NBA Teams Already Regretting Their 2022 Offseason Moves
It's still early in the 2022-23 NBA season, but try telling that to front offices and fanbases of teams with new additions that aren't living up to expectations.
For those who've actually made financial and emotional investments, buyer's remorse can show up instantly, punting patience out of the room and inviting panic in its place. One rough week from a free-agent acquisitionโor even a bad stretch in a single gameโcan make signings that once felt promising appear doomed.
We won't be quite that hasty, and we'll try to price in the fact that if the 2022-23 season were a single game, we'd barely be more than six minutes into the first quarter. The result is far from final. But it's fair play to say some of these deals aren't looking so good at the moment.
We'll give signees who have yet to see the floor a pass. While availability matters, it's too harsh to judge the value of someone who hasn't played. Trades are off the table as well; big deals like the ones that sent Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell and Dejounte Murray to new addresses come with more generous adjustment periods than a comparatively simpler signing.
Let's run down the offseason signings that should be causing the most indigestion and hand-wringing around the league.
Bradley Beal, Washington Wizards
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Washington Wizards governor Ted Leonsis might be incapable of feeling anything but adoration for Bradley Beal. That would partly explain the fully guaranteed five-year, $251 million contract that the Wizards lavished on the 29-year-old three-time All-Star. Don't forget about that no-trade clause, eitherโthe only one of its kind in the league!
As an aside: If Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic and every other legitimate superstar would get laughed out of the room for requesting something, there's a good chance giving it to a player of Beal's considerably lesser talent is a colossal mistake.
Fans and objective observers have the luxury of clearer thinking than Leonsis and the Wizards demonstrated. None of them can justify the logic of retaining Beal on a deal that large.
A 30-points-per-game scorer twice over, Beal is undoubtedly talented, but he's never led the Wizards beyond the second round of the playoffs. With only one All-NBA nod (third team, for what it's worth) and a true shooting percentage just a hair above league average for his career, he was far from the kind of talent worthy of such a monstrous contract. That's "surround him with average talent, and you're winning at least 50 games" money.
All of that is to say Washington shouldn't already be feeling regret because it should have known long ago that Beal would never live up to his new megadeal. Worse yet, he is playing at a level far below the one he reached in his last handful of healthy seasons.
Beal is shooting the ball well, posting a 61.5 true shooting percentage that would be a career high. But at just 21.6 points per game, the volume required of an offense-first player making an average of $50 million per season over the life of his contract simply isn't there.
Washington is paying Beal like he's a defense-tilting, franchise-elevating game-changer, but he's performing like a high-end support piece. Unsurprisingly, the Wizards are hovering around .500 and are lucky to be even that competent. The Charlotte Hornets and Detroit Pistons are the only teams with worse point differentials in the East.
The good news is that the Wizards have another four years after this one to hope things will turn around. The bad news is that things will not turn around.
Mitchell Robinson, New York Knicks
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It was a bad sign when any rational assessment of the New York Knicks agreeing to a four-year, $60 million contract with Mitchell Robinson had to include some version of "well, at least they also got Isaiah Hartenstein."
Groupthink can take a victory lap on this one. Hartenstein has been as great of a value at $8 million per season as Robinson has been a bust at nearly twice that pay rate.
Robinson is still blocking plenty of shots when he's on the floor, which...cool. But the Knicks defend the rim betterโboth in terms of attempt frequency and accuracyโwith Hartenstein in the game.
Zooming further out, New York's net rating with Robinson on the court dips by 3.4 points per 100 possessions, while Hartenstein's minutes coincide with a positive bump of plus-10.4. Some of that swing could be attributed to forces outside of Robinson's control; the Knicks once again got terrible collective performances from their first unit to start the season, and these on-off numbers are subject to luck, doubly so this early in the year.
Still, it's difficult to ignore the persistence of Robinson's shortcomings. He continues to foul at rates nearly unequaled elsewhere in the NBA, and his inability to help the Knicks close out possessions, long a weak point, has only gotten worse. He's in the 17th percentile in defensive rebound rate at his position.
With a shooting range of "only dunks" that depends entirely on setups and a 42.9 percent hit rate on free throws, it should go without saying that Robinson isn't bringing much to the table offensively. He's averaging only 6.5 points per game.
Nothing we've seen from Robinson this season debunks the notion that he's more than a high-end reserve on a good team. That he's averaging 21.8 minutes per game and is routinely getting outplayed by his backup suggests even that modest expectation is too optimistic. Viewed in tandem with what's become an unassailable roster-building truthโnon-stretchy, non-switchy centers are fungibleโit's just not possible to feel good about the deal New York gave him.
At least the Knicks also got Hartenstein?
Kyle Anderson, Minnesota Timberwolves
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The Minnesota Timberwolves used most of their mid-level exception to sign Kyle Anderson to a two-year, $18 million deal over the summer. In an on-brand development for a player nicknamed Slo-Mo, it's taking a while for Anderson to find his footing.
Supporters could point to Anderson's unbelievable shooting to start the season as a sign of hope. He's at 65.2 percent from the field and 50.0 percent from beyond the three-point line, both of which are by far career highs. But even with percentages that unsustainably inflated, Anderson is playing only 18.4 minutes per game. Plus, those numbers mostly stem from a hot three-game sample, obscuring the rest of a much worse season. More on that in a second.
Anderson has been much better since his return from a back injury, especially so in a pair of starts against the Houston Rockets and New York Knicks. But that's one of the biggest problems. Those contests came with Rudy Gobert out of the lineup, and the early returns indicate those Gobert-less configurations are the only ones that allow Anderson to make an impact.
When Anderson and Gobert share the floor, Minnesota's offensive rating craters, landing in the 12th percentile overall. It's hardly ideal when a team's top offseason signing doesn't work well with its top offseason trade acquisition.
There are certainly larger issues plaguing the T-Wolves. The Athletic's Jon Krawczynski has chronicled a Minnesota team lacking heart all year, and a low point came in a brutal Nov. 7 loss to the Knicks.
"We just play soft, man," Anthony Edwards said afterward, summing things up nicely for a squad whose vibes have been bad from the jump.
Anderson being an ill-fitting piece won't matter if Edwards continues to take plays off, Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns can't find chemistry and D'Angelo Russell's forgetfulness continues to produce 5-on-4 disadvantages. Still, it doesn't seem like Anderson, a hesitant and low-volume shooter whose on-the-margins contributions don't provide the jolt Minnesota needs, was the right MLE target.
Mo Bamba, Orlando Magic
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Mo Bamba is going to be fine. There aren't many out-of-work 7-footers who shoot 35.0 percent from three-point range on decent volume for their careers. There are even fewer of those players in the NBA unemployment ranks who've also posted block rates in the top 10 percent at their position in each of the previous four years.
However, Bamba has become expendable for the Orlando Magic.
Bol Bol's rise from the scrap heap means Bamba is now a third-stringer with room to slide further down the depth chart if Jonathan Isaac ever makes it back onto the floor. That's a steep decline for a player who started 69 games last season and signed a two-year, $20.6 million deal over the summer.
Bamba is down to 14.3 minutes per game, the fewest he's logged since 2019-20, and he's only hitting 29.2 percent of his threes. The rangy big man has played better as the Magic have moved deeper into November, registering double-digit scoring nights against the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks this past week. However, Bol continues to see a much larger share of minutes and starts, and he's generally outperforming Bamba in what should be the latter's areas of expertiseโshooting and shot-blocking.
It's fair to expect some regression from Bol given his draft slide and flirtation with being out of the league entirely over the past three years. But when you lead the league in effective field-goal percentage and clearly bring a more diverse on-ball skill set than almost anyone standing over 7 feet in the league, there's a lot of room to fall while still grading out as a quality rotation player.
Orlando's decision to re-sign Bamba looks even worse in light of its forward depth. Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner seem to be clear cornerstones, and they should be on the floor together as much as possible. Those configurations mean last year's two-big looks with Wendell Carter Jr. and Bamba may never return. Bol's perimeter game and versatility make him a better fit alongside the Magic's top young forwards, and he's making only $2.2 million.
That leaves Bamba as an overpaid end-of-the-bench option unless something significant changes.
JaVale McGee, Dallas Mavericks
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The Dallas Mavericks used their best roster-building tool, the taxpayer mid-level exception, to give JaVale McGee a three-year, $17.2 million contract that came with a promised starting role.
Oops.
McGee is averaging only 9.7 minutes per game despite making seven starts before that promise was apparently renegotiated. Dwight Powell has been in the first unit for two of the Mavs' last three games and has significantly outperformed the guy whom they signed to play ahead of him.
The bar Powell is clearing is low, as McGee is averaging 4.3 points, 3.0 rebounds and 0.4 blocks per game. The 34-year-old also unofficially leads the team in "Luka Donฤiฤ is clearly frustrated with this guy" decisions. It's early, but this isn't a great look.
Neither is this.
On some level, McGee was a sensible signing for the Mavs, who struggled to defend the rim during the 2022 postseason. But it's difficult to justify using the TPMLE on a player whom nobody envisioned closing playoff games at center over the likes of Maxi Kleber, Christian Wood or even Dorian Finney-Smith in super-small lineups. Whatever value McGee might have provided as a paint-defender and rim-roller was never going to offset his limitations as a scorer and defender in space.
The Mavs paid McGee as if they were getting the version who played bit roles for title-winners (and almost never factored into crunch-time lineups) for the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers in his late 20s and early 30s. That isn't who he is anymore, and giving even that version of McGee $17.2 million over three years would have been a stretch.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Accurate through Wednesday, Nov. 10. Salary info via Spotrac.
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