Dallas Mavericks
The Mavs may not have made a lot of moves this summer but they did make the tallest. Dallas signed 7’3, 290 lbs center Boban Marjanovic to a 2 year deal, in an attempt to add some much needed size that 7’3, 240 lbs Kristaps Porzingis was not providing. Dallas also signed Seth Curry again after his short stint with Portland. The rest of the Mavs offseason revolved around their apparent dream of becoming the whitest team in the league as they re-signed Maxi Kleber, Dwight Powell, and Porzingis. There was even a deal in place with Miami that would have had them receiving Goran Dragic to clear space in the Jimmy Butler trade, but it eventually fell through. Nevertheless, the Mavs “Cream Team” lineup of Luka, Kristaps, Boban, Kleber, Powell, JJ Barea, Justin Jackson, and whoever Ryan Broekhoff is will likely compete for the playoffs but come short again. Dallas likely know this though. They have around $32m left in cap space and haven’t used it on anyone, which might indicate that they’re using this year for Porzingis to return from rehabbing and build chemistry with Luka. Expect them to go all in on a big name free agent next summer.
Look for the Mavs to feature Giannis's younger brother Kostas more this year as well
Denver Nuggets
Denver’s priority this summer revolved around keeping their core in tact after an unexpectedly great year. They did this by re-signing Jamal Murray to a 5 year, $170 million max contract. The move is a bit of a gamble as Murray hasn’t quite put it all together yet, though he is only 22 and has showed marked improvement every year. Look for Murray’s unwavering confidence to rise even higher next season after this huge payday. Denver also received Jerami Grant from OKC (who’ve suddenly decided to blow it up?) in exchange for a first round pick. Grant adds even more youth, athleticism, and shooting to the Nuggets, who are already overflowing with all three, and he provides some insurance for Paul Millsap who’s been injury prone since signing with the team. The Nuggets only other moves so far have been letting Isaiah Thomas walk in free agency and picking up Bol Bol in the draft. That’s a tradeoff of about a foot and a half so we’ll just call that a win for Denver. They may have overachieved a bit this past year so it’ll be interesting to see if Denver can keep up with the rest of the West despite not retooling in free agency like so many other teams have.
I could see Grant stealing Millsap's starting spot if he gets injured again. He fits their up-tempo style a lot better.
Golden State Warriors
Here’s a quick little recap of the last 3 weeks for Golden State: Kevin Durant tore his Achilles , Kevon Looney separated his shoulder, they lost the Finals, Klay Thompson, possibly the leagues least injury prone player, tore his ACL, KD left to the Nets, Boogie went to the Lakers, Quinn Cook followed and Andre Iguodala was traded. It was a rough time for Warriors fans as they had to face the inevitable end of their dynasty. NBA fans and media let out years worth of disdain for the team by screaming that they were done, that there was no way they could even make the playoffs after all this. This lasted for about a week until D’angelo Russell was signed to a max contract in a sign and trade that was orchestrated with the help of KD. Warriors fans worst nightmare was over, they finally had four all-stars again. Dubs GM Bob Myers continued to fill roles by signing Willie Cauley-Stein, an athletic center that the team has said will allow them to play more pick and roll, something fans have been awaiting for years. Myers also signed Glenn Robinson, a young 3&D wing, Alec Berks, a tall guard who might see time at the 3, and somehow re-signed Kevon Looney to a 3 year, $15 million dollar contract. Looney easily could have gotten more elsewhere (Iguodala once said that he would be upset if he saw Looney in the locker room next year, implying that he hoped he would get paid by a team who could give him more than GS could. In the end, Iguodala was the one who got dumped for money; life really comes at you fast) especially in today’s NBA when mobile, switchable bigs like him are becoming more of a commodity. With the additions of D’lo and WCS, the Warriors successfully retooled and have gone all in on their offense. They should be able to score on anybody but their defense is a huge question mark. With that in mind, I still don’t see the dubs falling anywhere beneath the 5th seed, especially because I think we'll see this Steph again.
I don't know if D'lo will be having huge games like this very often with Golden State but I think he'll throw WCS plenty of lobs and keep the energy level high like he's always done.
Houston Rockets
For a team that likes to talk a lot, the Rockets have been unusually quiet this offseason. There was a bit of talk early in the summer that Harden and Paul weren’t getting along, that the team was looking to trade Clint Capela, and that Mike D’antoni would be out as Head Coach after this year, but all those rumors were quickly shot down. There’s also been rumors that they’d be interested in trading for Russell Westbrook which sounds very unlikely. Not only would it mean pairing Harden, who had the highest usage percentage (39.6%) in league history with Westbrook, who holds the third highest percentage (32.56%), but it would also mean another team would agree to take on Paul’s behemoth contract. The move just doesn’t make sense. So far all Houston has done this summer is re-sign Austin Rivers, Gerald Green and Danuel House. They may have been pretty quiet this summer but they did what they had to by keeping their team intact. Don’t sleep on the Rockets just because they haven’t signed another big name, they’re still the same team that took the Warriors to 7 games a couple years ago.
That time Skip Bayless fell for a tweet from a parody account about CP3 making Harden cry by saying he had man boobs. He gets paid for this type of hard hitting analysis.
Los Angeles Clippers
After we all laughed about how every star was speculated to be going to LA and how ridiculous those expectations were, Kawhi, Paul George, Anthony Davis, and Demarcus Cousins still all went there in one summer. The Clippers may have even had the best free agency out of any team in the league. Not only did they pick up Kawhi and PG but they were also somehow able to keep Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell. Of course, to do that they had to ship out five future draft picks to OKC, which may seem like a shortsighted move, but if the clips can reach their potential and snag a 1-3 seed in the West, those picks wouldn’t be worth much anyways. This team has some pretty incredible potential. Any lineup fielding Pat Beverley, Kawhi, and Paul George is going to terrorize their opponents on defense and the offense should flow nicely with Doc Rivers running things (he hasn’t had this much talent on his team since he was in Boston and that went pretty well). To sum it all up, the Clippers now have last year's Finals MVP, 3rd place MVP and DPOY, Sixth Man of the Year, 3rd place Sixth Man of the Year, and the Coach of the Year runner-up. That core makes them the title favorites to me.
*Since leaving San Antonio after his season long injury, Kawhi has now played for a Nurse and a Doc. I didn’t know how to fit that in up there but I think it’s important you know that.
The fact that the Clips were able to keep these two together through the trade is something people should be talking more about.
Los Angeles Lakers
This summer the Lakers decided to become the 2017 New Orleans Pelicans by trading for Anthony Davis, re-signing Rajon Rondo, and picking up Demarcus Cousins. Given what little time they had to work with after they held out on any big signings to await Kawhi’s decision, the Lakers actually did shockingly well this summer. I mean, after the first two days of free agency while teams were signing players like mad, the Lakers were left waiting with only 3 players officially on the team. Sure, they signed Jared Dudley early on but that really only took them to like 3 and a half players, still not even a starting lineup. This lasted until day 7 of the free agency period, the morning after the Kawhi news, when the team signed Danny Green and Troy Daniels (great shooters to surround a Lebron/AD pick-and-roll), Alex Caruso and Quinn Cook (okay shooters to surround that duo) Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Demarcus Cousins, and Rajon Rondo (Stevie Wonder level shooters) and Javale McGee (lol). Still, the spacing that LA managed to provide for Lebron and AD should allow them to attack the rim as much as they’d like. We’ll also probably see Lebron drive and kick as much as he did back during his second stint in Cleveland when the Cavs were breaking 3-point records every other night (Kyle Korver is still out there too). If it weren’t for the moves that the team across the hall made, I would have said the Lakers would be the best team in LA next year but they still might contend with the Clippers for the top spot in the West. The Lakers/Clippers rivalry might finally have some legs to it now.
We'll no doubt see a lot of this between Lebron, AD, and Boogie next year. Could also be a good time for AD to improve his passing by kicking it out to shooters off his roll