Buying or Selling Biggest Gambles from 2021 NBA Offseason
From maximum contracts to minimum deals, every offseason decision that an NBA team makes carries some risk.
Everything from injuries and bad fits to overpays and missed opportunities can torpedo a summer gamble and turn it into a season-long regret.
But not all of these wagers will go bust. That's why front offices keep placing them.
It makes sense, then, to give an early smell test to some of the offseason's biggest gambles to find out which were defensible and which already appear worrisome.
New York Heavily Invests in Non-Contender
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Critics need only three words to sum up the 2021 offseason in New York: Knicks gonna Knick.
There may be some truth in that, even if the Knicks front office has spent the past year-plus scrubbing much of the lingering stench from the franchise. New York spent a ton of money this summer, and it's possible that not a single expenditure will be remembered as a bargain.
The Knicks gave Evan Fournier a four-year, $78 million deal, Derrick Rose got $43 million for three seasons, Alec Burks netted $30 million over three years and Nerlens Noel scored a three-year, $27.7 pact. None of those are great values, even though each is relatively protected by a team option on the final year.
Julius Randle's four-year, $117.1 million extension is fine if he's booking annual trips to the All-Star Game, but last year was his first appearance in seven seasons. Maybe Kemba Walker's two-year, $17.9 million deal proves to be a steal, but only if the 31-year-old conquers a year-plus fight with his balky left knee.
What does all of this add up to? Not a championship contender, and maybe not even a club capable of advancing past the second round. And yet, this might be just what the 'Bockers needed.
No superstars shook loose and set their eyes on the Empire State this offseason, but this series of moves will help keep the franchise relevant for the next time a disgruntled star seeks out greener pastures. Poke fun at the Knicks for buying into a team that lost in the first round, but that playoff trip mattered. LeBron James took notice, and other stars likely did as well.
If this organization stays in the news for reasons that can't be described by #LOLKnicks, that's a good thing for the present and maybe a great sign for the future.
Verdict: Buy
Pelicans' Point Guard Switch
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As a 21-year-old megastar with seemingly limitless potential, Zion Williamson is more than the New Orleans Pelicans' centerpiece. He's their entire ground floor.
So, at what point do they start soliciting his input on franchise-altering decisions? Apparently, it isn't after a season in which he blitzed opponents for 27.0 points, 7.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists per night, then sent a scare throughout the Crescent City when word leaked that some of his family members are already eyeing his ticket out of town, per Shams Charania, Joe Vardon and William Guillory of The Athletic.
Back in May, reporters sought Williamson's thoughts on the impending restricted free agency of Lonzo Ball. Williamson didn't hide his desires.
"I really would want Zo to come back, and he knows that," Williamson said, per LonzoWire's Jacob Rude. "... The only thing I can say is I hope he stays."
Welp.
Ball instead bounced to the Chicago Bulls on a four-year, $80 million deal that the Pels had the right to match. New Orleans sign-and-traded him to Chicago, getting Tomas Satoransky, Garrett Temple and a future second-round pick in return. The Pels were apparently busy trying to lure Kyle Lowry to town, but they didn't even crack the now-Miami Heat point guard's final two, per Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald.
New Orleans ultimately shifted over to Devonte' Graham, who isn't the worst on-court replacement for Ball (though he's far worse defensively). However, he's two-and-a-half years older than Ball and took a first-round pick to acquire in a sign-and-trade.
If we're confused by how this transpired, we can only imagine how Williamson feels.
Verdict: Sell
Chicago's All-In Playoff Push
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Did the Bulls just spend big to hop aboard the treadmill of mediocrity? Maybe. This is a league perennially ruled by superstars, and Chicago still doesn't necessarily have one.
You know what it does have, though? A vastly improved roster that should have enough firepower to fight for a playoff spot in the formidable Eastern Conference. That might not be enough of a prize for the championship-or-bust crowd, but it's exactly what the Bulls had in mind when they entered the offseason.
"We're going to add talent to our roster and from there get better and come back improved and better so we don't have to sit out another postseason," Bulls vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas told reporters in May. "... We're going into the next season to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Karnisovas backed up those words with action. After netting Nikola Vucevic at last season's trade deadline, the Bulls aggressively attacked free agency and came away with Lonzo Ball, DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso. Tack on All-Star Zach LaVine and 2020 No. 4 pick Patrick Williams, and Chicago might be onto something here.
No, this isn't a contender, but that wasn't the immediate aim. The Bulls needed a recharge after taking some serious lumps since their ill-fated 2017 trade of Jimmy Butler, and this summer provided several steps in the right direction.
An offense powered by LaVine, Vucevic and DeRozan should be explosive and efficient at every level. The defense will bleed a bit, but Ball and Caruso can help with that, and Williams could prove to be a massive asset on that end of the floor.
The East is good, but so are the Bulls. Any criticisms of their summer spending could easily be drowned out by playoff parties in April.
Verdict: Buy
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Portland Not Shaking Things Up Around Lillard
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You know the old adage about the best move sometimes being the one you don't make? Well, that can go for the worst one, too.
Granted, inactivity usually isn't a gamble—especially for a team that just posted a .583 winning percentage. But when that winning record yielded nothing more than a fourth first-round exit in five years, it gets complicated.
Such is life for the Portland Trail Blazers, and Damian Lillard is tired of it.
"I just think we've reached that point where we're like, 'OK, but it's not enough,'" Lillard said, per B/R's Sean Highkin. "Do we want to win it all? Do we actually want to do that? Then we've got to do things to show that. Put action behind that desire to win at that level."
That's about as direct as a call to action can get, and Portland responded with...well, almost nothing.
Sure, the Blazers gave Norman Powell a new five-year, $90 million deal, but the 2021 trade deadline acquisition logged the club's fourth-most minutes in that series loss to a Denver Nuggets team missing starting guards Jamal Murray and Will Barton. As far as external acquisitions go, the Blazers settled for Ben McLemore, Cody Zeller, Tony Snell and raw rookie Greg Brown III.
That's an—how do we put this—interesting response to Lillard's urgent request.
Portland has the personnel to be pretty good again, but when the franchise player has already made clear that pretty good isn't good enough, what's the endgame? If the Blazers can't broker a last-second blockbuster, they'll need to radically outperform expectations to keep trade vultures from circling.
Verdict: Sell
L.A. Bets the Farm on Westbrook
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It's fitting that the most fascinating gamble of the summer belongs to the most fascinating franchise in the league. (As subjective as that label sounds, hoops historians might objectively agree with it.)
The Los Angeles Lakers needed a major shake-up after last season's first-round exit cranked up the volume of the ticking championship clock attached to 36-year-old centerpiece LeBron James. He and co-star Anthony Davis needed more help to return the 2020 champs to the contending ranks, but the club's cap-constrained front office had its hands tied.
Or so it seemed. Then, just ahead of the 2021 draft, the Lakers threw caution to the wind and cashed in most of their trade chips—Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Montrezl Harrell and the No. 22 pick—for polarizing point guard (and former MVP) Russell Westbrook.
For a team seemingly in need of more shooting, Westbrook appeared to be a curious choice. He doesn't make many threes (career 30.5 percent), but he still launches a ton (3,481 in 943 games). He's also historically ball-dominant (second-highest usage percentage ever among players with 10,000 career minutes), which again feels like a strange pairing for James, who does his best work with the basketball and is sixth on that same list.
It's funky on paper, but it just might work.
The fast breaks should be electric, much as they were in the Lakers' run to the 2020 title. The half-court offense will be clunky at times, but the James-Davis-Westbrook trio should put copious pressure on defenses with relentless rim attacks, creativity and rapid reads. L.A. loaded up on shooters in support spots, so maybe the spacing won't be as tight as it seems. This defense, which was the NBA's best last season, could be elite again.
The Lakers look like favorites in the West. Not overwhelmingly so, but maybe they can attain that status by bringing out the best in Westbrook—if he buys into a lot of off-ball screening and cutting, look out—and using his energy to keep James and Davis fresh.
Any time you come out of a summer looking like the top team in your conference, you probably did something right.
Verdict: Buy
Stats courtesy of NBA.com and Basketball Reference unless otherwise noted. Contract information via Spotrac.
Zach Buckley covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @ZachBuckleyNBA.
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