Three-Man Weave: Which team will act as the most entertaining trainwreck of 2015-16?
With the draft and the bulk of free agency now behind us, it’s time to start taking stock of what’s transpired this summer and how it all figures to impact the upcoming NBA campaign.
This week, we discuss: Which team will act as the most entertaining trainwreck of 2015-16?
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Dan Devine: I’ve got concerns about the Los Angeles Clippers, a team with championship expectations looking to bounce back from a horrific collapse whose attempts at developing depth might look better on paper than in practice, and whose post-Sterling honeymoon might be coming to an end. I’m not really sure what exactly the Dallas Mavericks are these days; extenuating circumstances aside, they seem more likely to fizzle than catch fire this season.
Given their sheer star power and the elevated stakes surrounding all things LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers are the most entertaining possible trainwreck on the board. It seems unlikely that last year’s Finalists crumble, though, especially given how tough it is to come up with viable Eastern Conference contenders. The fundamental truth of New York Knicks fandom is that things can always go from bad to worse under James Dolan, but that drain-circling doesn’t produce the most compelling spectacle. Ditto for the latter-day Los Angeles Lakers, who — D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and Kobe Bryant-willing — might be a bit more fun than dysfunctional this year.
In the absence of a more complete, compelling case to the contrary, then, I’m going chalk with the Sacramento Kings — a team whose season outlook can go from penthouse to poor house in the blink of an eye of the beholder.
They’ve got one of the game’s most watchable and unstoppable forces in DeMarcus Cousins, a deserving All-Star entering his prime who now holds the dubious distinction of the league’s best player without a postseason appearance. They’ve got a legendary head coach in George Karl, who wanted Boogie gone until he didn’t and is looking to rebuild his bridges with handshakes, hugs and high signs.
They’ve got a new front office that may or may not know what it’s doing. They’ve got a new point guard who may or may not be good anymore, and who has plenty of incentive to prove he is. They’ve got a passel of other new pieces — well-regarded center Kosta Koufos, top defensive frontcourt prospect Willie Cauley-Stein, veteran wings Marco Belinelli and Caron Butler, et al. — who may or may not fit together, but who could comprise the best roster Sacramento’s fielded in a decade, giving Karl a variety of options with which to craft an improved team on both ends of the floor.
Whether Vivek Ranadivé and Vlade Divac have made enough smart calls, and whether the resulting mix is good enough to get past 30 wins for the first time in eight years, very much remains to be seen. It’s anybody’s guess whether the Kings will both produce a winning product and sustain that momentum through a long-awaited postseason push, or if another winter of losing leads Vivek to send yet another round of cleansing fire through his franchise’s basketball operations. Either outcome seems plausible; that uncertainty makes Sacramento one of this season’s most fascinating franchises.
Kelly Dwyer: Toronto Raptors. Anyone else get the feeling that Masai Ujiri is setting Dwane Casey up to fail?
A general manager inheriting a head coach rarely goes well, but Casey is a damn good head coach, and Ujiri is an acclaimed GM, so you’d think this potential mismatch could work out.
With 2015-16 a few weeks away, however, one can’t help but wonder if the Raptors need to severely overachieve in order to keep Casey on the sidelines.
A sprightly bit of defiance in the face of critics is already on Casey’s resume, his 2013-14 Raptors crew was expected to tank away the season and yet he led the team to a 48-win season and playoff appearance. The Raps even took the Atlantic Division in 2014-15 despite some seriously inconsistent play from just about every rotation member, prior to being embarrassingly swept from the postseason by the Washington Wizards.
Those Wizards once seemed the lasting model of trainwreck-ery, and yet even with the loss of Paul Pierce a wizened Wizards squad could battle for the title of the East’s Great No. 2 in 2015-16?
The Raps? The momentum isn’t as strong, and one has to wonder if this is by design.
Ujiri has always favored players made of stern stuff, but in jettisoning Lou Williams and Greivis Vasquez from his team in favor of DeMarre Carroll, Cory Joseph and Bismack Biyombo he’s potentially kicked the shins of Toronto’s potential second and third quarter offensive runs. The Raps were a top five offense last season and, somehow, a playoff team despite ranking 25th in defensive efficiency. Toronto’s GM apparently has no issue with letting the former slide in attempts to just muster a credible, if even mediocre, defensive outfit.
Which is fine! Working at a stellar rate on one end and a middling rate at another is enough to earn you a second or even third round playoff berth in the East. Carroll is an admirable player, and his four-year, $60 million deal won’t seem as egregious once the salary cap vaults to ridiculous heights in the coming years, and he genuinely can guard four positions with aplomb. Ideally, a low-usage guy in his prime roaming around the perimeter defensively would seem to be a feature straight out of central casting for Toronto.
Is it enough, however, with Carroll’s old Hawks still around, a potentially healthy Cavaliers squad, a modern-as-tomorrow Wizards team growing before our eyes, and a possibly reborn Chicago Bulls group? The Heat could dominate at times, given good health and chemistry, while the Celtics and Bucks have unending strains of potential.
The soap opera part hits when you consider Casey’s contract. He’s working on a three-year deal, signed in 2014, and though the Toronto ownership group has money to burn they rarely decide to fire it up on the basketball side of things. Canning Casey with one year left on his deal, following a presumably disappointing 2015-16, would only cost the Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment around $4 million. That’s two-thirds of the NBA’s average salary, a pittance on top of what will be (prior to any possible extensions for Terrence Ross) the NBA’s 25th-highest payroll this season. And yet you still could see some teeth gnashing even with what would seem to be Ujiri’s hoped-for savior (deposed former Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau) waiting on the fringes.
Things could get weird, is all. DeMarre Carroll is just 15 months removed from being considered an “if he’s starting for you, we need to talk”-sort of contributor, Jonas Valanciunas has to take that long-awaited step forward in order for the Raps to move on up, and even a slimmed-down Kyle Lowry has to prove that he can make this work for 82-strong.
Even while winning more often than not, the Raptors could be a little silly this year. On purpose, even.
(But, I mean, it’s the Kings, right? I’m not going to pretend that everyone here doesn’t already know that. That team is super messed-up.)
Eric Freeman: It is easy to blame both sides for the ongoing animosity between Markieff Morris and the Phoenix Suns. The player is understandably upset that the team traded away his twin brother Marcus less than a year after they accepted a contract extension presented as a package deal. Meanwhile, the Suns can accuse the twins of naivete regarding the business of the NBA and claim the same rights as any other franchise attempting to open cap space to sign (or not sign) a coveted free agent. The argument over which group is more at fault could wage on at length and accomplish nothing more than exposing everyone’s sense of which aspects of the player-team relationship matter most.
This saga is most likely heading towards a familiar end. The Suns will either fulfill Morris’s ongoing request demand prophecy of his own future departure from Phoenix or let him stew in his own displeasure long enough that it dissipates, whether emotionally or due to fines. Neither result will shift the balance of power in the league or change the Suns’ position as hopeful but ultimately unlikely playoff participants. Morris is a good young player and one of the best guys this team has, but he is also perhaps best understood as a nice piece.
It’s perhaps wrong to characterize this set of circumstances as a disaster to anyone but Markieff Morris, who seems to be uncomfortable with the whole idea of wearing orange and purple this season. But it does reflect the extent to which the Suns have turned alienating key players into a sort of standard operating procedure. Last season’s ordeal involving Goran Dragic has been well documented and will likely remain much more controversial than the Morris situation if only because Dragic had played at an All-Star level in 2013-14. Nevertheless, these dust-ups seem to be the beginning of a pattern in which Suns general manager Ryan McDonough makes moves under a certain logic but does not consider how they may affect the mindsets of players already on the roster. Based on the available evidence, the Suns do not appear to toe the line between looking towards the future and building for the present as they do to respond to issues in need of immediate attention and sort out the implications after the fact. The question isn’t how this issue will be sorted out, but when the next one will arise.
Previously, on the Weave:
Which young player will make the biggest leap to stardom?
Which Eastern Conference contender will make it up to No. 2?
Which Western Conference contender is the most vulnerable?
Which coach will be on the NBA’s hottest seat in 2015-16?
Which rookie ended up in the right spot?
