Biggest Offseason Losers
Every single off-season there are teams that are winners and teams that are losers. For instance, this year the biggest winner was by far the Miami Heat, who signed three elite free agents in LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh. To contrast that unusual signing, let’s look at the biggest losers in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Cleveland Cavaliers:
The Cavaliers tried everything they could to make sure that native son LeBron James would remain in Cleveland. Unfortunately, James jumped ship and the Cavaliers franchise looks painfully moribund, despite owner Dan Gilbert’s championship aspirations.
The Cavaliers have been unable to add any new players besides trading Delonte West to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Ramon Sessions. That means the Cavaliers are the same team as last year, just without LeBron James. The Cavaliers still have a hefty trade exception they can use to obtain some big-name talent before the season’s start, but it looks more likely that the top Eastern Conference seed in the 2010 NBA playoffs will barely be a playoff team next season.
Los Angeles Lakers:
The Lakers aren’t losers in the Cleveland Cavaliers dejected roster sort of way. In fact, they’ve bolstered their two-peat winning team with point guard Steve Blake and lockdown defender Matt Barnes. However, they haven’t done anything to address the fact that the Miami Heat have James, Wade, and Bosh together on a single team in the East now.
The loser status of the Lakers is more of a spirit thing because any time a team that has won two championships in a row manages to retain its roster (perhaps even improve it), only to slip to a co-favourite for next season, it’s a loss.
Los Angeles Clippers:
The Los Angeles Lakers’ woes are relative to their championship aspirations. The Clippers’ woes stem from a pathetic offseason and some of the worst management in the NBA. The Clippers’ poor play and roster may have made sense when it seemed as if they were gunning for some serious free-agent offers this offseason.
The Clippers then never really made any offers and have since ended up signing only Randy Foye and Ryan Gomes. No one can quite be certain why the Clippers are so keen on signing members of the 2008 Minnesota Timberwolves (they signed Craig Smith as well), but it is a certainty that these off-season moves are little if any forward progress for a franchise that is barely clinging on to any semblance of success as is.
The Clippers do have some talent and a lot of possibilities if Blake Griffin plays well in his first true season. However, they could have done a lot more with the resources they had.
Minnesota Timberwolves:
Under general manager (GM) David Kahn, the Timberwolves continue to be the most bizarrely run franchise in the entire NBA. Not a single one of the Timberwolves’ offseason moves really makes any sense.
The franchise could be trying to rebuild based on having so many high picks in recent years. Instead, their big off-season acquisition was signing 30 year-old point guard Luke Ridnour a year after drafting three point guards and keeping only one.
Kahn also signed Darko Milicic to a five-year, $20 million deal. Milicic should probably no longer play in the NBA, let alone be earning $4 million a year. Milicic was drafted second overall after LeBron James and ahead of Wade and Bosh in the 2003 Draft. Since then, he has played for five teams and averaged a whopping 5.6 ppg and 4.1 rpg.
Kahn also hired Lakers legend Kurt Rambis, who will be running the triangle offence in Minnesota, and continues to acquire players that do not benefit from the system. The triangle allows teams to play well without strong point guards, yet Kahn insists on drafting pick-and-roll point guards who have poor outside shooting.
All in all, the Timberwolves have once again shown themselves to be the most poorly managed team in the NBA. At this point, it’s no longer a question of how bad the franchise will be as long as Kahn is around. Hopefully up-and-comers Kevin Love and Jonny Flynn can find their way out of Minnesota before their career goes in the direction of Kahn’s rationale.
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