NBA April Prediction: The buyouts won’t be as impactful as we think
If you went into a coma 5 years ago and woke up to see Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge joining Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn while Andre Drummond heads to Los Angeles to team up with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, you’d think the NBA either eliminated the salary cap or they got rid of the other 28 teams for budget cuts.
And while I think it’s okay to not be in love with how some of these buyouts have played out, specifically how players are just being shut down before the trade deadline and bought out despite still having value, I still don’t think the impact on the end result will be that significant.
Griffin and Aldridge are smart veterans who know how to play, but they don’t solve any problems for the Nets. The end goal is to win a championship and I can’t picture a world where Aldridge is on the floor much in an NBA Finals due to how poor he is on the defensive end. Griffin is certainly at least more versatile than Aldridge on defense, but will still be targeted by opponents in a playoff series. It’s also worth noting that Nic Claxton has been more than good enough in that same role and has earned big postseason minutes for what he brings on the defensive end.
For the Lakers, Drummond will slide into the Dwight Howard role from a year ago – a role that was virtually non-existent when the Lakers faced any adversity in their championship run. If Drummond is engaged (a reasonably sized if) he can certainly help on the glass and block some shots, probably catch some lobs too. But his free throw shooting (although better in recent years) and inability to space the floor will make him tough to play in crunch time.
So yes, you can not like how the buyout market works and I’m not sure any non-Nets/Lakers fan is defending it today, but expecting these buyout guys to swing a title chase at this stage of their career would be a misrepresentation of what they really bring to their new teams.