The league looks a lot different than it did four days ago — or even 24 hours ago, for that matter. We evaluated most of the key trades Thursday, so now it’s time to look at who’s on notice in the new NBA landscape:
•Dallas Mavericks, most of the league’s contenders
An underplayed storyline from this week’s madness is that of all the teams considered title contenders before Thursday, only one (the Celtics) made a trade. The Heat, Lakers, Spurs, Magic, Bulls and Mavericks all stood pat, with always-active Dallas the lone major surprise among this group.
By all accounts, Dallas worked hard to turn Caron Butler’s expiring contract and a first-round pick into something — Devin Harris, J.R. Smith, Tayshaun Prince or some other wing scorer. In the end, it appears the Butler/draft pick package wasn’t enticing enough, and that the Mavs weren’t willing to go beyond that.
We may never know what teams such as the Pistons and Nuggets demanded, or whether Dallas could have snagged Harris before the Nets placed him in the Deron Williams deal. Dallas has deemed Roddy Beaubois basically untouchable and has few other players who are both expendable and desirable.
So Dallas will go into the postseason with what it has. So will the Bulls (notwithstanding the potential addition of a buyout candidate), who reportedly sought a shooting guard such as Courtney Lee or O.J. Mayo but wouldn’t part with Omer Asik to get it done. That leaves Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer and Keith Bogans to man the position, and the Bulls are doing just fine, on both ends, with that crew.
• Boston big man Glen Davis
The Celtics’ stunning trade of Kendrick Perkins to the Thunder was about a lot of things: the possibility of losing the starting center to free agency this summer; the need for a backup swingman (Jeff Green, a player coach Doc Rivers has always liked); faith that Shaquille O’Neal will get healthy; the Clippers’ 2012 draft pick Boston received in the deal; and keeping the salary books clear long term.
But to me, the deal is about Davis more than anyone else. Davis and Kevin Garnett have formed Boston’s go-to crunch-time power forward/center combination all season, and my hunch is Boston is fine with those two guys playing 40 minutes apiece in the playoffs if necessary. Nitpickers will point out that Boston has played worse with Davis on the floor this season, but if you parse the lineup data carefully, you’ll see lineups featuring Davis and at least three of Boston’s core four players have mostly performed brilliantly; lineups with Davis and two or more bench guys are pulling down his plus/minus numbers. The lineups that matter most are doing fine.
Big Baby’s defense has progressed more than Boston’s brain trust could have anticipated, and the Celtics like his ability to stretch the floor — particularly given Rajon Rondo’s jump-shooting issues. The team has to hope Davis will do better on mid-range twos than his current 36 percent mark. He’ll also have to improve on the defensive glass, where he has never been close to Perkins.
• Jeff Green in Boston
Lots of NBA folks are high on Green, it appears. Peter May, writing at ESPNBoston, labeled him the best player in the Boston-Oklahoma City trade, which included Perkins, Nate Robinson and Nenad Krstic. And though my colleague Ian Thomsen isn’t sold on the idea that Green is the best player in the trade, he believes Boston may opt to re-sign Green over Davis if it becomes an either/or situation this summer, when both are free agents. The Boston Globe‘s Bob Ryan compared Green to “a young Antonio McDyess” and Garnett (the latter only in terms of Green’s selflessness).
I’m considerably more skeptical than all three of these brilliant writers (which makes me nervous), and I’d consider Perkins the best player in the trade. Green’s scoring average is misleading and largely the product of the fact that he plays 37 minutes per game on a team with two superstars who draw lots of attention; Green is shooting just 43.7 percent overall and a chilly 30.4 percent from three-point range.
As I mentioned Thursday, plus/minus numbers show he has been a consistent anchor for his team during each of his four seasons in the league. The SuperSonics and Thunder played worse, especially on defense, with Green in the game. Always. Only two players in the league had a bigger negative impact on their team’s scoring differential last season, and the Thunder are again playing much better with Green on the bench – particularly on defense.
A word of caution: The same is true this season of most of Oklahoma City’s starters, including Russell Westbrook, so something was just fundamentally wrong with that lineup. But neither Westbrook nor Kevin Durant was an overall negative last season, when the Thunder jumped up the standings; Green still was.
Green has a ton of talent, and a backup role may suit him beautifully. And if the Celtics (and now Chicago) have taught us anything about defense, it’s that the system matters as much the individual talent; remember when everyone thought Ray Allen was a poor defender?
This is Green’s chance to flourish in a new team context. Boston will need him.
• Nets GM Billy King and owner Mikhail Prokhorov
The Nets pulled off perhaps the coup of the deadline, snaring All-Star point guard Deron Williams when few league observers even understood he might be available. They paid a heavy price to get him, and Williams made clear Thursday that the team will need to convince him to stay instead of opting out of his deal after next season. New Jersey may get an assist from the new collective bargaining agreement because Williams might not be able to get even close to the $17.8 million he could make in 2012-13 under the player option in his current deal.
New Jersey will have major cap room this offseason. The team will face a choice of making a big signing in a relatively weak free-agent class, or tweaking on the margins while biding its time for 2012 — when it will also have to make a decision on 22-year-old center Brook Lopez.
• O.J. Mayo and the Grizzlies
It can’t be fun to know your team came within minutes of trading you, only to have a proposed deal with Indiana fall apart shortly before the 3 p.m. ET deadline. And with the trade of Hasheem Thabeet to Houston, the Grizzlies have signaled that they are ready to pay center Marc Gasol long term this summer. Having already signed Mike Conley and Rudy Gay to big-money deals, the Grizzlies likely don’t have a place for Mayo once his rookie contract expires after next season.
So we have a weird situation where Mayo is playing for his next contract while the rest of the league knows Memphis wants to move him at some point. The Grizzlies played well during Mayo’s 10-game suspension, but they’re going to need his offense — both to make a solid playoff push with Gay out for three more weeks, and to make sure Mayo’s trade value stays relatively healthy. They’re going to want to recoup a first-round pick after sending one to Houston along with Thabeet.
• The “kids” in Houston
There are more minutes on the wing in Houston now that Shane Battier and Aaron Brooks are gone (to Memphis and Phoenix, respectively), and these guys both stand to benefit. Unless Terrence Williams or DeMarre Carroll gets some unexpected run, Budinger may be the only true small forward in Rick Adelman’s regular rotation.
Budinger has shown flashes, but he’s shooting just 42 percent overall and 31 percent from three-point range, and those numbers have to improve. He’s a decent rebounder and his passing has improved, but he has been a key part of a Houston bench that has largely struggled.
Ditto for Courtney Lee, who is already 25 and has seen his minutes nearly cut in half this season. He’s shooting well and he’s a sticky defender, but he has never lived up to the promise he showed as a rookie in Orlando. His rookie deal ends after next season.
This has been a lost season for Williams and Goran Dragic. Both may get a chance to salvage it — and their reputations — but only Dragic is guaranteed minutes here.
• Nicolas Batum and Rudy Fernandez
Both of these guys have gone in and out of favor with Nate McMillan, who has criticized Batum’s passive approach on offense and Fernandez’s attitude and inconsistency. But both have kept their spots in McMillan’s rotation because they’re talented, and because McMillan’s roster has been so thin.
Now comes Gerald Wallace, a tough, physical wing player who can run the floor with these guys but can attack the rim in a way neither Portland youngster can — yet. McMillan is going to love him.
Both guys are set to be restricted free agents after next season, when their rookie deals expire. The competition for minutes — and dollars — just got a little tougher.
• Carl Landry
Landry floundered with Sacramento, where the expectations started high (this is the guy for whom the Kings dealt Kevin Martin, after all) and the frontcourt rotation was jumbled. Now Landry is, at worst, the Hornets’ third-best offensive frontcourt player, and he’s immediately the best scorer among their backups.
The Hornets will have trouble playing Landry, David West and Emeka Okafor together, so Landry is going to have to make his impact as part of New Orleans’ punchless bench. He’ll also have to improve his defensive rebounding, which has reached shooting guard levels since his rookie season. He’ll have to do better if he wants a decent contract this summer, when he’ll be a free agent.
• Aaron Brooks
He’s been on notice all season, really, and it has gone horribly — in part because of an early-season ankle injury. He’s shooting 34 percent (!), he has been pouting about minutes, and if he’s not scoring efficiently, he doesn’t really help your team. The Rockets did well to nab a first-round pick for him considering the league knew they had committed long term to Kyle Lowry and likely weren’t going to re-sign Brooks.
Brooks will get a shot now to fill Goran Dragic’s role as Steve Nash’s backup, and he’ll be a restricted free agent after this season. Who knows if Phoenix is seriously considering him as Nash’s heir — not a scenario most Suns fans want to think about. But he is certainly auditioning for a new contract in a league stacked with point guards.
Source:SI.com
