NBA Teams That Need a Full Rebuild This Offseason
Calls for NBA teams to enter rebuilding mode almost universally carry negative connotations. And that makes sense. Rebuilds are associated with full-fledged roster teardowns followed by multiple years of relative crumminess.
Let's use this exercise as an opportunity to flip the script.
In some cases, yes, teams are better off going the stripped-down, bare-bones route. They should sell off everyone, or close to it, and look to prioritize draft picks and the development of youngsters.
Other situations are more complicated. Certain teams are stuck in the sub-middle or absolute bottom firmly enough to start completely over, but they also employ a marquee star. This should be treated as optionality. They can look to move their A-lister(s) for future-driven hauls, but they also have the ability to scope out the trade market and see whether turning over the vast majority of the supporting cast is a viable path toward reinvention.
Every team included here will fall under one or both of these umbrellas. Selections will focus on stuck-in-the-mud organizations as opposed to any squad with a crappy record or uncertain outlook. Many of the franchises in the latter department are already in rebuilding mode. We're more interested in the teams aimlessly spinning their wheels in the direction of perma-mediocrity—or worse.
Situations to Monitor
1 of 5
Dallas Mavericks
Sound every alarm in existence if Kyrie Irving leaves Dallas in free agency. The Mavs will still have Luka Dončić no matter what, but the road to championship contention requires a defensive overhaul even with their two offensive stars. Pushing forward with one will necessitate wholesale questions, the first of which is: How long does Dallas have before Dončić grows disenchanted and asks for a change of scenery?
Philadelphia 76ers
Rebuilding will be unavoidable if James Harden (player option) leaves over the summer to reunite with the Houston Rockets. The real question: Would Philly be starting over with Joel Embiid, or would he ask for out?
Toronto Raptors
Acquiring Jakob Poeltl at the trade deadline suggests the Raptors have no plans to rebuild over the offseason. And yet, Gary Trent Jr. (player option), Fred VanVleet (player option) and Poeltl himself are all scheduled to hit free agency. Both OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam, meanwhile, will be extension eligible. Even if Toronto impresses during the play-in and postseason, its future is speeding toward a crossroads without a clear-cut direction.
Charlotte Hornets
2 of 5
Don't let the Charlotte Hornets' bottom-four record fool you. This is not a rebuild or tank job of their own design.
Issues to both of LaMelo Ball's ankles as well as Miles Bridges pleading no contest to a felony domestic violence charge helped send their season into an irreversible tailspin. Ditto for injuries to Cody Martin and spotty availability, again, from Gordon Hayward. The Hornets have been undermanned for most of the year.
That's different from saying they were on the right track at full strength. They weren't. They'd maaaybe crack the play-in tourney if certain things broke differently. In many ways, their descent towards rock bottom is a godsend. It ensures they pick up a top prospect they never would have chased on purpose.
Charlotte's offseason tinkering shouldn't stop there. LaMelo, Mark Williams and this year's pick should be bolted to the floor. Everyone else must be up for grabs. The Hornets aren't stocked with players teams will fork over first-round equity to land, but P.J. Washington sign-and-trade scenarios should take center stage in restricted free agency. They have the salary-matching tools and cap flexibility to grease the wheels of contract dumps sweetened with other assets too. Failing that, they can just look to roll the dice on project prospects who aren't panning out elsewhere.
This is not an area in which Charlotte has previously excelled. Even this past season, it elected to hold onto Kelly Oubre Jr.'s expiring contract instead of parlaying it into a future-focused return. The Hornets did ship out Mason Plumlee and Jalen McDaniels, but those moves generated minimal compensation. They historically haven't figured out—or perhaps been willing to—complete deals that beef up their pick and prospect stores.
There might be an inclination to avoid taking a few steps back this summer. LaMelo is extension-eligible, which Charlotte can use to justify urgency. That's dumb. No player has ever turned down max money coming off his rookie-scale deal. LaMelo isn't about to be the first given his own durability issues this season. The Hornets have time to take a more gradual approach.
Whether they're open to it is a separate matter. Team governor Michael Jordan has generally placed premiums on fringe-playoff chases. But he might be in the process of selling his majority stake. Regardless, he or his successor should be prepared to tackle the next phase of Hornets basketball with more of an open mind. The franchise desperately needs a direction with an end destination that transcends first-round-playoff aspirations.
Chicago Bulls
3 of 5
Congratulations to the Chicago Bulls for showing signs of life post-All-Star break. They are comfortably over .500 during this span, with a top-three defense and 12th-ranked offense. Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan are tearing it up. Nikola Vučević, too. Coby White (complementary offense galore) and Patrick Williams (stout wing defense) look serviceable. The Patrick Beverley-Alex Caruso combination packs a hellacious defensive punch.
The folks over at FiveThirtyEight still give the Bulls a paltry 28 percent chance of making the playoffs. I think it's higher. Which, is great. But that still doesn't say much about their future.
Vooch is entering unrestricted free agency and turns 33 in October. DeRozan remains an offensive god, but he'll be 34 in August and entering the final year of his contract. White is hitting restricted free agency. Williams is extension-eligible. Neither appears to be more than a useful rotation player.
Lonzo Ball's career is in jeopardy after undergoing a cartilage transplant in his left knee. The backup center rotation is bunk. The roster needs more wing players who can launch threes. Ayo Dosunmu (Early Bird restricted) is up a new deal after this season, as well.
For as entertaining as this latest stretch has been, the Bulls are aggressively mediocre. And they don't have a clear path to escaping the middle of the middle. Cap space isn't on the horizon, and their trade-asset stable is unimpressive. This year's first-round obligation to Orlando will convey, but they still have a 2025 pick headed to San Antonio (top-10 protection).
Chicago could try to "rebuild" around LaVine and DeRozan. Good luck with that. This feels like an either-or proposition—or neither-of-them venture—unless the Bulls can bag a top-end wing and/or big. That'll be awfully tough to do dangling, at best, contract-year Williams and distant firsts.
Stripping the roster down to the studs makes more sense. If Chicago doesn't have the stomach for that, it can try going forward with LaVine and perhaps Williams. But even that route fails to maximize a rebuild.
Though LaVine isn't the type of star who ruins your lottery odds on his own, his age (28) and contract (four years, $178.1 million) don't fit the start-over motif. The Bulls are better off taking a stick of dynamite to this roster and slowly putting the pieces back together over a multi-year period in which they prioritize their own lottery odds and young-player fliers and, eventually, free-agency overtures following the next TV deal's cap spike.
Portland Trail Blazers
4 of 5
Damian Lillard doesn't want to start over with the Portland Trail Blazers. I don't blame him. He turns 33 in July, and the Blazers have done nothing to earn his confidence over the long term.
Last year's midseason leveling was supposed to set them up for a semi-immediate turnaround. It didn't. The front office decided, yet again, to assemble the roster around two small guards and a defensively limited big man. The results have gone as you'd expect. Portland's defense sucks after flashing some scrappiness to start the season, and on balance, it's much too small and unathletic up front to hang on the glass.
The Blazers have probably underachieved relative to their roster. Thirteenth place in the West is buh-ad for a team with a career-best version of Damian Lillard, Anfernee Simons and Jerami Grant to round out the top of its rotation. Matisse Thybulle has exceeded expectations since arriving at the trade deadline, and Shaedon Sharpe has, by and large, looked better than your typical 19-year-old.
Still, the Blazers are shallow and defensively challenged. And the current core isn't digging them out from this pit. Few things could be less inspiring than watching them pay Grant $30 million per year, re-sign Thybulle (and maybe Cam Reddish), bag their lottery pick and run it back next season. They require material, nuclear change.
Conventional rebuilding measures would have Portland trade everyone except Sharpe and this year's pick. That's out of the question so long as Dame wants to stay put. So is surrounding him with a bunch of long-term prospects by default.
This leaves swinging for the fences, finally, on a trade that nabs a legitimate co-star. And that, not surprisingly, isn't an effortless direction to travel. The Blazers have Sharpe, this year's pick to dangle, New York's 2023 first and Anfernee Simons to peddle, and that's about it. Dealing with future firsts is complicated when they owe a selection to Chicago that's lottery protected until the end of time through 2028.
To be clear: Portland's collection of assets isn't nothing. But it's not trounce-every-other-blockbuster-offer strong. The Blazers won't have the most enticing superstar package available unless the selling team is smitten with Simons or Sharpe. That's neither impossible nor especially likely. They are more equipped to outbid suitors for fringe stars like OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges, if even that. It's not a palatable course to take either way. Portland is more than one OG or Bridges away from crashing the title-contender discussion.
Hence the dilemma. The Blazers have a superstar who wants to stick around. They should do everything in their power to pair him with another. If they can't, it's time to look at blowing this entire core to smithereens, Lillard included, and beginning anew.
Washington Wizards
5 of 5
Urging the Washington Wizards to rebuild only for them to quadruple down on the road to 33 to 37 victories is a yearly rite of passage. This summer will...probably not be any different.
Washington showed its hand by signing Bradley Beal to a five-year max deal last season that includes a no-trade clause. It leaned even further into extra-ordinary—not to be confused with extraordinary–mode by holding onto contract-year Kyle Kuzma (player option) and Kristaps Porziņģis (player option) past the Feb. 9 deadline.
Keeping this group together without making any major changes would be genuinely weird and typical Wizards. It's also expensive. If Porziņģis picks up his player option and Kuzma costs $20 million per year to retain, Washington wouldn't be able to use the bigger mid-level exception and stay out of the tax. It officially needs to start thinking about the future of Deni Avdija (extension-eligible), too.
Rebuilding can technically go one of three ways for the Wizards: burn the whole operation down, get younger around Beal or consolidate your non-Beal assets into another star who vaults you into a much splashier tier.
That last scenario is preferable—and the least likely. Washington doesn't have the assets to outbid the vast majority of other teams that'll be surfing the blockbuster market. Avdija is its most enticing prospect, but he is about to come off his rookie scale and retains his on-off-off-on-off-off-off-again relationship with offensive volume and aggression. The Wizards can flip this year's pick in the new league year, but are incredibly limited in the future-first department. They owe a selection to New York that's protected through 2026.
Nobody else is really moving the needle in a trade package. Monte Morris, Daniel Gafford, Delon Wright and Corey Kispert are a cut or three above throw-ins. None of them profile as the next Lauri Markkanen—a player who busts out mid-career on his next team.
Pivoting into a Beal-plus-kids movement is more realistic. It's not all that seductive. Beal is somewhat quietly having a monster season. He also turns 30 in June. The next great—or at least better-than-depressingly-unremarkable—Wizards team will take years to build up. Expecting him to wait around and to maintain his superstar sheen long enough to optimize that distant-future core is wishful thinking on PEDs.
This leaves the burn-it-down option. It may be tougher to stomach, but it's not impossible to pull off. The sign-and-trade markets for KP and Kuzma should be solid, if not robust. And while the four years and $207.7 million left on Beal's contract are steep, he will still command more than a singular crappy first-round pick. Washington should move everyone, including him, and wipe both the financial and active-member slates clean.
Feel free to disagree. I'll dye my hair any shade of Jeremy Sochan you want if the Wizards have the assets necessary to poach a star and advance this flavorless-stool-softener-powder agenda. Barring that miracle, they are where they've been approximately forever: in dire need of a full-tilt reboot.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, Stathead or Cleaning the Glass and accurate entering Saturday's games. Salary information via Spotrac.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
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