6 NBA Teams in Desperate Need of a Roster Shake-Up
Flawed rosters can derail an NBA team's entire season—especially when said club has expectations to meet.
Failing to play up to required standards demands change. If a franchise is underachieving or just flat-out plunging to new depths of awful, the roster needs to be rewired. And we're at a point of the 2014-15 campaign where we can see which organizations need to shake things up rather than shake them off.
These are not all bad teams. Some of them most definitely are but not all of them.
Maybe a move that advances the rebuilding process should be made. Perhaps a team chasing postseason contention could use added firepower. Squads currently surpassing their worst-imagined scenarios might need to blow things up too.
Here's what each and every one has in common, though: expectations. The following teams are supposed to do something; their season is supposed to mean something. They are not the Philadelphia 76ers, who are predictably approaching 0-for-Christmas status. And they are not the San Antonio Spurs, who generate panic whenever they win games by less than 72 points.
They are teams who desperately need to rock the boat, otherwise their season is bound to mean so much less than it actually could.
Minnesota Timberwolves
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This is truly a unique situation. The Minnesota Timberwolves aren't anything more or less than they should be right now. Injuries have consumed the roster, impacting key players such as Ricky Rubio and Kevin Martin, so it's no surprise they own the Western Conference's worst record.
Shaking up the roster is more about simplicity. They employ a host of promising youngsters, all of whom deserve ample playing time. And though head coach Flip Saunders has done a fine job finding minutes for Andrew Wiggins and Gorgui Dieng, there could be even more playing time to go around by dealing away some of the team's veterans.
Corey Brewer has already been made available, despite what Saunders says, according to ESPN.com's Marc Stein. But this train of thought extends to the injured Martin and Nikola Pekovic. Chase Budinger too.
Moving them—especially the veteran wings—opens up more minutes for Shabazz Muhammad, Zach LaVine and Anthony Bennett, among others. Dealing Pekovic also prevents Saunders from stifling Dieng's development by rolling with the player who gives the Timberwolves a better chance to win games.
Collecting victories isn't the goal here, remember. The Timberwolves are rebuilding and need to see what they have in potential long-term foundations not named Wiggins and Thaddeus Young.
Stockpiling additional young talent and draft picks at the expense of capable and, in some cases, pricy vets makes the most sense for a team that will remain consigned to the Western Conference's basement no matter what.
Charlotte Hornets
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Try finding a team more disappointing than the Charlotte Hornets. It's a search that will come up empty.
At least the Philadelphia 76ers are supposed to personify atrocity. The Los Angeles Lakers were never going anywhere special while deliberately relying on the ebbing superpowers of a 36-year-old Kobe Bryant. The New York Knicks are implementing a new, albeit fantastically flawed, system; they were never supposed to be an Eastern Conference force.
After their 2013-14 crusade, the Hornets were.
The Hornets took a top-six defense and added Lance Stephenson, one of the most potent scorers and defenders from the NBA's best defensive team last season. They drafted Noah Vonleh. They signed a floor-spacing forward in Marvin Williams. They still had Kemba Walker and Al Jefferson. They even had a new name.
None of that has mattered early in 2014-15. These Hornets look like a broken team. A nine-game losing streak has pigeonholed them to the Eastern Conference doldrums, their offense ranks 27th in points scored per 100 possessions and their once-touted defense ranks 25th in efficiency.
Such on-court chaos has left the Hornets scrambling for outside answers, per Grantland's Zach Lowe:
"Now the Hornets are in trouble, and they’ll scour the trade market while hoping the status quo roster can find just enough punch to trample over a few of the teams that will surely stumble down the Eastern Conference ladder. You could see them making calls on a number of potentially available wings: Randy Foye or Wilson Chandler in the Denver overflow pile; Jeff Green in Boston, capable of swinging between both forward positions; Corey Brewer, suddenly weirdly essential for a banged-up Minnesota team; and in a much lower trade-value range, shooting tweeners like Dorell Wright and old friend Anthony Tolliver.
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Lowe also says the Hornets could take calls on Stephenson, who can be traded after Dec. 15. They need shooters, they need scorers, they need perimeter defenders, they need shot-blockers.
To have any hope of creeping back into the playoff picture and beginning to meet the lofty expectations set for them over the offseason, they need to make a series of significant personnel changes, whatever they may be.
New York Knicks
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Might the Knicks be content standing pat, losing a bunch of games, wasting another year of Carmelo Anthony's prime and scampering into the offseason with cap space and a top draft pick? Perhaps. They just shouldn't be.
Draft picks mean little to the Knicks' restoration plan; cap space is their primary building block. Star free agents won't readily flock to New York, though, if they're under the impression that they're joining a dumpster fire—which is just what the Knicks are at the moment.
Implementing a new offensive system, however reliant on archaic shot selections, takes time. But the Knicks have been truly terrible. They rank 26th in defensive efficiency and 22nd in offensive efficiency, the latter of which is especially telling.
Even the Los Angeles Lakers have parlayed their dependence on Bryant and a squadron of NBA journeymen into a top-10 offense. The Knicks, meanwhile, have devolved into a sloth-paced contingent that jacks more than 31 mid-range jumpers per game and completely ignores the importance of pick-and-roll installation.
Thin on assets—and most likely a willingness to take on long-term contracts—the Knicks aren't the ideal trade partner. But they have sizable expiring pacts in Amar'e Stoudemire and Andrea Bargnani to work with, and they could use someone like Iman Shumpert as a trade buffer for unloading J.R. Smith's deal.
Holding a clearance sale won't solve anything to be sure. The Knicks cannot deal someone valuable like Shumpert just for the sake of making a change. Yet, with their 2014-15 crusade swiftly approaching a purposeless point, the Knicks do need to make a change.
This season, however it ends, is an audition—a chance to preemptively impress or drive away the Marc Gasols and Kevin Loves of free agency. And to this point, the Knicks have done anything but impress.
Denver Nuggets
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Say what?
A slow start and complete absence of identity was thought to doom the Denver Nuggets. But after beginning 2014-15 by going 2-7, they have since gone a staggering 7-2, sneaking back into the West's early-season playoff picture.
"With this type of talent, strong performances should not be surprising for the Nuggets; they should be expected," writes Bleacher Report's Zach Buckley. "If they keep stringing them together, expectations will continue to rise—along with the significance of these triumphs."
Impressive though these triumphs over teams like the New Orleans Pelicans, Cleveland Cavaliers, Phoenix Suns and Chicago Bulls may be, the Nuggets are not in the clear. They're still a team inundated with positional logjams who lack a concrete pecking order.
Nine Nuggets players have appeared in at least 10 games and are averaging more than 15 minutes per performance. Ty Lawson remains the only player tallying north of 15 points a night. If he's considered their star, they don't have a clear No. 2. It's once again success by committee in Denver, and success by committee promises the Nuggets nothing.
Turning a combination of their overlapping talent into a more high-profile performer is the only way these Nuggets can legitimately distinguish themselves out west. Running a 10th-ranked offense and spacious rotation may insert them into the playoff conversation. It may even get them into the postseason.
Fringe playoff contention is their ceiling, though. The West is teeming with championship contenders, none of whom the Nuggets stack up against. Maintaining the status quo makes them interesting, but it's no substitute for star power—or rather, the roster-building element that could thrust the Nuggets into a title conversation to which they don't yet belong.
Detroit Pistons
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Let's allow Detroit Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy to have the floor for a moment.
"We're really messed up right now, I mean we're really messed up as a team," he said following a loss to the Lakers, per MLive.com's David Mayo. "Lot of dilemmas. Lot of guys feeling pressure or whatever. But we're really not right mentally right now."
I couldn't have put it better myself. The Pistons are in dire need of some roster-razing. They're still a space-sapping team that ranks 28th in offensive efficiency and 21st in points allowed per 100 possessions. If they don't do something drastic soon, the chances of them improving upon last season's 27-win washout go from slim to zilch.
Breaking up the Josh Smith and Greg Monroe partnership is the obvious play here. Smith is still attempting shots he shouldn't, and the Pistons are being outscored by 4.7 points per 100 possessions when both are on the floor.
Trading either one of them in favor of a floor-spacing forward will help open things up. Smith is the preferable candidate since he's owed $40.5 million through 2016-17 and shooting under 40 percent whether he plays beside Monroe or Andre Drummond, according to NBA.com (subscription required). The Pistons are also 11.2 points per 100 possessions worse with him on the floor.
But while Smith's contract and play may render him immovable, that's no excuse for inaction. The Pistons aren't a good basketball team right now. They're not even a middling faction. Their downward spiral—replete with a nine-game slide—has left them in Sixers territory, where victories are figments of imagination and hope is scant.
Pillaging the roster of redundant and underachieving talent is the lone option that might save the Pistons from the frightful fate laid before them.
Phoenix Suns
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Humming along with their current up-and-down model won't nab the Suns a playoff berth. They're clinging to eighth-place life, with the Pelicans, Nuggets and Sacramento Kings all nipping at their heels. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are also playing again—bad news for any teams outside the West's top seven, including Phoenix.
Sporadically fielding three point guards no longer incites soaring expectations. The Suns offense has been a turbulent roller-coaster ride filled with twists, turns, loops and upset stomachs. The team ranks a forgettable 13th in efficiency and is running the equivalent of the league's second-worst offense when Eric Bledsoe, Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas play together.
Experimenting with positionless basketball has also cost the Suns in the way of rim protection. They rank 22nd in opponent field-goal percentage at the iron, a deficiency that's hampered the potential of a top-10 defense.
Although the Suns could hold steady, banking on draft picks and internal development to bring them within striking distance of title contention, they have the assets to make a serious splash. Like, a blockbuster-sized splash (see: this).
Both Gerald Green and Dragic are tracking toward massive free-agency paydays. Alex Len is also still forfeiting playing time to Miles Plumlee. The Suns could most definitely turn some combination of those pieces—along with the top-five protected Lakers pick they're owed—into a fortunes-turning cog or two.
Remaining just good enough shouldn't be good enough anymore. The Suns have a talented core capable of raising hell immediately. But, more immediately, they have an opportunity to consolidate a far-extending rotation into a well-balanced, formidable force that can raise more meaningful hell—the kind waged late into May and beyond.
*Stats via Basketball-Reference and NBA.com unless otherwise cited and are accurate as of games played on Dec. 2, 2014. Salary information and draft-pick commitments via ShamSports and RealGM.
