With the first big wave of player transfers of the 2024 NBA offseason behind us, some things are starting to take shape. The Oklahoma City Thunder are looking like one of the top teams in the West after adding Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso to last year’s No. 1 seed. Boston Celtics He remains very popular in the East, New York Knicks With Mikal Bridges Philadelphia 76ers He’s ready to take them on with Paul George.
Even teams not at the top of the championship standings are looking to improve this offseason. Dallas Mavericks It’s good to see the shooting and defense improvements from Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, and it will be interesting to see how Klay Thompson performs outside the Bay Area. The Orlando Magic have a chance to emerge as a powerhouse in the Eastern Conference this year without anyone trying.
And some teams just aren’t trying hard enough. There’s plenty of time left in the offseason to make moves, but these six teams are: something Otherwise, you will fall behind your competitors.
Denver Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets could have retained Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in free agency if they had wanted, but Denver feared the looming penalties of being in the “second apron” of the luxury tax and figured they could replace the veteran two-guard with a younger player. Or maybe ownership was just being stingy.
It’s time for Denver to go all in on Nikola Jokic. The three-time MVP is 29 years old and in the prime of his career, but the team around him continues to lose talent for financial reasons alone. The Nuggets lost Bruce Brown and Jeff Green last year after winning the 2023 championship, and now they’ve lost an even bigger contributor in KCP. This decision puts a lot of pressure on Denver’s inexperienced young bench members Christian Braun, Peyton Watson and Julian Strother to perform at a high level right away. The Nuggets’ depth was already an issue last year, but now it’s even more so.
The Nuggets are still a very good team and could win a championship, but losing Caldwell-Pope for no apparent reason made them a lot worse, and unless the young players make big strides, the Nuggets will have let Jokic down this summer.
Los Angeles Lakers
of Lakers The Lakers were a pretty good team last year that only won one playoff game and never had a realistic chance to win the Western Conference. For a team like that, making some big moves in the offseason would seem like a good idea, especially when you have three first-round picks to trade. But the Lakers were content to draft Dalton Knecht and Bronny James and nothing else.
Knecht will be able to help the Lakers with his off-ball shooting next season as a rookie, but it probably won’t be enough to push them far up the standings. LA is betting on developing young players, but adding a true veteran will likely make them worse by proxy. LA was very good with LeBron James and Anthony Davis last season, but who knows if that will happen again this year. The West continues to improve, and the Lakers are doing nothing to help LeBron James enter his age 40 season.
The Lakers are preparing for life after James, instead of trying their best while he’s still an elite player. LA doesn’t want to trade future draft picks or incur the penalty of being on the second apron. The Lakers are just taking it easy, and that shouldn’t be enough, since they’re employing a superstar with the longest prime years in league history.
Milwaukee Bucks
of Milwaukee Bucks The Warriors were expected to be championship contenders after acquiring Damian Lillard last season, but the team started the season off with a disappointing start, fired first-year head coach Adrian Griffin midseason and replaced him with Doc Rivers, then suffered a season-ending injury to Giannis Antetokounmpo just before the playoffs.
It feels like now or never for the Lillard-Antetokounmpo duo heading into the 2024-25 season, but the Bucks haven’t done anything to strengthen their team this summer.
While it’s true that the Bucks are up against the cap and have few future assets, other teams have found ways to get creative in similar situations. Milwaukee’s big plan seems to be to pray for the health of their four veteran stars. With the 76ers and Knicks doing all they can to add top-tier talent and the Celtics still being among the best in the conference, that doesn’t seem like a smart move. If Milwaukee disappoints again this season, it’s only a matter of time before Antetokounmpo trade rumors surface again.
Miami Heat
The Heat missed out on Damian Lillard last summer and had no chance this summer until Donovan Mitchell re-signed with Cleveland. Miami is a franchise known for making bold bets, but they haven’t done anything heading into the 2024-25 season.
Jimmy Butler is in the final year of his contract without a contract extension, Bam Adebayo is under contract for the long term, and they have young players like Jaime Jaquez, Nikola Jovic, Kerrell Ware, and Tyler Herro on their roster. For now, the Heat feel like a team caught between two timelines: one where they’re not good enough to win this season with Butler as their core, but then if Butler leaves in the summer of 2025, the team will be without a core player.
Miami would be wise to explore trading Butler and prioritize the future, but this organization doesn’t typically operate that way. Unless the Heat find a way to acquire impact talent, they seem stuck at the bottom of the playoff picture in the East.
Los Angeles Clippers
This one should be pretty self-explanatory. The Clippers lost Paul George in free agency but never got around to recouping his assets. Los Angeles responded by signing bargain-basement players like Derrick Jones Jr., Kris Dunn, Nic Batum and Mo Bamba, but none of those players will make up for the loss of an All-NBA caliber player like George.
The Clippers still have Kawhi Leonard and James Harden on the roster, but neither are dependable at this point in their careers, and the scary thing for Los Angeles is they won’t have a first-round pick of their own until 2030. Right now, this team looks like a fringe Western Conference playoff team at best, on a downward trajectory with few assets to get back on track.
Phoenix Suns
at least Phoenix Suns They didn’t skimp. Despite a huge luxury tax bill looming, the Suns re-signed Roy O’Neal to a $44 million contract. Phoenix also acquired Mason Plumlee to add depth to their frontcourt. Those moves are laudable in the small ways, but not enough to make any real difference for a team that just came off a first-round playoff exit.
Phoenix was supposed to be a championship contender when they acquired Kevin Durant. Last summer’s big push to acquire Bradley Beal backfired, and now Phoenix is stuck with a huge salary, three stars who don’t fit and zero future draft picks available for trade until 2031.
If the Suns don’t start the season strong, it’ll only be a matter of time before they start thinking about trading Kevin Durant, at which point Devin Booker’s future will also be the subject of heavy speculation. The Suns don’t have many moves left, and the team isn’t good enough yet.
