NBA Teams That Could Look Drastically Different Next Season
Take a screenshot of your favorite NBA team's roster now. There's a chance it looks a lot different by the start of next season.
Continuity is a solid barometer for success in the Association. The best squads aren't entertaining yearly about-faces. Seven teams entered 2016-17 with more than 50 percent of last season's minutes in new digs. Just two of them are projected to reach the playoffs (the Milwaukee Bucks and Miami Heat) and only one is on pace to finish with a winning record (the Bucks).
Sometimes, though, there is no evading turnover. Players get traded. Teams decide to embrace thorough rebuilds. Free agents leave. Longstanding cores sour. Underachievers take a wrecking ball to their roster. Cap-rich and asset-flush squads pursue superstar additions.
These are the situations we were on the lookout for as the regular season enters the stretch run. There's some basketball left to play, and the postseason will play a part in shaping certain futures. But we've seen more than enough to know which teams could or, in some cases, most definitely will undergo the starkest summertime facelifts—for better or worse.
Honorable Mentions
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With Tim Hardaway Jr. (restricted), Kris Humphries, Ersan Ilyasova, Paul Millsap (player option) and Thabo Sefolosha all slated for free agency, the Atlanta Hawks may have no choice other than to blow things up. They can't justify spending stacks of cash to keep a mid-tier to low-end playoff team intact.
Everything comes back to Millsap. General manager Wes Wilcox made it clear Atlanta intends to keep him while talking to The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski before the trade deadline. But the 32-year-old should command max or near-max money and will explore his options on the open market, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter.
The Hawks have to rebuild if Millsap walks, in which case the roster will look noticeably different next season. But they lost Al Horford for nothing last summer. They can't afford to do the same with another cornerstone. It's more likely they pony up what it takes to keep Millsap in Atlanta and stave off a full-scale reinvention—at least until next February's trade deadline.
Money for a max free agent? The Boston Celtics can get it.
Assets for a superstar-headlined trade? They've got 'em.
Another first-round pick, plus some draft-and-stash prospects? The Celtics have those, too. They can significantly alter their makeup if they want. It's just not a given they will after (presumably) finishing with the Eastern Conference's second-best record.
Expensive underachievers are always risks to take a stick of dynamite to their infrastructure. The Detroit Pistons aren't any different.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson were all up for grabs at the trade deadline, according to ESPN.com's Marc Stein. With Caldwell-Pope due for a raise and Detroit on the outskirts of the postseason discussion, ample change may be on the horizon.
Still, there's a reason the Pistons were considered up-and-comers in the East. They have a ton of individual talent, even if their core players don't ideally complement one another. Don't discount the possibility they tread water and re-assess their situation next February.
The New York Knicks won't look entirely the same in 2017-18 because they never look entirely same. They're always changing something. You can bet after another nightmare campaign they'll be at it again.
But there aren't too many tweaks the Knicks can make. Derrick Rose is a goner in free agency, and the team plans on renewing its efforts to trade Carmelo Anthony over the summer, according to ESPN.com's Ian Begley. Beyond that, everything is on the table.
There's not even a guarantee Anthony gets moved to a new locale. He can veto any trade brought to him. And though New York is committed to the triangle, team president Phil Jackson no longer counts time as his ally. He has roughly two years left on his deal, and there's only so much loyalty owner James Dolan can show him when the Knicks have yet to sniff the playoffs during his reign.
If nothing else, New York doesn't have the means to change that much. No one is trading for Joakim Noah's deal, and anyone it could flip for a first-rounder it has to keep—with the exception of Courtney Lee. Adding free agents is in play, but the Knicks aren't about to attract too much talent following another year's worth of a self-designed demise.
Chicago Bulls
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Maybe missing the playoffs will be the impetus the Chicago Bulls need to hit reset. Or perhaps a first-round shellacking at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers will do the trick. It doesn't matter, really. They just need to clean house.
Jimmy Butler may or may not need to be part of that roster purge. Though his name bandied about the rumor mill before February's trade deadline, the Bulls never came close to moving him, according to Ken Berger for Bleacher Report. They can demand a fortune for his services since he's under contract through 2018-19, followed by a player option, but the hardest part of any rebuild is getting a top-15 player. The Bulls have one—who, against all reason, doesn't want to leave.
"I can't see what tomorrow will bring, but I love it here," Butler told ESPN.com's Sam Alipour. "You know, they took a risk on a kid that was not very good with the 30th pick in the 2011 draft, so I feel like I owe the city the little amount of talent that I have on that basketball court. I love it here. I love these people. I want to be here."
Even if Butler stays put, the Bulls are still a risk to stage a full-tilt liquidation.
Only a fraction of Rajon Rondo's $13.4 million for next season is guaranteed. His play has improved since the start of March; he's shooting 51.4 percent from beyond the arc, and the offense is more than four points better per 100 possessions with him running the show. But he's not enough of a difference-maker for Chicago to halt experiments with all of its younger guards.
Dwyane Wade's future is up in the air. Most 35-year-olds would pick up their $23.8 million player option, particularly after suffering a season-ending elbow injury. But team fit may outweigh money if the Bulls make it clear they're all about the big picture.
Michael Carter-Williams, Cristiano Felicio, Joffrey Lauvergne and Nikola Mirotic are all restricted free agents. Not all of them are coming back. Mirotic specifically will field above-market offer sheets that coax Chicago into an expensive decision.
If dealing Taj Gibson, another soon-to-be free agent, and Doug McDermott with a second-round pick for Lauvergne, Cameron Payne and Anthony Morrow was any indication, the Bulls are ready to start thinking about life beyond first-round playoff exits. And no version of a forthcoming rebuild can begin with this roster looking even remotely the same.
Denver Nuggets
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Here's your bi-daily update of the Denver Nuggets' depth-chart situation: So. Many. Wings.
Danilo Gallinari (player option) is expected to enter the free-agent fray, but Denver is locked into Will Barton, Malik Beasley, Wilson Chandler, Gary Harris and Juan Hernangomez for at least another year apiece. And the rises of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray translate to an excess of on-ball playmakers.
Consolidation is inevitable, even if the Nuggets show Gallinari the door. They need another All-NBA talent to pair with Jokic and figure to be aggressive in their attempts to get one—just like they were at the trade deadline.
ESPN.com's Chris Haynes and Marc Stein reported Denver made a "monster" offer for Paul George, only to have its overtures rebuffed by the All-Star wing himself. Those blockbuster packages aren't going anywhere. The Nuggets have all the goodies necessary to hang around whenever a superstar hits the chopping block and haven't shied away from making them available.
No one except Jokic appears untouchable. Denver was reluctant to include Murray in a deal for George, per ESPN.com's Zach Lowe, but that mentality shifts if the inbound star isn't an imminent flight risk who doesn't want to play for the team. Emmanuel Mudiay, according to Lowe, was put on the trade block before being yanked from the rotation, and the front office won't flinch at dealing this year's first-round pick when the rotation is already overcrowded.
And if the trade market doesn't yield opportunity, the free-agency pool should. The Nuggets are going to have gobs of cap space. As a low-seeded playoff team with numerous rookie-scale and below-market contracts on the books, they're perfectly positioned to overpay big names or entice a few middle-rung talents.
Granted, there's potential for Denver to run it back, almost exactly as constructed. But if that happens, it won't be for a lack of chasing change.
Los Angeles Clippers
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The Los Angeles Clippers apparently value their treadmill. Basketball Insiders' Steve Kyler reported in February they're set to re-sign Blake Griffin (early termination option), Chris Paul (early termination option) and JJ Redick when they hit free agency this summer.
And that's fine, if necessary, given the alternative.
There's no insta-fix to execute if any combination of those core free agents sign elsewhere. If they're going to leave, the Clippers should be prepared to rebuild. It's almost convenient that two of their most expensive players are reaching the open market together. It allows them to make sweeping decisions about their future without laboring through a roadblock-filled teardown.
At the same time, Los Angeles can't spin Griffin or Paul bolting as a good thing. It might be better off long term surrounding Paul and DeAndre Jordan with sweet-shooting, high-energy wings, but bidding farewell to a top-20 player without getting compensation is a huge no-no.
This assumes Griffin and Paul even want to come back. Another first- or second-round playoff exit might leave a bad taste in their mouths. Griffin may already have wandering eyes. There are "more and more people around the league" who believe he's open to a "fresh start," according to Bleacher Report's Kevin Ding.
In the event they keep the nucleus together, the Clippers will have to pivot in other spots. They can't go into next season with the same exact team.
Given where they fall in the Western Conference—miles behind the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets—standing pat would be a bad basketball decision. But they also can't afford it. Bringing back Raymond Felton, Luc Mbah a Moute (player option) and Marreese Speights (player option) will be tough, perhaps impossible, if they're paying Griffin, Paul and Redick.
Oh, and the Carmelo Anthony noise isn't going away. Los Angeles remains confident it can get him, per Begley. Exiting the playoffs before the conference finals will be all the motivation it needs to double down on a star-dense foundation that, as currently constructed, has already reached its peak.
Sacramento Kings
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Dealing DeMarcus Cousins was the first step of the Sacramento Kings' rebuild. Now comes everything else—which is bound to include a bunch of roster turnover.
Part of the Kings' future is already in place. Willie Cauley-Stein and Skal Labissiere are keepers. Malachi Richardson isn't going anywhere. Buddy Hield looks like a hybrid of Stephen Curry and Michael Jordan he's ready to shoulder the additional freedom and responsibility Sacramento is bestowing upon him. But that's the extent of the team's stability.
Starting point guard Darren Collison will be a free agent. Nearing 30, he fails to profile as even a short-term fit after this season. Ben McLemore is one of the few quality restricted free agents who project as a flight risk. He's shooting a career-high 38 percent from deep, but his spot in the rotation is fluid, while the combination of Hield and Richardson gives the Kings their wing prospect fix.
Langston Galloway has a player option for next season, and it's unlikely Sacramento retains him if he declines it. The non-guaranteed deals of Arron Afflalo and Anthony Tolliver, both of whom are 31, might get the boot.
Offseason trade chips also abound with the Kings playing the long game. Kosta Koufos is wildly out of place with Cauley-Stein, Labissiere and Georgios Papagiannis in the fold. Garrett Temple, 30, isn't a big-picture fit and could perhaps net a late first-round pick—an extra asset Sacramento can use since it already traded away its 2017 and 2019 first-round selections.
Lump in the cap space the Kings will have depending on how they handle their own free agents and non-guaranteed pacts, and next year's depth chart should be teeming with unfamiliar faces for the official start of a new, and hopefully improved, era.
Utah Jazz
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Gordon Hayward's free agency (player option) stands to have a trickle-down effect on the Utah Jazz.
If he stays, Utah has enough incentive to foot the bill for George Hill and Joe Ingles (restricted). If he leaves, the flood gates will swiftly open. Paying top dollar for Hill and Ingles won't make as much sense if Hayward's departure effectively triggers a rebuild centered around Rudy Gobert.
Substantial turnover will be unavoidable even if the Jazz don't lose Hayward. As Andrew Bailey wrote for FanRag Sports, they may not want to be financially responsible for running in place:
"The NBA salary cap is projected to be around $103 million for the 2017-18 season. Hayward is almost certainly opting out of the last year of his deal to sign a max contract this summer that will pay him $30.1 million in the first season. Even if Hill gives the Jazz a bargain and signs for below the max, those two players would make up for over half the cap.
The rest of the contracts that would still be on the books for next season (including the first year of Gobert's extension that will pay him $21.2 million) puts the Jazz in luxury tax conversations.
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Dante Exum and Rodney Hood are extension-eligible this summer as well. There is no feasible scenario in which Utah enters the season after next with both of them, Hill and Alec Burks. At least one of the remaining three becomes chopping-block fodder if Hill returns.
Derrick Favors is already trade bait. The Jazz shopped him ahead of February's deadline, per Lowe, and won't be able to pay him along with everyone else who's up for a raise. Plus, they have played some of their best basketball when surrounding Gobert with four shooters. Favors runs counter to that model unless he's coming off the bench at the 5.
Teams this good aren't supposed to traffic in so much uncertainty. Utah doesn't have a choice. It's destined to look measurably different no matter how the offseason shakes out.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale) and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast co-hosted by B/R's Andrew Bailey.
Stats courtesy of Basketball Reference or NBA.com and accurate leading into games on March 27. Team salary information via Basketball Insiders.
