick was worse for GM, Joe Dumars. That’s ridiculous and one of the reasons you have to take all the back-and-forth instant analysis from NBA Twitter at something much less than face value. Maybe people have already forgotten how excited NBA Twitter was about the Clippers advancing in the playoffs last year after they won their first two games against Memphis—at home, no less! We know what happened after that bit of boneheadedness, but no one offered up a “welp, I was dead wrong,” tweet after Memphis decimated Vinny Del Negro’s Chris Paul‘s team.
There are, however, very real issues with this Detroit group’s offensive spacing. You can just read this, and plug in Brandon Jennings for Rajon Rondo. Just consider the fact that Jennings—at least from a percentage perspective on long-range 2-pointers—was significantly worse than Rondo last year. Yeah.
Detroit might be a mess midway through the year, but the Smith signing wasn’t crazy. He was the third best free agent this summer and he was the first or second best player on a Hawks team that just kept making the playoffs even after Joe Johnson sleepwalked to Brooklyn with his asinine contract in tow. The point is that Smith was a good signing by Dumars, even if he ends up dealing him at the trade deadline because Detroit’s paint is getting claustrophobic. Jennings was signed at a discount for three years, and under the tutelage of Chauncey Billups will hopefully see a big change in his decision making. As far as his shooting, hopefully he’ll do better than his new mentor Billup—career 41.6 percent from the field—and the Pistons will be good despite the long 2-pointers Jennings can’t lay off.
Greg Monroe still might get traded this summer, or in February, or next summer, depending on how he teams with Smith at the two forward spots. Andre Drummond appears to be the freak of nature everyone said before the 2012 Draft, but without the character issues that seem to always be wrong (i.e. scouts don’t realize the guy is a head case, or they think he’s a head case when he’s really just been in a bad situation). Let’s not forget that Dumars can also flip the expiring contracts of Charlie Villanueva and Rodney Stuckey if a team like the Jazz comes calling looking to free up money next summer.
Regardless, can you remember caring at all about the Pistons this time last year? No one did, and yet they’re definitely getting DVR’d every night on League Pass, now. This team could challenge for a top 4 seed in the East, or they could fall all the way to the lottery. More likely they’ll be a 7 or 8 seed. But for a team, in a city, that’s not had very much to cheer about, just caring about this team again is a very big win for Dumars.
Keep reading to find out the next four most improved teams this offseason
4. Los Angeles Clippers
Doc Rivers is their biggest acquisition of the summer, but they could have challenged for the No. 1 spot if they’d had the temerity to make an offer for Pekovic or even Chris Kaman, instead of adding even more shooting in their backcourt with J.J. Redick and Jared Dudley as payment for the Eric Bledsoe sweepstakes.
Everyone loves Blake Griffin. He makes fantastic, sort of ironic, commercials that quickly wear out their welcome by the fourth or fifth viewing. It’s the same idea with BG on a basketball court. His mid-range jumper always looks iffy (even if he has worked on it), and his post game is predicated on his leaping ability, which the Zach Randolph‘s of the world will foul during the playoffs before he can even leave the floor. Plus, it’s peculiar that his scoring and rebounding—even over 36-minute averages—has dropped in each of the two years since he won the ROY award in 2011 (conversely, his PER jumped in year two with the addition of Paul, but fell back a bit last season). Blake Griffin, the person, is lovable; Griffin, the basketball player, seems to be treading water.
And finally we come to the biggest obstacle standing in the way of the Clippers making the leap to OKC, HOU, SAS, or even MEM territory: DeAndre Jordan. For such an athletic marvel, Jordan is awful at protecting the rim. According to NBA.com, the Clippers gave up the second highest npoints per possession with Jordan on the court. Only Billups was worse last season. And everybody knows about his free throw woes. Keeping DJ on the court late in games usually had Vinny scrambling to make a substitution for Ryan Hollins and Lamar Odom late in playoff games last year. Did we already mention that NBA Twitter was stoked to see the Clippers advance out of the first round this summer?
But Redick-Dudley-Paul-Jamal Crawford-Blake-DJ-Matt Barnes–Darren Collison–Byron Mullens is as offensively superior a top-9 as you’ll find in the whole league. They will lead the league in scoring, but until DJ figures out back-line rotations, or Blake uses his excess energy to deny everything at the rim, then they’ll again be exposed in the playoffs as a team that can’t get stops. Doc will help the defense—a little—but it was Tom Thibodeau who was the real brainchild behind those staunch Boston defenses. On the plus side, the Clippers finally have a coach who can draw up a play out of a timeout now.
3. Indiana Pacers
Waxing poetic about this team isn’t new for us, but if it weren’t for the monster additions made by the two remaining teams on this list, the Pacers could have had the best offseason of any team in the league.
Remember, they were just one game in Miami away from advancing to the NBA Finals, but the Pacers were busy this offseason. They extended coach Frank Vogel’s contract in January, which was smart. They persuaded Larry Bird to come back to the front office after his year sabbatical; he immediately dumped Tyler Hansbrough (can we call him Hans-bruh now?). They re-signed David West to an solid three-year $36 million deal; besides Hans-bruh, they dropped Sam Young and signed Chris Copeland away from the Knicks and traded for Luis Scola. Then they brought in C.J. Watson to replace the turnover-prone D.J. Augustin as their backup point guard. All these moves did was turn their once-weak bench into one of the deepest in the East, if not, the league.
This is primarily important for next spring/summer. They’re going to have home-court advantage in the playoffs and may even challenge Miami for the top seed in the conference. When you combine the league’s best defense with Hibbert’s growth during last year’s playoffs, the return of Danny Granger, continued maturation of Lance Stephenson, steady-eddy play of George Hill and superstar leap Paul George made in last year’s Conference Finals, you come out with what teams already know: the Pacers are going to be very, very tough to beat in a seven-game series next postseason.
There’s a reason Miami is hoping to land Greg Oden. They have to be able to match-up with perhaps the deepest front-court in the league. The Hoosier state has their first title-contending basketball team since the Dunking Dutchman was prowling the paint.
Keep reading for the surprise ending to our most improved teams this offseason.
2. Houston Rockets
Dwight Howard.
We could probably end it there, but the only reason they weren’t No. 1 on this list stems from their savant GM, Daryl Morey, dealing Thomas Robinson to Portland in order to create cap room for D-12. Omer Asik might also be a little pissed off that the Rockets have ignored his requests to be dealt outta town since he doesn’t relish the thought of returning to the back-up role he had in Chicago with the acquisition of the gassy Howard.
This Rockets team will be a contender in the West, but it’s chances to move into the upper echelons of the league hinge on Howard’s production. If he’s the 17 & 13 guy from last season’s tumultuous time in LA, then the Rockets might have overextended themselves for someone that’s already past his prime. If Howard returns to 2011 levels, we could see James Harden going up against his old OKC teammates in the Western Conference Finals.
They probably would have preferred to deal Jeremy Lin since it’s pretty clear to most people not living in New York City that Lin isn’t as good as Patrick Beverley. There’s also the issue with the run-and-gun style that Howard claimed to loathe in LA, but that Houston came close to perfecting last season. Just pretend this team is like Orlando in 2011, but with an unknown Howard, and with possibly the league’s best shooting guard in James Harden.
They’re going to shoot a lot of three-pointers and they’ll be fun to watch, but whether they can get it done at the end of the season rests with Howard, and Howard alone. Many have claimed he isn’t the type of guy to shoulder the responsibility of an entire franchise (hey Magic fans), but the Rockets will only go as far in the postseason as Howard’s back-line defense and ability to run the pick-and-roll with Harden, brings them.
For Howard’s sake, we hope he’s finally gotten healthy because if he thinks the vitriol stemming from his indecision this summer (and the last one, and the one before that) won’t get amped up a bit if he’s throwing up pedestrian numbers by Christmas this year, than he’s fooling himself. People love a villain, ask LeBron James, and right now Howard’s it.
1. Brooklyn Nets
After trading for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Jason Terry without giving up their ostensible three best players, Deron Williams, Brook Lopez and Joe Johnson, the Nets’ GM Billy King and owner Mikahil Prokhorov went ahead and added insult to injury by signing Andrei Kirilenko to the only contract they could offer under the new CBA. This despite Kirilenko turning down a final year in Minnesota that would have paid him almost double what he’s making in two seasons with Brooklyn.
It was a Cold War summer for Prokhorov and the Nets, and like the arms race of yore, it’s gonna cost them. They’ll be paying over $100 million in salary and a whooping $80-plus in luxury taxes, but what a freakin’ team all that Russian money put together!
Their starting lineup of Williams-Johnson-Pierce-Garnett-Lopez is just about perfect, if a little worn down with age and injury. But even with Pierce and Garnett never crossing the 30-minute plateau during a single game this season, it won’t be that bad because of their bench support. Kirilenko can fill in for Pierce, Shaun Livingston played well in Cleveland last season and can spell D-Will if his ankles flame up again like this past season. Then there’s Jason Terry coming off the bench for the somnambulant Joe Johnson and Reggie Evans/Andray Blatche spelling KG/Lopez. If you’re the Heat, here’s yet another team—and maybe the most dangerous because of their bench—they might have to go through on their way to a possible three-peat.
While what Prokhorov has done this summer flies in the face of everything the new CBA was supposed to combat, you can’t deny the fact he’s going for it. Whether he brings a championship to Brooklyn is now more a matter of chance than lacking the requisite talent (and he said as much after the deal), but they’ve certainly supplanted the Knicks in terms of talent, though probably not popularity.
The Nets are title contenders and while they’ll be playing at a slow pace again next year under rookie head coach, Jason Kidd, they have the weapons to take on Miami, Indiana, San Antonio, Okalahoma City, Chicago, Houston and the rest of the best in the NBA.
Freakin’ Prokhorov.
Honorable Mentions: Cleveland, Golden State, New Orleans, Portland and Dallas.
Which team improved the most this off-season?
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