NBA Teams That Should Start Planning a Full Rebuild
The idea of a full rebuild is about to undergo its own reconstruction.
The lottery odds are changing, disincentivizing deliberate tanking more than ever before. In other words, it's about to make more sense to hang around the middle and hope for the best.
That said, it'll never pay to be aimless. Or sentimental. Or stubborn.
That's why the teams we'll hit here need to mash the reset button, or at least start reaching for it.
For the most part, these aren't the squads already losing on purpose. The Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns, Orlando Magic and Atlanta Hawks have all unabashedly called it quits this year, racing toward the bottom in one of the most congested tank-offs in recent memory. We know they're ready to start over.
Tanking is just one element of a rebuild, though. To really get anything done, teams have to do more than lose. They have to make longer-term moves based on an ideologically consistent plan. That's harder, and it's part of why so many clubs get mired in the middle.
These are the ones that need to get unstuck.
Charlotte Hornets
1 of 5
The Charlotte Hornets are among the most rebuild-resistant organizations in the league.
They didn't trade Kemba Walker at the deadline, thus forgoing one of their only real options to remove bad money from their books. That inaction sets the Hornets up to lose their best player to unrestricted free agency in 2019 and it prevented them from getting off one of their many bloated deals.
Nicolas Batum, Dwight Howard, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Marvin Williams—all either marginally or significantly overpaid by today's standards. And the Hornets are stuck with them unless they commit to moving some of their good assets as part of the bargain.
Michael Scotto of the Athletic reported Charlotte looked into moving its first-round pick at the deadline, and the Ringer's Kevin O'Connor revealed it had conversations about dealing rookie Malik Monk. It's possible the Hornets were open to trading assets like those as part of an effort to dump bad salary, but considering what we've seen from them over the last few years, it seems more likely they were angling to make a win-now acquisition for this season's playoff push.
Though Charlotte split with former general manager Rich Cho, it doesn't follow that the organization is plotting a new course—not when Mitch Kupchak is an option to fill the front-office vacancy. And not when Jeff Bower is another, according to Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer.
Kupchak was the guy who paid Kobe Bryant $48.5 million over the last two years of his career, employed Byron Scott and presided over one of the least analytically-inclined organizations around. Bowers, working under Stan Van Gundy with the Detroit Pistons, just agreed to add Blake Griffin's five-year, $173 million contract to the ledger.
Charlotte needs fresh ideas, and it's tough to see how either of those candidates provide them. If nothing changes, the Hornets will head into next season with over $117 million in guaranteed salary and primed to scramble for 41 wins.
That's no fun for anybody.
Detroit Pistons
2 of 5
The Blake Griffin contract is an absolute finance killer. But for the Detroit Pistons, there's something even worse about it.
It's just so perfectly on-brand.
The Pistons love spending on non-superstars. They just can't help themselves. It's a can't-stop-won't-stop situation.
They've gone big on Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson, two players who, even when fully healthy, aren't perennial playoff cornerstones. Griffin is a bit different in that he's got the ceiling to carry a team to the postseason but seems unlikely to reach it with such a long and varied injury history.
There's also his age to consider. Detroit owes Griffin $144 million after this season. In 2021-22, the final year of that deal, the suspect jump-shooter with rapidly diminishing athleticism will be in his age-32 season. Try to guess how that's going to work out.
It's not just the marquee names that hamstring the Pistons. Jon Leuer got $10 million per season on a multiyear deal. Langston Galloway got another $7 million per.
There is no easy way forward for Detroit, but at least as Drummond and Jackson move closer to the ends of their contracts, it'll get easier to trade them. Griffin's, on the other hand, might be the most immobile contract in the league.
Memphis Grizzlies
3 of 5
The Memphis Grizzlies are in the mix to land a top lottery pick, which is a boon for a franchise that cannot attract talent in free agency...without overpaying for it.
Case in point: They wound up with Chandler Parsons on a huge contract almost nobody else would have doled out. They'll pay him $24.1 million next year and $25.1 million the year after, and they'll fork over that cash without the reasonable expectation of even league-average production. If he plays at all.
Mike Conley's season officially ended in January with surgery on his heel, but the man Memphis signed to a $153 million deal in 2016 hadn't played since November. His career as a productive NBA player isn't in straits as dire as Parsons', but it's closer than the Grizzlies would like.
Marc Gasol isn't hurt, but he declined significantly this season by posting the lowest effective field-goal percentage of his career and slipping noticeably on defense. A deserving winner of the 2012-13 Defensive Player of the Year award, Gasol's presence on the court actually conicides with a dip in Memphis' defensive efficiency this season.
That the Grizz haven't shut Gasol down yet suggests they're not fully committed to a restart. The fact that they held onto Tyreke Evans through the deadline is another disappointing signal.
Because the Grizzlies are stuck with so many onerous, albatross contracts, they need their upcoming lottery pick to be a home run. That means more deliberate losing is in order.
If Memphis tanks and then gets lucky in the draft, it can add a high-ceiling talent to next year's roster. From there, the lotto addition can work with Conley and Gasol to chase a playoff berth over the next few seasons before transitioning into a new era.
Despite three of the roughest contract situations in the league, the Grizzlies have hope.
New York Knicks
4 of 5
OK, sure, the New York Knicks are tanking. And they took a flier on Emmanuel Mudiay.
But a full rebuild is about more than losing on purpose and poking around in the bargain bin. It's about a concerted effort that doesn't waver. So while the losses are mounting and Kristaps Porzingis' torn ACL reduces New York to something just a hair better than a G-League team, there are still too many indicators of incongruous planning.
Why are Kyle O'Quinn and Courtney Lee still on the roster? Second-rounders would better serve the Knicks in the future. Surely those were available at the deadline.
And what in the name of Phil Jackson's cloud of smoke happened with Willy Hernangomez? How does a 2016-17 All-Rookie First-Teamer wind up benched and later dealt for a pair of second-rounders? And don't say it's because he was unhappy in his role. That's on the Knicks!
New York should never have given him a reason to want out, particularly in light of his friendship with Porzingis. Nobody's of the opinion that Hernangomez was a future star, but he could have been a cheap, young, useful rotation center.
And even if the signing happened before it was clear New York wasn't going to be competitive this season, there is no excuse for Tim Hardaway Jr.'s deal. That's a deafening siren screaming the Knicks have no idea what kinds of players make sense in their timeline and budget.
It would take a truly special franchise, one completely askew in its planning and totally bereft of clear purpose, to overshadow the Knicks' capricious management.
Sacramento Kings
5 of 5
You might be wondering why we didn't just lump the Sacramento Kings in with the full-on deliberate losers in the intro and be done with them. They're very much in contention to finish with the top lottery odds, they're playing the kids and owner Vivek Ranadive is saying the kinds of things you'd want to hear in a full rebuild.
"The thing we don’t want to do is take short-term measures that hurt us in the long run," he told Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee. "We want to do this right."
All good, yes?
Well, then what was George Hill's tenure all about? Why wasn't the money spent on his contract allocated to a long-view purpose like taking on somebody else's bad deal with assets attached?
Why sign Zach Randolph or Vince Carter last offseason? Why not trust Garrett Temple to be the adult in the locker room? Or, if it was sheer quantity of lead-by-example vets the Kings wanted, why not spend a little less to get them?
For what seems like forever, the Kings have shown flashes of sensible planning, of building patiently. And then, they turn into the living embodiment of "hold my beer!"
There's hope for these guys. But we need to see at least a calendar year of clear, uninterrupted future-oriented thought. Until then, we really can't call this a rebuild.
Stats courtesy of Basketball Reference, Cleaning the Glass or NBA.com unless otherwise specified. Salary info via Basketball Insiders.
