It would be easy to label the Oklahoma City Thunder as the biggest losers of the NBA offseason after they lost Kevin Durant to the Golden State Warriors this summer However, the Thunder managed to get Russell Westbrook to commit to an extension and their trade that sent Serge Ibaka to the Orlando Magic in exchange for Victor Oladipo, Ersan Ilyasova and this year’s No. 11 overall pick Domantas Sabonis has to be considered a steal. We gave them a pass. In the end, there were at least four other teams that had rougher offseasons than Oklahoma City. Here is a look at the four biggest losers of the NBA offseason.
Miami Heat
General manager Pat Riley delivered a PR nightmare for the franchise when the Heat missed out on Durant and then failed to bring back the best player in the team’s history in Dwyane Wade. Even if the Heat didn’t really want Wade back for multiple years since – especially at a rate that they might be regretting in a year or two – they still are not a better team today than they were last season.
Miami ended up losing Wade, Luol Deng, Joe Johnson and perhaps even Chris Bosh, who is dealing with health issues. They did bring back Hassan Whiteside for max money, which is a good move, but they also kept Tyler Johnson at a massive price tag after the Brooklyn Nets signed him to an offer sheet. The Heat ended up signing a pair of former lottery picks in Dion Waiters and Derrick Williams while landing role players in Wayne Ellington and James Johnson, but it’s hard to see the overall upside with the moves they made. There should be no doubt that Miami got worse on paper and that is why we have them at the top of our list as the biggest losers of the offseason.
Orlando Magic
After breaking down the Ibaka trade earlier in this article, there was no way we could allow the Magic to get away without earning a spot on this list. Orlando traded its best player in order to land a veteran big man that appears to be on the down side of his career. As if that trade wasn’t confusing enough, the Magic signed Bismack Biyombo to a big deal that leaves them with Ibaka, Biyombo, Nikola Vucevic, Jeff Green and Aaron Gordon up front. Vucevic is already a quality center making good money and Gordon is a former lottery pick. There is a lot of money and assets invested in the frontcourt and some players will be very unhappy with their playing time.
Orlando’s backcourt tandem of Evan Fournier and Elfrid Payton isn’t nearly as good as it would have been if Oladipo were still in the mix. The Magic was one of the busier teams this offseason but it wasn’t necessarily for the best.
Sacramento Kings
When the best player on the roster openly questions the decisions that management is making, there is clearly a problem. That was the case for the Kings this summer with DeMarcus Cousins calling out the team’s decision to draft yet another big man in Georgios Papagiannis at No. 13 overall, which looks like a major reach at least on paper. Sacramento will enter next season with Cousins, Papagiannis, Kosta Koufos, Willie Cauley-Stein and Omri Casspi up front. All the while they neglected their guard position, which now lacks depth following the loss of last year’s assists leader Rajon Rondo. The Kings grabbed Garrett Temple with the hope that he can be a capable backup to Darren Collison at the point guard position but they clearly would have been better served addressing their backcourt outlook in either the draft or free agency.
San Antonio Spurs
The Spurs brought in Pau Gasol to help replace the retired Tim Duncan and he should provide an offensive upgrade, but the real issue here is their loss of key depth players. Boris Diaw was traded to the Utah Jazz while Boban Marjanovic was signed by the Detroit Pistons as a restricted free agent. Meanwhile, San Antonio missed out on Durant and failed to land a big-name free agent of its own this summer. The road to the NBA Finals just became a lot more difficult for the Spurs, so it only makes sense that they ended up with a spot on this list.
