With the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors all geared up for an epic showdown of former also-rans turned NBA Finalists, 28 other teams are already looking ahead to next season.
Yep, just like in high school, for those who dropped out before Finals, there’s NBA Summer School. Sure, no one really wants to be there, but, if you have dreams and aspirations of grandeur, you better take every chance you have to get a head start on the upcoming season.
With that in mind, let’s jump right into the first installment of my new summertime series: Blazers Summer School. Over the course of the summer, this series will be taking a look at a lot of the key storylines surrounding the Portland Trail Blazers this offseason and how they might go about navigating them as they attempt to move towards the head of the NBA class.
This week’s lesson:
Chemistry 101 – Intro to Roster Continuity
With 3/5 of the starting lineup set for unrestricted free agency, and just about everyone not named Damian Lillard potentially on the trading block, the summer of 2015 has the potential to see some major changes for the Portland Trail Blazers.
With all the movable parts, there are dozens of players and hundreds of roster permutations potentially in play this summer. In fact, we could literally spend all day going over some of the most intriguing scenarios. But, this is Chemistry 101, so let’s instead keep things a bit more macro and look at the two basic strategies in play this offseason.
- Bring the gang back
- Blow it all up and try again
Obviously a huge portion of this hinges on whether LaMarcus Aldridge decides to re-up in Rip City, but, even with Aldridge back in tow, there are still some major decisions to be made by Neil Olshey and the Blazer brass, including what direction to take the roster.
The first option is the simplest: bring everyone back. Re-sign Wesley Matthews and Robin Lopez to solidify what has been the one of the best starting lineups in the NBA over the past two seasons. Bring back the cagey vets in Chris Kaman, Steve Blake and Dorell Wright, and wait to see what Arron Afflalo decides to do with his player option.
In this scenario, you’re hoping the continued development of CJ McCollum and Meyers Leonard plus the addition of whoever the Blazers select with the #23 pick (plus maybe a dash of luck from the injury gods), help fuel next season’s improvement.
More than anything, you’re hoping that the roster continuity will lead to a San Antonio Spurs-like team where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That another year of playing together under Coach Terry Stotts will help meld them into a the kind of team that moves as one out on the court, as if they are all just pieces of the same being.
This is essentially what the Golden State Warriors have used during their ascension from 23-win laughingstock to this season’s historic 67-win juggernaut. They rode their rising young stars in Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, along with a solid group of veterans led by roster stalwarts Andrew Bogut and David Lee. From there, they slowly added pieces around their two young stars.
In 2012 it was picking up Harrison Barnes in the draft. In 2013, they were ready to pounce on a sweetheart of a deal that brought versatile small forward Andre Iguodala into town, while also snagging this year’s NBA Defensive Player of the Year runner-up, Draymond Green, in the 2nd round of the draft.
This year they made maybe their biggest (and most controversial) move to date, bringing in Steve Kerr to replace Mark Jackson as head coach, even after Jackson oversaw the team’s meteoric rise to prominence over the past two seasons.
Yet, while all those roster moves played key parts in the team going from league also-ran to one of the most dominant regular season teams ever, it’s likely the move that they didn’t make that has had the biggest impact.
That move being their highly publicized flirtation with the Minnesota Timberwolves, culminating in GM Bob Meyers refusal to give up Klay Thompson in order to bring superstar big man Kevin Love to the Bay Area.
Instead, they stuck to their guns that Curry and Thompson weren’t just good enough to lead a team to 50-win seasons, but all the way to a championship, as well. This (non-)move was particularly prescient, considering conventional wisdom was that Love was the better player, and the Warriors were going to one day regret walking away from that deal.
If the Warriors would have thought that way, they would have pulled the trigger on the Thompson for Love deal. Instead, they were patient with their young stars, and because of that they’re the odds-on favorites to bring home the team’s first championship in 40 years. So much for conventional wisdom.
What does this all have to do with the Blazers you ask?
Well, if you really look at it, the Blazers have had a remarkably similar rise to prominence as the Warriors. In fact, you might even say that they could learn a thing or two about roster management by watching what the Warriors have done (or, more importantly, not done) with their roster.
Both teams started their rise when they drafted prolific shooting point guards in the lottery (Curry/Lillard) to pair with their veteran, All-Star power forwards (Lee/Aldridge). Both teams based their offense around these explosive scoring guards whose offensive reputations greatly outweighed their standing on the other end of the court. Oh, and they while relying heavily (some might say too heavily) on the 3-point shot to drive their top 10 offense.
On top of that, both teams recently made surprising leaps from the dregs of the NBA Lottery to 50-win status culminating in a stunning 1st Round playoff upset before getting knocked out by the veteran San Antonio Spurs. That upset was then followed by another impressive 50-win season, only to see it tarnished with a disappointing 1st round flameout.
Heck, both teams even saw somewhat surprising jumps in defensive efficiency from their first 50-win season to their second.
Sure, a lot of those last two paragraphs were mostly superficial in nature, but, you have to admit, the similarities are striking. Would it really surprise anyone all that much if the Blazers add a piece or two this season, and then come out like gangbusters next year as they take the league by storm?
Maybe. Maybe not. But, it’s most certainly on the table. And, even if it’s a long shot, that’s precisely the kind of season Neil Olshey has been building towards the last few years. Slowly and steadily building a contender from the ground up.
On the flip side, you mustn’t look any further than the Warriors NBA Finals opponent, the Cleveland Cavaliers, to see the example of a team who decided to go out and build a championship team, rather than let one mature naturally.
Even after winning the NBA Draft Lottery for the third time in four seasons, the Cavs almost instantaneously gutted a roster full of high draft picks and promising young players to completely overhaul their team.
Obviously, having the NBA’s most dominant player in LeBron James decide to come home to the Buckeye state was a major catalyst for the wholesale changes that were to come, but, it was far from a slam dunk that trading nearly all of their young talent was the way to go.
They flipped a bevy of high draft picks and brought in All-Star Kevin Love, along with a handful of veteran talent in JR Smith, Timofy Mozgov and Iman Shumpart to bolster their experience and open up their championship window immediately.
They could have stuck with the youngsters and maybe ended up with an absolutely devastating roster poised to dominate for a decade or more, with Andrew Wiggins playing Tim Duncan to LeBron James’ David Robinson; showing him the ropes of the league before passing the torch and following the young apprentice to the Promised Land.
Of course, that could take years to play out, and who knows if it ever would. The Cavs decided that they just couldn’t waste any of LeBron’s prime with a bunch of not-yet-ready-for-primetime-players. So far that’s looking like the smart play, as they cruised through the Eastern Conference and are on the verge of their franchise’s first championship.
Of course, in taking that chance, they could find themselves in a tough spot if free-agent-to-be Kevin Love decides to opt out of his contract and leave in the offseason. If that happens, with Andrew Wiggins coming off of a Rookie of the Year season that leaves him poised to be the leagues next great talent, it could prove to be a disastrous decision for the Cavs and their fans.
If they win it all this season, then it’s likely Clevelanders would be plenty happy and call the dramatic roster shakeup a success. But, if they fall short, Love bolts, and they’re back to mid-2000s-esque squad of LeBron and the Bron-ettes (and Wiggins becomes a star)… well, they may rue this trade for decades to come.
If the Blazers bring back Aldridge (or, even if they don’t), they could still use the “Cavs model” to building their roster. They could trade promising youngsters like CJ McCollum and Meyers Leonard for veterans ready to compete at the highest of levels right now. Eschew giving a big contract to the injured Wesley Matthews and let Robin Lopez walk into the sunset, while throwing big money at a true anchor in the middle of their defense.
This is the model where you throw all your eggs in one basket, close your eyes and just go for it. No looking back.
If it fails, it might fail miserably and lead to another rebuilding effort sooner than later. But, if it succeeds, you could be planning mid-June parade routes down Broadway before you even know it. Think that’s a wee bit optimistic? Maybe, but, it depends on how big the Blazers try to go.
Are we talking about dangling Batum, McCollum and the 1st round pick? What if we throw in Meyers Leonard? That’s a package that could potentially bring back a max-level player.
What about letting Matthews, Lopez and Kaman all walk at the end of the year? Now we’re talking copious amounts of cap room to play around with, either via free agency or trade. That’s the kind of bold moves that could potentially turn fringe contenders into the NBA Finals favorites.
Look no further than the 2007-08 Boston Celtics for a guide as to how to make this strategy work.
Coming off of a disastrous 24 win campaign, they made an extremely bold move and shipped off just about every asset they had, with the exception of All-Star Paul Pierce (and an, at the time, mostly unknown rookie named Rajon Rondo), for a couple of aging superstars in Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.
Just like that, a 24-win doormat was transformed into a 66-win juggernaut, kicking off a 4-year run of dominance that included two 60-win seasons, two trips to the Finals, and the franchise’s first title in over 20 years.
It doesn’t matter if it was immediately followed by another trip to the league’s basement (as was the case with the Celtics), there isn’t a Blazer fan alive who would pass up a legitimate chance to win a ring. Even if it meant trading away likable young talent to bring in “mercenaries” like Garnett and Allen, it wouldn’t take more than a week for Blazermaniacs around the globe to adopt the hired guns as their own.
That being said, it could also be an unmitigated disaster, and lead to another decade of what-ifs. The team could make a series of Gerald Wallace-esque trades that leave them with the rotting corpses of former high-flying All-Stars who can now barely get up enough to make a layup. [ugh]
But, in the end, that’s what makes this all so fun.
Both paths could ultimately be the right way, just as both could ultimately prove to be disastrous. No one knows, and if they tell you anything otherwise they’re lying.
When it comes right down to it, there are two ways to attack this Blazer roster. You can either trim neatly around the edges in the hopes that it all blossoms into something beautiful. Or, you can bust out the chainsaw, tear it all down and start from scratch.
Which method do you prefer? What do you think Neil Olshey will do? Does anyone even have a chainsaw?!?!
These are the questions that must be answered this offseason, and time is ticking.
You have 4 weeks to complete your exam. When you’re finished, leave your exams on the teacher’s desk at the front of the room.
Good luck.
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