2020 NBA Offseason Recap: Sizing up the entire league

Sizing up the league in an NBA offseason recap

This NBA offseason, much like life in general these days, has distorted our sense of time. The financial and logistical uncertainty surrounding the 2020-21 season caused an unprecedented five-and-a-half-week layoff between the NBA Finals and the Draft.

After that it was full steam ahead, with most of the top free agents coming off the board a few days of the moratorium. There was no summer league, and training camp suddenly rolled around on December 1 – whether the players (or the league as a whole, for that matter) were ready or not. Let’s run through the large-scale themes from this condensed offseason, starting with the top of the NBA hierarchy:

In a post-Warriors league, a true dynastic superpower has yet to emerge into that void as the clear-cut Finals favorite. The Los Angeles Lakers stormed out the gates last year and tore through the bubble playoffs, but they never quite inspired a sense of inevitability like most champions. And while the Milwaukee Bucks may carry a gargantuan statistical resume, early playoff defeats in back-to-back seasons have discredited the legitimacy of this regular season dominance.

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In fact, the case be made that none of second-round playoff teams markedly upgraded their rosters during the offseason. Two other franchises, Brooklyn and Golden State, were poised to enter the fray with lofty aspirations in 2021. It’s too early to bank on the Brooklyn Nets until we see how Kevin Durant looks and how the roster shapes out. The Warriors fell out of the title picture the instant Klay Thompson was ruled out for the season.

This has also opened the door for one of the fringe contenders – many of whom have gotten better this offseason – to force themselves into the conversation. Dallas, Phoenix, and Portland have all made notable additions while being able to count on internal growth as well. Philadelphia completely re-shaped the team around its three max-players (shout-out to Tobias Harris’ agent). And in Indiana and Utah, the hope is that continuity and improved health lead to more successful campaigns this time around in 2021.

Then, there are the organizations playing the long game. Memphis and New Orleans – two potential giants in the Western Conference for the 2020s – are gearing around their respective cores of Ja Morant/Jaren Jackson Jr. and Zion Williamson/Brandon Ingram. Despite the promising showing last year, the Grizzlies appear to have (smartly) tempered their expectations this season in the hellscape that is the Western Conference.

A disturbing bubble performance by the Pelicans resulted in a coaching change and a sell-off of Jrue Holiday for an enormous bundle of assets. Speaking of assets, the full tear-down has officially begun in Oklahoma City, with Sam Presti primed to build through the draft much as he did over a decade ago. Chicago, Cleveland, and Sacramento seem to be staying the course by prioritizing the development of young guys, though they all have a strange cast of veteran pieces alongside these players (it’s also unclear how much upside each team’s young group really possesses).

The New York Knicks are in the same boat; but if 20-plus years of James Dolan has taught us anything, it’s that the entire direction of the franchise can change at a moment’s impulse.

This leaves us with seven teams stuck in the middle: Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, Minnesota, Orlando, San Antonio, and Washington. Despite spending extravagantly on Gordon Hayward, I believe that the Hornets fall more in the later group as a franchise positioning itself for the future. The Pistons made waves in the first offseason of the Troy “Stretch and Weaver” regime, but this figures to be somewhat of a rebuilding season for them, too. How far they are willing to go along this route is a different story.

The Spurs and Magic find themselves in similar spots; an aging old guard that may result in 45 wins in a good year (DeRozan/Aldridge and Vucevic/Fournier) versus a cast of intriguing yet non-star bound young prospects, led by coaches who will work to squeeze every last win from the roster. Both organizations were extremely quiet in free agency; do we see either of them pull the trigger on bigger moves at the deadline?

Next. NBA: Blockbuster trades, LeBron James’ decline, other 2021 bold predictions. dark

The Washington Wizards are firmly entrenched on the treadmill of mediocrity, with the eventual Beal trade all but inescapable at this point. The Hawks and the Timberwolves had the two most baffling offseasons in the league to me; more on them later.

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