We're experiencing a very high-paced NBA off-season. It is not easy to remember an off-season with such major moves since 2010, which gained its popularity years before and exported a super team like Miami Heat. NBA is now dominated by the Golden State Warriors and it is reasonable to expect that other 29 teams' frame of mind will shift from 'How can we be a better team?' to 'Can we beat Warriors?'. Although defeating the Warriors isn't an easy task to do, many teams have made significant moves in this 2-month period. Houston Rockets brought CP3 next to Harden and created the most exciting backcourt of the league. Oklahoma City Thunder added Paul George after a profitable trade. Boston made an unprecedented move and acquired Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward in one summer. Minnesota Timberwolves finally made the transition from ‘promising team’ to contender by adding Jimmy Butler to their roster.
These moves, as expected, occupied the headlines of NBA news, both because of the size of the names and directly related to the top of the league. There are many breakdown analyzes, articles, podcasts which cover them. However, there were another important moves in this off-season. Some trades and free-agent acquisitions were off the radar this off-season but could easily push the top of ‘most important moves’ list if it happened in recent years. Here are three of them:
Denver Nuggets – Paul Millsap:
February 12, 2017 means a lot for Denver Nuggets. In addition to acquiring the Mason Plumlee and 2nd round pick in exchange for Jusuf Nurkic, they also won Nikola Jokic that day. Confusion and bad role distribution are seen as big problems for a team. Jokic-Nurkic duo were inefficient together and this issue were harming both players and Denver. After the trade, Nurkic found his rhythm in Portland and Jokic showed a superstar-level performance. At the beginning of last season, it was possible to talk about two questions for Denver: ‘Who will be the player that team will be built around?’ and ‘How the defense will improve?’. First question seems to be solved with Jokic’s rise and second question’s answer could be Paul Millsap.
For Denver, there is a clear offense-defense imbalance and it can be shown clearly with numbers. Nuggets comes 4th in offensive rating after Warriors; Cavs and Rockets with 113.9 but in defensive rating, they are 29th with 113.43. This is unacceptable for a team which expected to be in the race for playoffs in Western Conference and to solve it, Millsap’s help will be crucial. His combination of athleticism and power and ability to defend multiple positions, which will provide significant flexibility to the defense of Denver, is likely to increase the team’s dynamism. Millsap listed 14th in Defensive RPM among all players in the league with 3.35 and a quick note, his partner was Dwight Howard a.k.a the guy who finished basketball in his head roughly 4 years ago. It should be underlined that Howard-Jokic transition will be so much valuable for him and in that way, he can contribute to team’s overall game.
Having set a certain offense standard around the Murray-Harris-Jokic trio, Denver has the potential to go one step further with Millsap's involvement. He can score on iso’s, is a very effective roll-man in pick&roll’s (6th in ppp last season), has 3-point weapon (although his stability is debatable) and in addition to those, the biggest plus that he is going to bring to Denver will be his passing ability. Jokic is on a different level in terms of center passing and now with Millsap, one of the best PF’s in the league in terms of court vision, will create a effective inside-outside balance. Nowadays, spacing is a necessity in basketball and Denver has a frontcourt duo who can contribute to this factor.
Sacramento Kings – George Hill:
George Hill had a successful season with Utah Jazz last season and had many clients in this off-season. Rather than Spurs, Nuggets and Lakers; Hill’s next destination will be Sacramento Kings. It can be argued that whether the 3 years-57 MD contract made Hill overpaid or not and whether Kings need Hill or not. However; when it comes to Kings, problems don’t remain as little details, they reach into structural level. At least, it used to be. Since the Cousins trade, Kings has been making right moves and evaluating the Hill addition along with long term goals of Vivek-Divac duo would be reasonable.
Cousins-Kings relationship did not promise anything in the long run for the two sides, and it was very important for Kings to get rid of this burden and look ahead, even though the assets that they got in exchange for him was insufficient. This summer, the Kings made it possible to get rid of the perception of ‘dead team’ and enter the list to be followed. Let’s look at the incomers-outgoing list. Outgoings are Rudy Gay, Langston Galloway, Tyreke Evans, Darren Collison and Anthony Tolliver. Incomers are George Hill, Zach Randolph, Vince Carter, De’Aaron Fox and Bogdan Bogdanovic. If you consider Buddy Hield as a new player also, there is not a second team in NBA to make such a big progress in terms of depth compared to the beginning of last season. It is impossible to know that if it would be a more accurate choice in the long run to pursue an comprehensive tanking like the one that 76’ers did but Kings’ roster can now offer us something.
So, what is George Hill’s role in this team? Briefly; leading the team with being the only good ball distributor and playing a mentor role for young players –especially De’Aaron Fox-. His turnover and usage rates are comparatively low and his responsibility will be big in terms of keeping the Kings in order. It is also likely that he will contribute to team’s defense, his defensive RPM numbers can be considered as proofs. In addition to all these, the table above shows how underrated George Hill is in terms of offensive efficiency. The only question mark for Hill will be injuries, which caused him not playing at all 82 games in any season.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope – Los Angeles Lakers:
Lakers turned all its focus into the summer of 2018. The plan is offering max contracts to LeBron James and Paul George by clearing the salary cap, and everyone in the NBA knows that. For current roster, there is no untouchable name except Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball, D’Angelo’s Brooklyn trade is a proof of that. This season’s aim will be concentrated on Lonzo and Ingram’s development and while doing that, they will try to establish a solid core before LeBron or George’s (maybe both?) possible arrival. Before looking at what can Kentavious Caldwell-Pope do in Lakers, it should be remembered that his contract lasts just for one year. What it means that, in the upcoming off-season KCP will either go to another team or settle down for a contract less than 18 million dollar for a year with the Lakers. Whether the Magic – Pelinka duo will offer a new contract to KCP in 2018 summer will depend on the performance that he is going to show this year.
KCP seems to fill a significant gap in SG, a position where Lakers struggles since Kobe’s prime. With the departure of Lou Williams and Nick Young and Jordan Clarkson’s inability to show a solid performance as a starter (and his numbers substantially go up with the bench unit), participation of KCP will be valuable for the team in the short run. It is a fact that the Lakers acquired the most reliable name in the market to consign SG position but as a matter of fact, pros&cons of his game seems to balance each other. Keeping good aspects of his game in front and hiding bad ones will depend entirely on Luke Walton’s preferences and line-up choices. He is both a good finisher and passer in pick&roll, at this point he can integrate along Lonzo very well and can compensate D’Angelo’s absence in pick&roll positions. Despite playing in a relatively low-tempo like Detroit (22th in pace last season) he is quite effective in transition, which can be valuable in Walton’s system. His court vision is pretty good and that can also be added to pluses list. When we look at the negative sides of his game, shot selection needs to be written first. Inefficency of mid-range shots is now proven by mathematics but he takes this type of uses frequently by coming out in pick&roll’s and hand-off’s. It is possible to link this to Detroit’s system and offensive sets but still, it is obvious that his efficiency lowers when it comes to decision making. In addition to that, his shot percentage around the rim is quite low (0.94 ppp – 14th percentile).
There is also a dilemma about KCP’s defensive performance. From the limited Detroit games I have seen in my past seasons, I regarded him as a very aggressive key defender. However, articles that I read and numbers that I look after Lakers acquisition didn’t support this argument of mine. He completed the last season with -1.31 Defensive RPM and couldn’t reach the 40th percentile in either driving D, isolation D or off screen D. Although there are numerous "defensive highlights" videos of him on Youtube, it is hard to say that you can link this performance with stability. This is also creates a question mark for Lakers, who finished the ’16-‘17 last in terms of defensive rating and needs urgent help at that side of the game. The issue of whether KCP can turn his potential into efficiency will be the key for both Lakers’ season and his own career.
*References for stats:
NBA.com/stats
Basketball-reference.com
NBAMath.com
-Translated from the original Turkish article that published on September 1, 2017.
