NBA offseason winners and losers: Lakers, Mavs did things right, but we can’t say the same for the champs

The NBA never really sleeps but it tends to power down after the last of the sickos leaves Las Vegas. There are unrestricted free agents still unsigned, restricted types still waiting on that offer and a couple of superstars still having staring contests, but by and large, the major business of the association’s 2023 offseason has concluded. So let’s get our arms around it.

What follows is a stab at a first draft of history, a thumbnail sketch of who seems to have helped themselves through several weeks of roster-remaking, and who … well, about whom we’ve got some questions. There will likely be more winners than losers by the end of it, because it’s hot outside, so why find more reasons to be mad?

We begin with a holding note:

PENDING: The Damian Lillard and James Harden sagas

The eventual resolutions of the dramas still unfolding in Portland and Philadelphia could play a major role in shaping next season’s title chase. Such is life when you’re dealing with last season’s No. 3 scorer (Lillard) and leading assist man (Harden), a Heat team that just made the NBA Finals, a 76ers side boasting the reigning MVP that just changed championship coaches, and a Clippers franchise poised to run a top-three payroll for the third straight year.

I’ve written about the Harden and Dame situations recently; not much has changed since I did. If and when something gets done, we’ll judge that new business accordingly.

(One clear winner, though? Jerami Grant. That man just got $160 million, and those direct deposits will hit no matter what comes next. Drinks are on you, boss.)

WINNER: Los Angeles Lakers

You can quibble over the wisdom of a three-year, $51 million bet that Rui Hachimura’s playoff performance — 48.7% from 3-point range, up from 34.7% for his career — was less a fluke than a new normal. Ditto for ponying up $18 million a year to bring back D’Angelo Russell, who saw his performance and workload diminish over the course of L.A.’s playoff run. Both played roles in the Lakers’ post-trade-deadline turnaround, though, and look like solid innings-eating fits next to LeBron James and Anthony Davis. When you factor in the likelihood that Austin Reaves winds up being a steal at $54 million over four years — a deal that will account for less than 10% of the salary cap every season it runs — L.A.’s re-signings seem like net positives.

The Lakers also added Gabe Vincent, a quality complementary shooter and defender adept at playing off a primary-playmaking wing, got solid veteran combo forward Taurean Prince (38.4% from deep over the last three seasons) on the $4.5 million biannual exception and took minimum-salaried flyers on ex-lottery picks Cam Reddish and Jaxson Hayes. You wonder if they’ll need a better backup plan at the 5 than Hayes to avoid overtaxing James and Hachimura as small-ball centers during the regular season. But they should have enough wing depth — including rising sophomore Max Christie, who looked great at Summer League, and rookie Jalen Hood-Schifino — to give head coach Darvin Ham a ton of flexibility in finding the right lineups around Davis and James (who, quelle surprise!, decided against retiring after all).

The Lakers, as ever, will go as far as LeBron and AD will take them. But “surround those superstars with guys who can shoot and defend” is a recipe that has produced two conference finals appearances and one title. There are worse ideas to double down on.

LOSER: Toronto Raptors

The Raps were one of the most interesting teams entering free agency because it seemed like they’d finally have to decide if they were trying to compete for championships or, if not necessarily rebuild, then at least regroup. But after letting Fred VanVleet walk to Houston, paying $80 million to bring back Jakob Poeltl and signing stopgaps Dennis Schröder and Jalen McDaniels, it feels like Toronto still doesn’t know which way to go.

Poeltl’s a rock-solid center in whose minutes last season Toronto outscored opponents by nearly nine points per 100 possessions. (Nearly all of those, though, came with VanVleet at the point. The small sample without him looked much messier.) Schröder is a serviceable placeholder, and first-round marksman Gradey Dick should help loosen up Toronto’s congested half-court offense and its apparently constipated vibes. Barring something dramatic, though — like Michael Pina’s suggestion that they try to bowl the Blazers over with a monster Dame offer — the Raptors look like a less potent version of a team that didn’t make much sense or noise last season. And they’ve still got some big questions to answer.

Pascal Siakam didn’t extend his contract before last season, declining the maximum three-year, $125 million offer Toronto could make in favor of trying to make All-NBA again and become eligible for a supermax deal starting at 35% of the salary cap. He made the All-Star team, but not All-NBA; now, he finds himself “waiting for news on an extension of any kind.” He also finds himself at the center of a host of trade rumors, despite his reported insistence that he won’t sign an extension anywhere but Toronto.

Maintaining the status quo with Siakam might complicate new head coach Darko Rajaković’s plan to more frequently put the ball in Scottie Barnes’ hands. It could also put the Raps in danger of losing yet another valuable player for nothing come next summer. Yet trading him at a time when the market for his services might be depressed — especially if he’s serious about not re-upping anywhere he lands — risks netting a paltry return for a player who has played an integral role in the most successful period in franchise history.

Fred VanVleet

PG - HOU - #5

2022 - 2023 season

19.3

Pts

4.1

Reb

7.2

Ast

1.8

Stl

36:44

Min

And what does all this mean for OG Anunoby? The ace 3-and-D forward, who reportedly wants a larger role in Toronto’s offense, holds a player option for next season, so he, too, could hit the unrestricted market next summer if Toronto doesn’t extend him (unlikely, since the most it can give him right now is $117.6 million over four years and we all just saw Grant get $160 million over five) or trade him (unlikely, since Masai Ujiri and Co. are reportedly letting teams that call on Anunoby know they shouldn’t expect a call back).

You can’t just be a .500 team that loses one of its best players and adds nothing; at some point, something has to give. In a vacuum, standing pat can make sense. Stand still long enough, though, and everybody passes you by.

MOST WILLING TO PAY A PREMIUM FOR DECENCY: Houston Rockets

History will judge whether the total outlay was excessive for a team in Houston’s position. But there’s something to be said for responding to being in that position by saying, “Hey, what if we tried not sucking?”

The first step in getting out of that position is going from abysmal to competitive, and the Rockets paid through the nose in pursuit of getting there. It took a three-year, $128.5 million max — with, notably, a club option for Year 3 — to land VanVleet, but the 29-year-old brings a level of maturity and competence Houston has lacked. I’m not entirely sure why it took a fully guaranteed $86 million to sign Dillon Brooks after his disastrous dismount from the 2023 postseason. But a Rockets team that finished 27th or worse in defensive efficiency three years running desperately needed an upgrade on that end; Brooks, for all his warts, is one of the game’s best stoppers.

VanVleet, Brooks and No. 4 draft pick Amen Thompson should dramatically improve Houston’s point-of-attack defense. Jeff Green, a former top-five draft pick who has been everywhere and seen everything in 15 pro seasons, should only help guide a gifted but green roster. Aussie big man Jock Landale might not be a high-end answer in the middle, but he’ll get guys open and clear a path to the glass (among 367 players to log 500 minutes last season, only 12 averaged more screen assists per 36 minutes or more box-outs per 36) while also creating extra possessions (15th in that group in offensive rebound rate).

Taken together, the moves are sort of like an NFL team building out its offensive line and receiving corps to find out if its quarterback is any good. A Rockets team that isn’t taking the ball out of the basket on every possession and is more organized in the half-court is one that can be honestly evaluated — one better equipped to find out if Jalen Green, Alperen Şengün, Thompson, Summer League MVP Cam Whitmore, et al., are worth building around. Chasing that clarity proved expensive. Not having it, though, is even more costly.

WINNER: Phoenix Suns

What do you do when your two-superstar offense runs out of juice in the biggest games of the season? Go get another one.

OK, maybe Bradley Beal isn’t a “superstar.” He’s pretty damn good, though, and by boosting him out of Washington, the Suns can re-enter the fray next spring with a third option more potent, more versatile and more than eight years younger than Chris Paul. (Though Beal, who hasn’t played more than 60 games since 2019-20, brings his own fair share of injury concerns.)

The Suns’ reputed new starting point guard isn’t nearly the playmaker that CP3 is. But the bet here is that a trio of Beal, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker has enough collective playmaking chops — and more than enough firepower — to not only mitigate Paul’s loss, but vault back to the top of the offensive efficiency charts. Also, it’s worth remembering that Booker averaged 7.2 assists per game with a 2.5-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio in the playoffs; I’m guessing he’ll spend the most time on the ball in Phoenix next season.

The concern, though, was that by committing to a top four — Durant, Booker, Beal and center Deandre Ayton — who’ll combine to make $162 million next season, the Suns wouldn’t be able to field a competitive roster around their starry core. And then they went out and landed a bunch of legit players on minimum-salaried deals.

Eric Gordon comes in to provide his customary way-behind-the-line floor spacing and barrel-chested defense. Rangy forwards Yuta Watanabe (44.4% from 3 in Brooklyn) and Keita Bates-Diop (39.4% from deep in San Antonio) add length, defensive versatility and corner shooting. Center Drew Eubanks brings athleticism, switchability and rim protection (he blocked 5.7% of opponents’ 2-point shots in Portland last season, a near-top-10 rate) as well a legit lob threat on the other end (he ranked in the 71st percentile in pick-and-roll finishing).

Add in backup guard Jordan Goodwin, who showed some impressive flashes in Washington last season, while also bringing back defensive stalwart Josh Okogie and versatile reserve shooter Damion Lee, and that’s a real rotation — with ex-Kings big man Chimezie Metu and the enigmatic Bol Bol potentially being scratch-off tickets worth a look, too. And with James Jones’ front office finding pathways to additional draft flexibility by flipping future draft pick swaps for a half-dozen second-round selections, it’s possible that the Suns aren’t done adding; they might find they need a more traditional point after moving both Paul and backup Cam Payne.

Then again, they might not. A team that felt like it had grown stale now has a new look, a new power structure, and a new sense of hope for blindingly bright days in the near future. It cost them a pretty penny, particularly in a financial system designed to ensure that even the most profligate governor won’t just spend ad infinitum. (Flipping Payne to San Antonio, it seems, was less a comment on his play and more about shaving a luxury tax bill.) That’s the cost of contention, though, and it doesn’t seem like Mat Ishbia’s inclined to tell Phoenix brass to stop swinging for the fences any time soon.

SOMETIMES WHEN YOU WIN, YOU REALLY LOSE, AND SOMETIMES WHEN YOU LOSE, YOU REALLY WIN: Washington Wizards

Three months ago, the Wizards seemed ready to commit about $400 million to Beal, Kristaps Porzingis and Kyle Kuzma — a mind-boggling sum for the core of a 35-47 team without a prayer of serious success. But then Ted Leonsis hired Michael Winger away from the Clippers and empowered his new team president to operate as he saw fit — even if it meant a teardown. Before you knew it, Beal was in Phoenix, Porzingis was in Boston, and the Wizards’ most lucrative contract belonged to Daniel Gafford. (He plays center.)

That wouldn’t last long. Kuzma came back on a new four-year pact, and Jordan Poole (and his four-year, $128 million contract) found his way to D.C. from Golden State on the tail end of the CP3-for-Beal deal. But while the Wizards didn’t net nearly the kind of picks-and-young-talent haul you’d expect for players of Beal and Porzingis’ caliber, Winger and Co. have at least cleared a new path to tomorrow.

Kyle Kuzma

PF - WAS - #33

2022 - 2023 season

21.2

Pts

7.2

Reb

3.7

Ast

0.5

Blk

34:59

Min

Maybe Poole, who just turned 24, thrives in a new setting with a chance to step into a primary role. (He averaged nearly 25 points and five assists per game in 43 starts in Golden State last season.) Maybe Kuzma does, too, which might make his new deal, with $90 million guaranteed — $12 million in incentives and a declining salary structure — an attractive commodity.

Maybe new starting point guard Tyus Jones proves equal to the table-setting task, organizing the offense and putting recent lottery picks Deni Avdija, Corey Kispert, Johnny Davis and Bilal Coulibaly in position to showcase their wares. Maybe that helps D.C.’s new front office decide who’s worth keeping around on the next competitive iteration of the Wizards. And if not, well, the Wiz control almost all of their own first-round draft picks (a top-12 protected 2024 selection earmarked for New York might never convey) and now have hardly any long-term money on the books — nearly a blank roster-building slate.

I’d still expect the Wizards to lose a lot of games next season. As the philosopher once said, though, winning and losing is all one big organic globule from which one extracts what one needs — and few franchises in the league needed to extract a new plan and new possibilities more than the Wizards.

LOSER: Denver Nuggets

I mean no disrespect to the reigning, defending, undisputed champions of the world! I fully understand that the game plan is to elevate impressive rising sophomore Christian Braun, give fellow 2022 first-rounder Peyton Watson a longer look, hope that veteran Justin Holiday can bridge the gap, and see if Michael Malone’s staff — including Coach Jokić — can crank out some more player-development success stories from the ranks of Zeke Nnaji, Collin Gillespie and 2023 rookies Julian Strawther, Jalen Pickett and Hunter Tyson (who just shot his way to the All-Summer League First Team).

And, obviously, what happens further down the rotation might not matter quite as much as the continuity at the top.

“Did they lose Jamal Murray? Did they lose Joker?” Lakers head coach Darvin Ham said during a recent appearance on the "#thisleague Uncut podcast with Chris Haynes and Marc Stein." “If they didn’t lose those two, then they really didn’t lose a damn thing.”

I’m just saying, though: When you lose the sixth (Bruce Brown) and seventh (Jeff Green) men from your title team without making any major additions, that doesn’t seem like the best thing. Especially in a West that seems to be getting only tougher from top to bottom.

ADDITIONAL LOSER: Me, if Michael Malone sees this

When I tell you that I will be copping pleas immediately if this man starts walking down on me:

I’m a father of two who writes for a living, man. I don’t need those problems.

WINNER: Oklahoma City Thunder

I liked what OKC did on draft night, renting its cap space to Dallas to jump up a couple of spots to land Kentucky’s Cason Wallace, adding yet another athletic, physical defender to what’s becoming one hell of a perimeter corps. That group of ball-handlers got even deeper when Sam Presti signed 29-year-old Serbian guard Vasilije Micić — a 6-foot-5 scorer who most recently starred for Turkish club Anadolu Efes, winning a pair of EuroLeague championships and 2021 EuroLeague MVP — to a three-year, $23.5 million deal.

What makes the Thunder’s offseason particularly exciting, though, is what’s finally shown up in the frontcourt to pair with all those guards. Friends, Chet Holmgren looks good:

After missing all of what would’ve been his rookie season, the No. 2 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft starred in his return to action, averaging 16.5 points, 9.8 rebounds, 3.5 blocks, two assists and one steal per game across four outings in the Salt Lake City and Las Vegas Summer Leagues.

Holmgren’s play wasn’t flawless. He committed 15 turnovers in four games, too often dribbling into traffic rather than moving the ball to an open teammate. He shot just 1-for-11 from 3-point range after stroking 42% of his triples last summer, suggesting that it might take some time — and some work with legendary Thunder shooting coach Chip Engelland — to knock off the rust. But the former Gonzaga star looked capable of making an immediate impact as a rim protector and rebounder for a Thunder team that finished 22nd in blocks per game and 28th in defensive rebounding rate last season.

With All-NBA guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at the controls, ascendant playmakers Josh Giddey and Jalen Williams in the mix, and Micić on the way, Oklahoma City has the tools to improve on last season’s 16th-place finish in offensive efficiency. It’s Holmgren, though, who represents the Thunder’s best hope for a more meteoric rise — a top-10 defense, a five-out attack with shooting and playmaking across the board, and enough length, tenacity and talent at every position to make the leap from the play-in back to the postseason proper.

WINNER: Dallas Mavericks

Perhaps you reject this premise on the grounds that, by trading a whole bunch of stuff for Kyrie Irving, and then subsequently re-signing Irving to a three-year, $120 million contract, the Mavs have effectively constructed their organization on a faultline. I get it. If you’re grading based on what Dallas has done from just that point on, though? Tough not to like it.

Bringing Irving back alongside Luka Dončić guarantees Jason Kidd will field an attack featuring two of the most dangerous offensive players on the planet — a tandem in whose limited minutes together the Mavericks torched opponents to the tune of nearly 122 points per 100 possessions. From there, Mavs president Nico Harrison and Co. filled out the roster around the superstar pairing, turning the No. 10 draft pick into a pair of first-round selections: Duke center Dereck Lively II and Marquette wing Olivier-Maxence Prosper, a pair of big defenders with offensive upside. Offloading Davis Bertans’ contract into Oklahoma City’s cap space also created a traded player exception that allowed the Mavs to take in veteran Kings center Richaun Holmes, another screen-and-dive big man who could mesh nicely with Luka and Kyrie.

Grant Williams

PF - CHA - #2

2022 - 2023 season

8.1

Pts

4.6

Reb

1.7

Ast

0.4

Blk

25:53

Min

Most notably, though, getting under the luxury tax line opened up Dallas’ full $12.2 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception. That allowed the Mavs to swing a sign-and-trade with the Celtics to bring in Grant Williams — the kind of knockdown-shooting, defensively versatile combo forward that the Mavs lost when they shipped out Dorian Finney-Smith in the Kyrie trade. Tack on potential high bang-for-the-buck signings like Seth Curry (one of the best shooters in the world, if he can stay healthy) and former Jazz lottery pick Dante Exum (most recently seen lighting it up in Europe), and the Mavs turned limited roster-building materials into a pretty impressive overhaul.

It doesn’t necessarily transform them into a full-blown contender; they still feel a bit too small, a bit too reliant on Tim Hardaway Jr. and/or Josh Green, and without a clear title-caliber third-best player. Given where Dallas started from, though? Not bad.

WINNER: Memphis Grizzlies

Some might put the Grizz on the other side of the ledger, considering their biggest offseason move — outside of locking up Desmond Bane on a five-year, $197.2 million extension — amounted to trading a good point guard and two first-round draft picks to get one good point guard. The specifics matter, though.

Memphis needed a new No. 1 perimeter defender and fifth starter. It needed someone who could steer the ship during Ja Morant’s 25-game suspension, and slot in alongside him once he returns. It also needed a respected veteran capable of helping rejuvenate and resuscitate the vibes that went rancid in recent months. In one deal, they got it all.

Marcus Smart is a Defensive Player of the Year who’ll take the opponent’s best offensive threat every night — smaller than Brooks, but no less ferocious, and better off-ball. He’s a credible setup man, with a 2.7-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio over the past five years. He gets in where he fits in on offense, with plenty of experience playing alongside high-usage young stars. And he’s a decorated veteran with four conference finals and one NBA Finals under his belt who has played nearly 1,400 more postseason minutes than Morant, Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. combined.

The Grizz traded plenty to get him: longtime backup Jones, the 25th pick in the 2023 draft, and the top-four-protected 2024 Golden State first-round pick that they got for taking on Andre Iguodala’s salary years ago. But Smart is the right kind of player for a team like Memphis to bet on, and that this — with such a glaring need for a vibe shift — is the right time to cash in those chips. If Smart can help get the energy around the team pointed back in a positive direction long enough for all that young talent to get back to taking over, the investment will have been well worth it.

YOU SURE ABOUT THAT? Boston Celtics

I get the arguments for the Celtics’ overhaul. Porzingis, coming off arguably the best season of his career, provides a higher-end third offensive option for a Boston team whose point production often dried up when it wasn’t making 3s and which didn’t really have reliable ways to punish switches and mismatches inside. Porzingis also combines floor-spacing and rim protection in a rare package — only three players made 100 3s and blocked 100 shots last season: KP, JJJ and Brook Lopez — which makes him a quality insurance policy for the aging Al Horford and the oft-injured Robert Williams III.

In theory, Porzingis can play with either of Boston’s bigs. In theory, he vaults the ceiling of a team that scored at a bottom-five clip whenever Jayson Tatum was off the floor, even when Jaylen Brown was on it. And the rise of Derrick White last season as both an elite defender and a more consistent shot-maker made Smart feel less indispensable — especially in a backcourt that still features Sixth Man of the Year Malcolm Brogdon and Payton Pritchard.

In theory, moving Smart to make more space for White — and getting off Smart as he approaches 30, with all those hard-driven miles on his body — is probably a heady decision. Especially when doing so netted Boston that top-four-protected 2024 Warriors pick and the selection that turned into second-round wing Jordan Walsh, who looked like a keeper at Summer League:

I’m just not totally convinced all that theory will pan out in practice. Moving on from two of your best and most versatile defensive players — and two of your more brash and ballsy personalities — in favor of relying even more heavily on drop coverage, 3-point shooting variance and a rotation in which four of your top seven players (Horford, Porzingis, Brogdon, Timelord) pose significant injury risks feels like too dicey a bet. Maybe I’m too in-the-tank for Smart and being too nervous by half; maybe the on-paper boosts to what looks like a championship favorite translate neatly to the parquet. We’ll find out next spring.

WINNER: Golden State’s One Sacred Timeline

With the practice punch heard ’round the world still ringing in everyone’s ears and team owner Joe Lacob seemingly resolute in his commitment to Golden State’s 23-and-under crew, it seemed reasonable to wonder whether Draymond Green was about to hit the end of the line in the Bay.

Nine months later, Poole is in Washington, with 2022 teen draftees Patrick Baldwin Jr. and Ryan Rollins joining him on the cross-country trip. Former No. 2 overall draft pick James Wiseman is in a big-man timeshare in Detroit. Lottery picks Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody look like they’ll have to scrap it out for the eighth and ninth spots in Steve Kerr’s rotation. And the 33-year-old Green — who ranked 13th in the NBA in assists per game and fourth in defensive estimated plus-minus last season, making his eighth All-Defensive Team and finishing fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting — just got a brand new bag.

Granted, not as ludicrously capacious as the one he’d hoped for entering last season. But $100 million over four years (with a player option for Year 4) is still a nice chunk of change. And, crucially, the contract lines up Draymond with Stephen Curry and Andrew Wiggins, both of whom are fully guaranteed through 2025-26. This is not an accident.

That’s the window, the focal point toward which all energy is being directed — this year, next year and the year after. That’s why you bring in Chris Paul, Dario Šarić and Cory Joseph — vets with not only a ton of big game experience, but also the combination of shooting, playmaking and IQ to be able to fit into the idiosyncratic style of play that Kerr built around Curry. Because when you’ve got a championship core (which Golden State proved it still did 13 months ago) led by a transcendent superstar (which Steph proved he still was two and a half months ago), you don’t build bridges to the future; you invest in the infrastructure that builds a winner right now.

“You could make an argument last year we were too young in some ways,” new Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. told reporters last month. Not anymore.

WINNER: Milwaukee Bucks

On one hand, bringing back Khris Middleton, fending off a spirited run from the Rockets to retain Brook Lopez, and signing Jae Crowder, Malik Beasley and Robin Lopez to minimum-salaried deals put the Bucks on the hook for what’ll be a roughly $33.5 million luxury tax bill, according to Spotrac. On the other: Who cares?

There are way worse ways to spend Jimmy Haslam’s, Wesley Edens’ and Jamie Dinan’s money than by keeping together the core of a title team, bolstering the depth around it and putting first-year head coach Adrian Griffin in position to succeed. If that’s the cost of showing Giannis Antetokounmpo that you’re serious about continuing to contend, and about ensuring that he never has any reason to doubt that as he counts down toward his next contract — that player option is still two years away, but time flies in the NBA — then, to me, it’s money well spent.

WINNER: Cleveland Cavaliers

A brilliant regular season that saw Cleveland win 51 games and make the playoffs without LeBron for the first time since 1998 went up in flames in the playoffs when the Knicks dared the Cavaliers’ complementary players to make shots … and they couldn’t.

Aggressively helping off the corners and packing the paint stifled Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland, funneling Cleveland’s offense elsewhere, and Cavs not named Mitchell, Garland and Caris LeVert shot a combined 12-for-41 (29.3%) from 3-point range. The congestion also limited Mitchell (who shot 40% from the field with as many turnovers as assists — 15 — over the final three games) and Garland (40% and 23.5% from 3 in that same span), as New York stomped to a five-game victory. So the Cavs went out and found answers.

In comes Max Strus, who has shot 37.6% from 3-point range on more than nine attempts per 36 minutes over the past two seasons. In comes Georges Niang, who has shot better than 40% from deep in each of the past four seasons, including 42.5% from the corners in that span. And hell, in comes Ty Jerome, who might not get a ton of minutes but who shot 42% from distance in Oklahoma City two seasons ago and 39% in Golden State last year.

Cleveland’s chances of mounting a serious challenge in the East still rest with Mitchell, Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. This fresh round of air-support reinforcements should put that core in better position to survive and advance.

Obi Toppin

PF - IND - #1

2022 - 2023 season

7.4

Pts

2.8

Reb

1

Ast

0.2

Blk

15:40

Min

WINNER: Indiana Pacers

The Pacers look good in the backcourt, with just-maxed-out made man Tyrese Haliburton leading a group that includes All-Rookie First Teamer Bennedict Mathurin, veteran sniper Buddy Hield and steady reserves Andrew Nembhard and T.J. McConnell. The center spot looks all right, too, with Myles Turner coming off a strong campaign and young backups Jalen Smith and Isaiah Jackson both showing flashes. But after leaning primarily on the undersized Aaron Nesmith at the 4, though, power forward seemed like a position of need. So they addressed it.

First, Indy used the No. 8 overall draft pick on Jarace Walker, a 6-foot-8, 240-pound slab of granite out of Houston whose defensive versatility, feel for the game and 7-foot-2 wingspan give off some strong Paul Millsap vibes. Then, the Pacers sent a pair of second-round picks to the Knicks for former No. 7 pick/greyhound Obi Toppin, who found his path to significant playing time blocked by Julius Randle’s ascent to All-NBA status. Toppin averaged 21 points per game on 58% shooting in limited run as a starter in New York, though, and his love of full-court sprints ought to fit much better on an Indiana team that just finished top-five in transition frequency and points scored per transition play than it did for Tom Thibodeau’s glacially paced Knicks. (Haliburton seems excited to throw Obi some bombs.)

Combine those additions up front with the coup of luring Bruce Brown away from Denver, and suddenly Indy’s got a dynamite mix of youth, size, length, athleticism and versatility, all orchestrated by a phenomenal tactician in head coach Rick Carlisle and an All-Star point guard in Haliburton. This time last year, the Pacers were at the start of a rebuild. Now, they might be at the start of a playoff run.

WINNER: San Antonio Spurs

The “they got Victor Wembanyama” thing from my draft-night winners and losers column still applies, especially after watching him bounce back from his first game in Las Vegas with that emphatic reminder of a second game. That goes double if second-rounder Sidy Cissoko can build on some of the defensive activity and disruption he flashed in Summer League:

Beyond that, San Antonio smartly slow-played its summer, signing a small deal to lock up swingman Julian Champagnie and mostly renting out the rest of its cap space to take on other teams’ unwanted salaries. In the process, the Spurs landed some players — wing shooters Reggie Bullock and Cedi Osman, a veteran point guard in Payne to back up the re-signed Tre Jones — who should provide some rotational scaffolding to help figure out what kind of team they want to build around Wembanyama.

The real value in those rentals, though, came in the draft capital the Spurs extracted to keep stocking their picks cupboard. If I’m reading the chart right, they’ve now got some measure of control over 10 first-round selections and 19 second-rounders through 2027, plus top-1-protected swap rights on Boston’s 2028 first-rounder (from the 2022 Derrick White deal) and an unprotected swap on Dallas’ 2030 first (for taking on Bullock to facilitate the Grant Williams deal).

That kind of war chest — plus a slew of expiring contracts and cost-controlled young talent — will put the Spurs in every trade conversation that comes up. For now, though, with Wembanyama in the fold and Gregg Popovich sticking around, they seem content to bide their time, and see if their new cornerstone can’t get people talking on his own.