[ESPN] Biggest offseason losers

J.R. · Jul 27, 2010

In the NBA offseason, for every winner there must also be a loser.

I wrote Monday about the six teams that improved themselves the most so far this summer, but now it's time to look at the seamy underside: the teams that find themselves in a tougher position. In several cases, this isn't necessarily of their own doing, but rather from circumstances that were either somewhat or entirely out of their control.

Nonetheless, they're worse off for it, starting with our biggest loser from the summer:

Cleveland Cavaliers

Does anyone else want to hug a Cleveland fan "Good Will Hunting" style and remind them that it's not their fault? LeBron James' impossibly painful exit was made worse by the Cavs' inability to give anyone their money. Houston matched a generous offer sheet to Kyle Lowry, Matt Barnes took half the money to play for the Lakers, and they can't even find a workable sign-and-trade for Shaquille O'Neal.

The only major change so far has been a swap of Delonte West for Ramon Sessions, which means the Cavs are basically the same team that won 61 games a year ago … albeit with one glaring omission. Cleveland still has a huge trade exception and may be able to get something done before opening day, but at best this looks like a borderline playoff team.

Los Angeles Lakers

What, you ask, did the Lakers do wrong? Nothing -- in fact, they shored up the point guard spot with Steve Blake and got a tough gamer for peanuts in Matt Barnes. And, of course, they coaxed Phil Jackson to stay on the bench for one more season.

All that would have made the Lakers overwhelming favorites to repeat as champions next season, except for a little thing that went down in Miami. With the Heat looking like a super team, the Lakers find themselves downgraded to co-favorites at best, through no fault of their own.

Had James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh aligned themselves in any other combination with any other team, that wouldn't be the case. Thus, L.A. lost ground this summer, even though, in narrower terms, it won with the additions of Barnes and Blake.

Los Angeles Clippers

Not a great summer for basketball teams in SoCal. While the Lakers' misfortunes were entirely external, in the case of the Clippers, the offseason has been a full-on disaster. L.A. created enough salary-cap room to sign a big-fish free agent to a maximum contract, and walked away with Ryan Gomes and Randy Foye.

Yeesh. While I appreciate the Clippers' efforts to reconstruct the 2008 Minnesota Timberwolves (they also re-signed Craig Smith; can Greg Buckner and Mark Madsen be far behind?), those two additions do little or nothing to improve their prospects for this season.

L.A. added to its woes with a puzzling coaching hire, selecting the barely adequate Vinny Del Negro over the vastly more qualified Dwane Casey. The Clips have some talent, and if Blake Griffin delivers, they might contend for a playoff spot anyway, but they missed out on a glorious opportunity to rise among the elite in the Western Conference.

Toronto Raptors

Losing Bosh was bad enough, but that wasn't the only thing in Toronto that left us scratching our heads. The whole Matt Barnes saga was jaw-dropping: It appears both Barnes' agent and the Raptors' front office leaked to the media that Barnes would sign a two-year, $9 million deal with the Raptors in a sign-and-trade -- in fact, every major outlet reported it.

Only one problem: The deal wasn't even remotely legal under the salary-cap rules, revealing a shocking ignorance of a very important piece of the business on the part of NBA professionals.

Look, this is pretty basic stuff. I've seen stories suggesting this was some inscrutable piece of salary-cap arcana, and it's just not true. For starters, a sign-and-trade deal has to be at least three years. Has to. That's not a difficult rule to understand. I'm pretty sure all of you got it immediately. That's why every single sign-and-trade deal that any of these guys has ever done has been for at least three years. You'd think they'd at least know from experience. But right there, much energy was spent negotiating a deal that couldn't happen.

Second, Orlando couldn't sign-and-trade Barnes under those terms. He had no Bird rights because he had played only one year on his current contract; the most he could be offered by the Magic this season was about $1.9 million. Again, this isn't some obscure footnote; it comes up every single year because so much of the league's rank and file are on one-year deals.

Finally, Orlando could have re-signed Barnes using its midlevel exception, except that (A) the Magic had already used it, and (B) you can't do a sign-and-trade using the midlevel exception. Toronto couldn't use its midlevel on Barnes either, since it had already been bestowed on Linas Kleiza.

In a nutshell, the deal had to be a sign-and-trade for at least three years, starting at no more than $1.9 million a year, or it couldn't happen. This was obvious to anyone with any knowledge of the salary-cap rules. That it wasn't to the two parties involved is disturbing.

When the Raptors weren't trying to use imaginary exceptions to sign players they couldn't get, they were giving Amir Johnson a five-year, $34 million deal that's among the summer's most questionable. They used their midlevel exception on Kleiza, adding another bad defender to the league's worst defensive team.

Toronto did salvage a Hedo Turkoglu-Leandro Barbosa trade that dumps last year's big mistake, albeit for another guy who can't guard anybody. Unfortunately, an offseason-saving steal of a deal with Charlotte fell through, and they're left with a star-less team that still is the worst defensive squad in basketball.

New Jersey Nets

The Nets had all that cap space, and the new Russian oligarch owner, and they were coming to Brooklyn to make a big splash. Everybody was talking about them. Two months later, they have Billy King as their GM, Travis Outlaw as their big free-agent score and a lot of questions about whether new coach Avery Johnson is really the one calling the shots.

Outgoing GM Rod Thorn called it quits and almost immediately hinted he wouldn't mind working someplace else, a sure sign that Mikhail Prokhorov's regime isn't engendering great morale. It's equally puzzling why Prokhorov didn't push for a change; instead, he allowed the architect of a 12-win team to execute the Nets' draft and free-agent strategy before heading out.

New Jersey did one thing right: All its free-agent dollars went on players age 25 or younger, an admirable piece of restraint from a franchise that realistically is a couple of years away from doing anything noteworthy. In one case in particular (sharpshooter Anthony Morrow), the Nets got unbelievable value. Unfortunately, the deals for Outlaw ($35 million for five years) and Johan Petro (three years, $10 million) are ridiculous.

As a result, there will be no quick fix in New Jersey. The Nets have a decent foundation with Devin Harris, Brook Lopez and rookie Derrick Favors, and they'll at least double their win total, but Prokhorov's arrival as a power player appears to have been wildly overstated.

Minnesota Timberwolves

KAAHHHHNNNN!!! OK, had to get that one out. No, nobody is quite sure what the strategy is under Timberwolves general manager David Kahn.

I'd say they're rebuilding, but their big free-agent pickup was a 30-year-old point guard, and they traded their first-round pick for Martell Webster.

I'd say they're focusing on value contracts, but they just gave Darko Milicic a four-year, $20 million deal.

I'd say they're trying to corner the market on point guards, but the league has about 70 of them and the Wolves can hoard only 15 at any one time.

I'd say they're acquiring players who can thrive in coach Kurt Rambis' triangle system, except they're not -- they keep acquiring small pick-and-roll point guards with iffy outside shots.

I'd say they're building around character and discipline, but they traded for Michael Beasley and Milicic.

I'd say they're focused on opportunistic trades, except that they unloaded their best player for 50 cents on the dollar and repeated the exercise with Ramon Sessions.

The only thing I can confidently say is that they'll be terrible again this year, and probably for several years afterward. The Wolves have a rising star in Kevin Love and a couple of other interesting pieces (keep an eye on Euro import Nikola Pekovic), but it's not clear whether they're coming or going right now. I'm not sure they know, either.
Click to expand...

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insi...y?columnist=hollinger_john&page=losers-100727

Prince · Jul 27, 2010

Lakers? they did nothing..

Der Rabbi · Jul 27, 2010

Obviously the Knicks are the answer ... they squandered 3 or 4 years of assets on Amare. Nice going.

supdudes · Jul 27, 2010

LOl ESPN realllllly hates the Lakers.

TheMacster · Jul 27, 2010

Lol wow, Lakers improve with Barnes and Blake (both under MLE)

and ESPN calls them one of the biggest off-season loser

QdoubleA · Jul 27, 2010

Wth..the Lakers got better and lost nothing of significance, what am I missing?

Qball · Jul 27, 2010

Hell hath no fury like a woma....like Kobe scorned...

daeyeth · Jul 27, 2010

Garbage article since they put in the Lakers and the Nets in there. I'll talk about the Nets since ppl already commented on the Lakers and I agree with them.

How can you call the Nets losers for what they didn't get? That's ridiculous. You could say that about every team in the NBA that didn't get Bosh or LeBron - and ppl would agree that too, which is silly because all three of those teams got better.

A team is only a loser if they got worse and the Nets didn't get worse, they got mildly better.

jchu14 · Jul 27, 2010

The author's point on the Lakers being an off season loser even though they improved is awkward, but sound in my opinion.

Let's say they had a 50% chance of repeating next season if the big 3 in Miami didn't get together. Now with Miami, they only have a 35% chance of winning (Numbers pulled out of my ass). They've effectively become 'worse' in terms of able to win the championship again. It doesn't impact other teams in the league as much because they were not the favorite. The Timberwolves won't be losing any sleep that their chance of winning the championship went from 0.1%to 0.05%.

ryano2009 · Jul 27, 2010

Wow, I would say this is the first negative article about the lakers.

SunsRocketsfan · Jul 27, 2010

wow sometimes you really do get crappy articles ... WTH? if the Lakers are losers because of external factors which they state is Miami got better .. Doesn't that mean every other team outside of Miami is a loser also?

stupid article.. I really dont get why anyone pay's for the insider stuff.. but thanks for all those that keep posting the crap on ESPN insider

BimaThug · Jul 27, 2010

daeyeth said:

Garbage article since they put in the Lakers and the Nets in there. I'll talk about the Nets since ppl already commented on the Lakers and I agree with them.

How can you call the Nets losers for what they didn't get? That's ridiculous. You could say that about every team in the NBA that didn't get Bosh or LeBron - and ppl would agree that too, which is silly because all three of those teams got better.

A team is only a loser if they got worse and the Nets didn't get worse, they got mildly better.
Click to expand...

Not quite.

What if the Nets signed Matt Barnes to a MAX contract? Technically, they would have gotten better. But I think we can all agree that they would be off-season losers. Big time.

YouCompleteMe · Jul 27, 2010

supdudes said:

LOl ESPN realllllly hates the Lakers.
Click to expand...

Not really,
ESPN has highlights of all of their games, the same can't be said about the Rockets.

htownrox1 · Jul 27, 2010

THE KNICKS ARE THE LOSERS!!! MUAHAHAHA!!

dachuda86 · Jul 27, 2010

hsf09 said:

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insi...y?columnist=hollinger_john&page=losers-100727
Click to expand...

T-mac

vcchlw · Jul 27, 2010

TheMacster said:

Lol wow, Lakers improve with Barnes and Blake (both under MLE)

and ESPN calls them one of the biggest off-season loser
Click to expand...

ESPN tries to underrate the Lakers now so that they can jump on the bandwagon in the middle of the season when the Lakers exceed the low expectation.

AroundTheWorld · Jul 27, 2010

BimaThug said:

Not quite.

What if the Nets signed Matt Barnes to a MAX contract? Technically, they would have gotten better. But I think we can all agree that they would be off-season losers. Big time.
Click to expand...

If it was Minnesota, I wouldn't put it past them to do that...

meh · Jul 27, 2010

jchu14 said:

The author's point on the Lakers being an off season loser even though they improved is awkward, but sound in my opinion.

Let's say they had a 50% chance of repeating next season if the big 3 in Miami didn't get together. Now with Miami, they only have a 35% chance of winning (Numbers pulled out of my ass). They've effectively become 'worse' in terms of able to win the championship again. It doesn't impact other teams in the league as much because they were not the favorite. The Timberwolves won't be losing any sleep that their chance of winning the championship went from 0.1%to 0.05%.
Click to expand...

I'm surprised only one poster realized this. Not to mention the fact that with Miami around, the focus on the Lakers by ESPN and other national media would be a lot less.

Kind of stupid of the writer not to dumb down his argument for his audience. There really is no reason for a national writer not to kiss Lakers ass.

goodbug · Jul 28, 2010

Hollinger is a Lakers hater and LeBron ass kisser.
He's predicted Suns would have taken Lakers in 6 and LeBron would have swept Celtics. This was after similar prediction the year before.

This clown is a slave of queen. He's gonna take queen's team every year.

meh said:

I'm surprised only one poster realized this. Not to mention the fact that with Miami around, the focus on the Lakers by ESPN and other national media would be a lot less.

Kind of stupid of the writer not to dumb down his argument for his audience. There really is no reason for a national writer not to kiss Lakers ass.
Click to expand...

melvimbe · Jul 28, 2010

meh said:

I'm surprised only one poster realized this. Not to mention the fact that with Miami around, the focus on the Lakers by ESPN and other national media would be a lot less.

Kind of stupid of the writer not to dumb down his argument for his audience. There really is no reason for a national writer not to kiss Lakers ass.
Click to expand...

Following that logic, why single out the Lakers? If a team losing out because Miami got better, why list every team in the NBA that essentially did nothing? Boston, Orlando, NO, OKC, Phx...

Singling out Lakers either because they are the defending champs, hype, or cuz you just don't like them. I personally think they're doing an excellent job of addressing their weaknesses, although starting PG is still a big hole.

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