A Developmental Approach To Rebuilding: Forecasting 2010 For OKC (Pt. 2)

In yesterday’s post about Oklahoma City’s rebuilding plan, we looked at the foundation they’re building around Kevin Durant now and the value of their 2010 cap room.

But even with a solid foundation of young players, the questions that still need to be answered are: 1) what are their needs?; and 2) can they fill them with the cap room they’ve saved? 

Can OKC beat “The Salary Cap Myth” in 2010?

There’s been a lot of anticipation for the 2010 off-season because there will certainly be a lot of talent available for rebuilding teams like OKC—Olympians LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh can all opt out of their contracts thus becoming unrestricted free agents. So with the cap room they will likely have available for the 2010 season, it’s hard not to think that OKC’s future is bright. Unfortunately, that’s not quite true.

The COSELLOUT blog had an excellent analysis of something called “The Salary Cap Myth”. Although fans and NBA front offices often assume that clearing massive amounts of salary cap room is automatically good for a team, history tells us otherwise. The reality is that the odds are generally stacked against teams trying to better themselves through free agency—between the 1997 and 2007 off-seasons, only nine free agents switched team, or less than one per year.

However, some might look at what happened this off-season—Baron Davis, Corey Maggette, and Elton Brand all opting out and changing teams along with Ron Artest being traded—and find reason for hope that they can obtain a free agent. But really, the only team that benefited from being under the cap to start the 2008 off-season was Philadelphia; Golden State and the LA Clippers essentially traded Davis for Maggette after they both opted out—it’s not as though either team planned to have a ton of cap room to pursue another team’s free agent this off-season.

But what makes OKC’s plan unique is that they will probably be looking to fill needs—likely offensive rebounding and inside scoring—through the 2010 free agent extravaganza instead of chasing some elusive savior. It’s also worth keeping in mind that as Durant gets stronger, his place in the NBA will be more at the small forward than shooting guard so they will need to add a shooting guard in the near future.

So given the odds, how realistic is it that OKC can get an impact free agent in 2010 to complement their young core and vault them back into playoff contention?

OKC’s options in 2010

Given their existing young core, what OKC will need right now is probably another play maker to set up Westbrook and Durant plus a post player to give them an inside out game and diversify their offense. There are a number of options available, though I wouldn’t get too excited about the really big names.

Amare Stoudemire, Chris Bosh and Tyson Chandler could be reasonable fits as well, but personally, I don’t see any of them changing teams. Tracy McGrady and LeBron James duplicate a lot of what Durant does and are better at it, so I don’t see eithe

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?