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Five Key Offseason Questions: Washington Wizards

It has been a precipitous drop-off over the last two years for the Wizards, who racked up 49 wins and pushed the Celtics to a seventh game in the Eastern Conference Semifinals during the 2016/17 season.

A year later, they backed into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed before being eliminated in the first round. This season, they cratered out of the postseason picture entirely, finishing the season with a 32-50 record and an unclear picture of when their injured – and increasingly expensive – franchise point guard will be able to return to the court.

Here are five key questions facing the franchise this summer:

1. Who is running the front office?

As our front office shakeup tracker shows, the Wizards are the only team that has ousted its previous top executive this spring and hasn’t yet identified a replacement.

After targeting Nuggets president of basketball operations Tim Connelly, Washington was unable to convince him to leave Denver. The team has also conducted multiple interviews with former Cavs and Hawks GM Danny Ferry, Thunder executive Troy Weaver, and interim GM Tommy Sheppard, but has yet to commit to any of those candidates.

Sheppard is running the show for now, and with every passing day, it looks increasingly likely that he’ll be the one making the calls for the Wizards this summer. After all, the draft is less than three weeks away, and the free agent period will begin in a month. There’s not a lot of time left for someone new to come in and make sweeping changes to the organization’s philosophy and offseason big boards.

It’s possible that the Wizards are still waiting on an executive whose team is active in the playoffs — perhaps Larry Harris of the Warriors or even Masai Ujiri of the Raptors. But if not, it would be in owner Ted Leonsis‘ best interests to resolve the situation sooner rather than later. This will be a big offseason for the Wizards, and leaving the front office in limbo with the draft rights around the corner isn’t the best way to kick it off.

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Three Potential Landing Spots For J.R. Smith (And His Valuable Contract)

One year removed from starting Game 1 of the NBA Finals, J.R. Smith sits on the sidelines, a place he has been since November of 2018. The Cavaliers explored trading him during the season, though they were unable to come to an agreement with another club before the trade deadline. A buyout seemed possible, but Smith’s contract, which was signed in 2016, remained a carrot that the team simply could not throw to the streets.

Smith’s 2019/20 salary of $15.68MM is only guaranteed for $3.87MM, Another team that lacks cap flexibility could potentially use his contract to quickly carve out upwards of $18MM in extra cap space, as our own Luke Adams detailed earlier in the season. To maximize those savings, a team would have to use the stretch provision on Smith, a move that would bring his cap hit to approximately $1.29MM.

The latest Collective Bargaining Agreement changed the calculus for salary matching in trades involving non-guarantees. The new rules took away the ability to swap guaranteed salary for non-guaranteed contracts as a means of creating salary cap space.

Had Smith signed under the new agreement, his contract would only count for $3.87MM (the guaranteed portion) for salary-matching purposes instead of his full salary ($14.72 for the 2018/19 season). While other players are currently under high salary deals with low or no guarantees, Smith’s is the only deal remaining from the former Collective Bargaining Agreement that fits that bill.

The Cavaliers have a trade chip that no other team possesses, though the clock is ticking on the asset; Smith’s entire salary for next season will be fully guaranteed if he’s on the roster come July 1. Let’s examine some teams that make sense as suitors.

Trail Blazers

The Blazers are projected to be a taxpaying team, with roughly $126MM in guaranteed salary on the books. The luxury tax threshold is expected to come in at $132MM and the team will have trouble bringing back Enes Kanter and Rodney Hood—two key members of their playoff run—without skyrocketing over the tax line.

Acquiring Smith would allow Portland to reshuffle its financial portfolio. Evan Turner ($18.6MM next season) is the team’s third-high paid player. Maurice Harkless ($11.5MM), and Meyers Leonard ($11.3MM) are fifth and sixth, respectively. If the Blazers feel Kanter or Hood are higher priorities than any of the three, they can swap one of those deals for Smith’s and give themselves a chance to compete for their guys on the free agent market without the internal dilemma of luxury tax concerns.

Dallas Mavericks

The Mavericks are expected to be active this offseason, searching the free agent market for additions to the Kristaps PorzingisLuka Doncic core. They’ve been connected to Tobias Harris, Khris Middleton, and Kemba Walker.

Dallas would probably love to get out from Tim Hardaway Jr.‘s contract (approximately $20MM next season), but the fact that his contract still has multiple years left on it, running through the 2020/21 campaign, makes him a hard sell.

Shedding Courtney Lee ($12.7MM) may be easier and would give Dallas more flexibility this offseason. Dallas could attempt to entice Cleveland with a prospect like Justin Jackson or offer up the No. 37 overall pick in this year’s draft in order to acquire Smith. It’s not clear if anything short of a first-round pick will be enough to pry Smith away from the Cavs.

Brooklyn Nets

Whispers that the Nets are contenders to sign two max free agents can’t get too loud until the team clears out enough cap space to accommodate two stars. As our Salary Cap Digest indicates, Brooklyn doesn’t even have the ability to sign one max free agent without renouncing D’Angelo Russell or making additional transactions.

Moving Allen Crabbe, who has one year and $18.5MM left on his deal, would aid their quest for a star summer. The team has three selections among the first 31 picks in the upcoming draft (No. 17, 27, 31) and attaching one of those picks to Crabbe in exchange for Smith would create a clear path to additional cap space.

Revisiting Hoops Rumors’ 2018/19 NBA Predictions

Back in October, seven members of Hoops Rumors’ writing team made predictions for the 2018/19 season, attempting to name the top eight teams in each conference, the conference and championship winners, and the players and coaches who would take home this year’s major awards.

Revisiting preseason predictions several months later is always a humbling experience, as events that seemed inevitable in the fall never quite play out the way we expect during the season. But in the interest of full accountability, we’re taking a look back at those predictions today to see where we went wrong and which picks we got right (or at least close enough to claim a win).

Let’s dive in…

The Good:

  • We weren’t exactly going out on a limb, but six of us had the Warriors winning the NBA Finals, with two of us specifically identifying the Raptors as their opponent. That scenario is still in play.
  • Two of us predicted that Giannis Antetokounmpo would win the 2018/19 MVP award, and he currently appears to be the frontrunner among the three finalists.
  • All seven of us picked either Luka Doncic, Trae Young, and Deandre Ayton for Rookie of the Year, and they’re the three finalists for the award.
  • Elsewhere on the awards front, three of us had Rudy Gobert as our Defensive Player of the Year, and he remains in the running. Plus, three of us predicted Mike Budenholzer would win Coach of the Year — he’s one of the finalists.

The Bad:

  • Not one of us predicted the Bucks would place higher than third in the Eastern Conference (they finished first). We were also too low on the Nuggets, with no one expecting them to come in higher than fourth in the West (they finished second).
  • All seven of us expected the Heat and Wizards would make the playoffs in the East. Miami narrowly missed out, while Washington didn’t come close. We were also too high on the Pelicans in the West (five of us had them making the postseason).
  • Sixth Man of the Year is a tricky award to predict, since rotations and lineups can change over the course of the season, but the fact that none of us had Lou Williams as our winner still isn’t great. None of our picks – including J.J. Redick and Eric Gordon, who didn’t last long as bench players – became finalists. To make matters worse, two of our Sixth Man selections – Tyreke Evans and Carmelo Anthony – are no longer even in the NBA.

The Ugly:

  • The Celtics and Lakers made all of us look bad this year. All seven of us had Boston playing in the Eastern Conference Finals, with five of us putting Boston in the NBA Finals. As for the Lakers, we all predicted they’d make the playoffs, forecasting them to finish as high as third in the West. They finished 10th.
  • It’s possible we were way too bullish on the idea of LeBron James having a transcendent year. Five of us had him as our 2018/19 MVP. He missed over a month during the season and barely made an All-NBA team.
  • Apologies to Trail Blazers fans. Only three of us picked them to make the postseason, with no one putting them higher than seventh in the conference. They earned the No. 3 seed and made the Western Conference Finals.
  • Most Improved Player is another difficult award to predict, but a couple of us were way off the mark in choosing Markelle Fultz. The former No. 1 overall pick played just 19 games in a disappointing sophomore season.

With the NBA Finals set to get underway and the major awards set to be unveiled in a few weeks, which of your own predictions for the 2018/19 season were right on the money or way off the mark? Head to the comment section below to boast about your foresight and/or laugh about your missteps.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Checking In On Early Entrants For 2019 NBA Draft

The NCAA’s deadline for early entrants in the 2019 NBA draft to withdraw and retain their college eligibility passed on Wednesday night at midnight. Although we relayed most of the draft decisions before that point, a few more trickled in late.

Most notably, Western Kentucky big man Charles Bassey, who appeared ready to go pro, had a last-minute change of heart and decided to withdraw from the draft, as Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports reports (via Twitter). Bassey, who had been a top-80 prospect on ESPN’s big board and was a candidate to be drafted, will instead head back to Western Kentucky for his sophomore season.

Meanwhile, a list of early entrant decisions from Jeff Goodman of Stadium includes two withdrawals that previously flew under the radar. According to Goodman’s list, Prairie View A&M forward Devonte Patterson and Redemption Christian Academy swingman Tony Goodwin II both pulled out of the draft before Wednesday’s deadline.

As our list of early entrants shows, that leaves almost an even split behind the college underclassmen who remain in the draft pool (88 players) and those who withdrew (89). However, the early entrant list hasn’t yet been finalized.

While the NCAA’s withdrawal deadline has now passed, the NBA’s withdrawal deadline doesn’t arrive until June 10, which means the league won’t formally issue a complete list of early entrants eligible for the 2019 draft until after that date.

In the weeks and days leading up to June 10, we can expect to hear plenty of updates on decisions being made by international early entrants, who weren’t subject to the NCAA’s deadline. A total of 59 international players showed up on the initial list of early entrants for 2019, but the majority of them will likely withdraw from the draft by June 10. At that point, we’ll have a complete picture of which players will be draft-eligible on June 20.

Five Key Offseason Questions: New Orleans Pelicans

Like the Timberwolves, the Pelicans entered the 2018/19 season hoping to build on a promising return to the playoffs during the previous spring, but instead saw their year torpedoed by a trade request that led to a messy public saga.

Unlike Minnesota, New Orleans didn’t actually end up trading its star, but that didn’t help the team’s general manager save his job. Dell Demps was dismissed during the season and has since been replaced by David Griffin, a veteran executive who has an NBA championship on his résumé.

It’ll now be up to Griffin to decide what to do with Anthony Davis, but it’s not all bad news for the Pelicans’ incoming executive VP of basketball operations — by virtue of winning the draft lottery earlier this month, the team is positioned to secure a new franchise player, Zion Williamson, even if its current one has played his last game for the club.

Here are five key questions facing the franchise this summer:

1. Would David Griffin be willing to keep Anthony Davis with no long-term assurances?

Griffin and Davis met today in Los Angeles. According to a report, the two sides are expected to “continue a dialogue” about their future going forward. But for now, let’s assume that despite his best efforts, Griffin is unable to convince Davis to withdraw his trade request and recommit to the Pelicans.

Davis is still under contract for one more year before he can reach unrestricted free agency, and the Pelicans aren’t obligated to trade him. While AD may have burned some bridges with fans in New Orleans, he seemed to be getting along with his teammates and Alvin Gentry‘s coaching staff just fine through the end of the 2018/19 season. He also acknowledged at season’s end that it won’t really be up to him where he plays in 2019/20, admitting that he could return to the team next season.

All that is to say that Griffin and the Pelicans could roll the dice with their All-Star big man, keeping him on the roster to start the ’19/20 campaign. That would give the club more time to sell Davis on a future in New Orleans, and would give AD a chance to see what it’d be like to play alongside Williamson. If he’s still not sold by February, the Pels could flip him at the trade deadline and should still be able to secure a serious haul.

That approach would be a risky one though. If Davis is willing to bypass a super-max extension with the Pelicans this offseason, why should the team have any confidence that he’d change his mind a few months later? And if Davis should suffer a major injury as a Pelican in the fall or winter, his trade value would crater. By moving him this summer, the Pels could bring more suitors to the table and would increase their chances of maximizing the return for their top asset.

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Poll: 2019 NBA Finals Predictions

The 2019 NBA Finals are set to get underway on Thursday night. Game 1 will be the first Finals game to take place outside of the United States, as the 58-24 Raptors narrowly beat out the 57-25 Warriors for home court advantage.

Despite Toronto’s home court advantage and regular season edge – including a 2-0 record vs. Golden State – the Warriors will enter the series as the overwhelming favorites to win their fourth title in five years, and third in a row. Even without Kevin Durant in their lineup for the start of the series, the Dubs have enough weapons on both ends of the court that they’ll be difficult to beat.

Of course, Golden State’s top weapon is Stephen Curry, who has gone into full-on Human Torch mode since Durant went down vs. Houston. In his last five games – all Warriors wins – Curry shot 41.7% on 14.4 three-point attempts per contest, and has scored at least 33 points in every game.

Klay Thompson has been a reliable No. 2 scoring option, averaging 22.6 PPG with a .400 3PT% over those five games, while Draymond Green has filled up the box score (14.8 PPG, 11.4 RPG, 8.4 APG, 2.4 BPG, 2.0 SPG) and been everywhere on defense.

Still, the Warriors have yet to face a defense like this Raptors’ unit in the postseason. Toronto’s starting lineup features a pair of former Defensive Players of the Year (Kawhi Leonard and Marc Gasol) and a former All-Defensive guard (Danny Green) to go along with stout and savvy point guard Kyle Lowry and an athletic forward who can guard all five positions (Pascal Siakam).

Throw in three-time All-Defensive player Serge Ibaka off the bench, and this is a Raptors team that’s capable of adjusting its scheme to a variety of offensive attacks, and switching, trapping, and helping as necessary. It’s possible that no NBA team can truly stop the Warriors, but this looks like the club that’s best equipped to slow them down.

The Raptors haven’t been as dangerous on offense during the playoffs, but Leonard is capable of single-handedly carrying the squad on that end of the court at times, and has turned in an all-time postseason performance through three rounds (31.2 PPG, 8.8 RPG, .507/.388/.875 shooting). In Thompson, Green, and Andre Iguodala, the Warriors have plenty of excellent defenders to throw at him, but Leonard is talented enough to score 30 points even on nights when the defense plays him well.

What do you think? Will the Warriors cement their place in NBA history by becoming the first franchise since the 2000-02 Lakers to win three straight championships? Or will the Raptors pull off the upset and bring Canada its first ever NBA title?

After voting in our poll, head to the comment section to weigh in further on this showdown. Will we see much of Durant this series? How heavily will the outcome weigh on his presence or absence? Will other injured players like DeMarcus Cousins or OG Anunoby make an impact? Which matchups do you expect each team to try to exploit?

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Top 25 Assets Among Presumed Anthony Davis Contenders

The Anthony Davis sweepstakes are expected to be in full swing until the Pelicans trade the disgruntled big man. Hoops Rumors surveyed past and present NBA executives and scouts to compile a ranking of the players and picks available to the presumed Davis contenders.

We included the Lakers, Knicks, and Celtics, as each has been linked to the big man, as well as the Clippers, who could be the wild card team that acquires him. There may be a number of other suitors for Davis once trade talks begin in earnest, but for now these are the four teams that look best positioned – and most motivated – to make a play for the Pelicans’ star.

Before we move onto our rankings, it’s worth noting that we did not including LeBron James when speaking with sources, since it’s extremely unlikely the Lakers would trade him. Players with the ability to hit the open market, such as Kyrie Irving and Al Horford, were also not included.

Let’s dive in…


1. Jayson Tatum (Celtics)
2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Clippers)
3. No. 3 Overall Pick (Knicks)

There’s an important distinction to remember as we navigate through these players and picks: not everyone within the league is aligned on the value of each asset. The top tier, like many of these clusters, comes down to what exactly you value most.

What route the Pelicans will take if they meet Davis’ trade request isn’t known. New head of basketball operations David Griffin could opt for a full rebuild around Zion Williamson. Or he could look to build around Jrue Holiday and Williamson, aiming to contend for a playoff spot sooner rather than later. The Pelicans were not immediately available to comment on their plan or ranking.

Jayson Tatum is a sure thing. Plug him into the starting lineup in New Orleans and he immediately raises the club’s floor. While he may not ever develop into a true MVP-caliber player and has just two years remaining on his rookie-scale contract, he’s a tantalizing trade chip.

A prospect like R.J. Barrett, the favorite to be selected No. 3 overall, would be on a cost-controlled deal for four years and his cap projection would align with Zion’s in New Orleans, providing an enormous amount of flexibility for a franchise.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who has three years remaining on his rookie deal, showed progress over the course of the season and the Clippers love him. While there’s a chance he doesn’t reach it, SGA may have a higher ceiling than Tatum.

One former executive said Gilgeous-Alexander should be No. 1 on this list, telling Hoops Rumors that the 6’5″ point guard would be under strong consideration for the No. 2 overall pick if he were in this year’s draft. Other opinions ranged from definitive top-five selection to simply top 10.

Steve Ballmer‘s club has every asset needed to get a deal done with the Pelicans without including SGA. As for the Celtics, Tatum may not even be on the table in a Davis deal either. Boston could ostensibly acquire Davis without including Tatum, but it would likely require Griffin to have googly eyes for Jaylen Brown or the 2020 Memphis pick (more on that below).

We haven’t heard officially whether the Knicks would pony up the No. 3 overall pick for Davis. There were conflicting reports before the lottery on whether they would have been willing to trade the rights to Williamson for AD if they had landed the No. 1 pick.


4. No. 4 Overall Pick (Lakers)
5. Memphis’ 2020 Top-6 Protected First-Rounder (Celtics)

Opinions are split on the Memphis pick. Some believe the league has overvalued the Celtics’ accumulated selections. For example, the Kings’ selection was once perceived as gold. It ultimately ended up as this year’s No. 14 overall pick (Boston’s, via the Markelle Fultz deal with Philly, via Sacramento’s salary dump of Nik Stauskas, Carl Landry, and Jason Thompson).Read more

Five Key Offseason Questions: New York Knicks

One of the NBA’s most iconic franchises, the Knicks have also been one of the league’s most dysfunctional in recent years. They’re set to enter a crucial offseason after having won between 17 and 32 games in each of the last five seasons.

Having been unable to put together a core of promising young building blocks during their on-again, off-again rebuild over those five years, the Knicks will rely on other assets to improve the roster during the summer of 2019. With a handful of extra future first-round picks in hand and more cap room available than any other NBA team, New York theoretically has the resources necessary to sign two maximum-salary free agents and acquire a third one in a trade.

After months of speculation about which players the Knicks might be able to actually land, we’ll get our answer in the coming weeks.

Here are five key questions facing the franchise this summer:

1. Will Kevin Durant sign with the Knicks?

Durant himself has given no indication that he’s dead set on leaving the Warriors or that he has a specific destination in mind when he reaches the free agent market this offseason. But based on how the NBA rumor mill works, there’s a widespread belief that the Knicks are already preparing to print thousands of No. 35 jerseys for the 2019/20 season. Reports all season from outlets across the county have indicated that NBA insiders expect Durant to end up in the Big Apple.

Whispers of Durant leaving Oklahoma City for Golden State persisted throughout the second half of the 2015/16 season, and the idea that LeBron James would leave Cleveland for the Lakers was a constant source of speculation leading up to his 2018 free agency. Those are just two high-profile examples of why we should take all the rumors linking Durant to the Knicks seriously.

Even in instances where the NBA’s rumor mill doesn’t necessarily get it right, there can be plenty of warning signs along the way pointing to the eventual outcome. Last summer, for instance, there was a widespread belief that Paul George wanted to join the Lakers, but sourced reports in the weeks and months leading up to his free agency repeatedly stated that the Thunder remained very confident in their ability to re-sign him. If you didn’t discount those reports as misguided optimism, you weren’t surprised by George’s eventual decision to stay in Oklahoma City.

All of this is to say that where there’s smoke, there’s probably fire — those Knicks rumors are coming from somewhere, and there’s reason for New York basketball fans to be excited about the possibility of their team signing Durant.

Still, until Durant puts pen to paper, this is far from a done deal. Since the regular season ended, there have been reports suggesting that uncertainty about Durant’s future has increased, along with reports indicating that the Warriors are still getting a sense that KD might stay. If he doesn’t choose the Knicks, we could be looking back at those stories as the warning signs we missed.

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Community Shootaround: Khris Middleton

The Bucks intend to re-sign all of their top free agents after reaching the Eastern Conference finals. But is that the best course of action?

The biggest question mark surrounds Khris Middleton, generally considered the second-best player on the team behind MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo. Middleton will opt out of the last year of his contract, which would pay him $13MM, and head to unrestricted free agency.

Once marquee agents such as Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler come off the board, Middleton would be viewed as a nice consolation prize for teams with salary-cap space that don’t land one of the big stars. Middleton averaged 18.3 PPG and career highs of 6.0 RPG and 4.3 APG this season after posting an average of 20.1 PPG last season. Middleton is a career 38.8% 3-point shooter and, at 27, in his prime years.

The nagging question is can Middleton be the second-best player on a championship team? Middleton had a 30-point outburst in Game 4 against the Raptors but averaged 10.2 PPG in the five other games of the conference finals.

A max offer for Middleton would be an approximate $189.6MM commitment over five years; he could receive a max of $140.6MM over four years from another team. Whether he gets the max or something close to it, it’s going to be awfully expensive to retain him.

An alternative for the Bucks would be to shoot higher themselves and try to convince a big-name free agent to come their way. The other approach would be to absorb the salary of an All-Star caliber player in a trade with the savings they’ll get by allowing Middleton to sign elsewhere. That doesn’t seem to be the way the Bucks are leaning but it would be a bolder approach.

That leads us to our question of the day: Should the Bucks go all out to re-sign Khris Middleton or should they seek another star to pair up with Giannis Antetokounmpo?

Please take to the comments section to weigh in on this topic. We look forward to your input.

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