The NBA's Looming Questions: Part 1

With the trade deadline behind us and the home stretch coming up, let’s look at the main questions facing every NBA team. I’ll start with the bottom 11 teams, who should already be planning for next season.

DETROIT PISTONS - Is Troy Weaver in over his head?
The Pistons have acquired some young talent but that’s not saying much when you are GM for four years and have had the #1, #5, #5, and #7 picks. Still, to be fair, aside from the absolute whiff on Killian Hayes, Weaver’s done solid work on draft night. Beyond that? Not so much.
Troy has a fetish for disappointing big men, acquiring Jahlil Okafor, Marvin Bagley III, James Wiseman, and Nerlens Noel. He overplayed his hand when it came to Bojan Bogdanovic and came away with less for Bojan and Alec Burks than had been offered for Bojan alone last offseason. I like Quentin Grimes but he’s a 4th guard on this team and a replaceable piece. Speaking of replaceable players, Weaver inexplicably traded the 2024 2nd-round pick the Wizards owed them for Simone Fontecchio, a 28-year-old second-year player who’ll be a restricted free agent this offseason. Earlier in the year, Weaver had to use two 2nd-round picks to dump Bagley, the last soon-to-be RFA he traded for and then overpaid. (Let’s hope James Wiseman doesn’t make a contract-year push at the end of this season.)
Weaver somehow took over a team with a .303 win percentage and has done worse every year since.

Whether Weaver is going to stick around or not, the key to the end of this season is, Is there a team here or mismatched talent?
Jaden Ivey’s improved three-point shot could be a game-changer (although he’s oddly forgotten how to shoot free throws) but I still wonder if there’s a fit problem with Cade Cunningham. They kind of strike me as a poor man’s Jayson Tatum & Jaylen Brown. Just how poor remains to be seen. Jalen Duren is a beast and I swore he was shooting threes in the summer league so I feel like there’s room to grow with his perimeter shooting. Ausar Thompson is the extreme version of Matisse Thybulle - he’s more athletic than Matisse and is already a very good defender but his shot makes Thybulle look like vintage Klay Thompson. Isaiah “Beef Stew” Stewart can knock down the three but unless Cade gets better than 33%, it’s going to be tough to win in the modern NBA with Cade, Ausar, and Duren on the floor together.

Thankfully, it seems like these five youngsters are all healthy so we might finally get to see them play together for a stretch. That should give whoever is GM a chance to see if there’s hope here or if the talent doesn’t fit.

WASHINGTON WIZARDS - What are they doing?
Why didn’t the Wizards trade Tyus Jones and Delon Wright? They are free agents at the end of the year. Jones hasn’t had the breakout I was expecting and I can’t imagine he’s in the team’s future plans. At 31, Delon certainly isn’t.
Getting a first-round pick for Daniel Gafford was nice, at least.

The only reason to keep an eye on the Wizards is to see the maturation of Bilal Coulibaly, Deni Avdija, and Corey Kispert. (Former 10th pick Johnny Davis is anchored to the bench and struggled to make a dent when he was in the G-League.)
Jordan Poole is solidifying himself as J.R. Smith 2.0. Kyle Kuzma’s improved his trade value; I’d expect him to be traded this offseason.

Washington might want to consider a rebrand this offseason. The Wizards isn’t a great name, The jerseys are consistently forgettable. The team history as the Wizards has been pretty much a disaster.

SAN ANTONIO SPURS - Who fits around Wemby?
The Spurs never really had a chance at competing this season but they likely won’t ever compete until they find a true point guard. Tre Jones is a backup. Jeremy Sochan is an interesting talent but he’s not a floor general. The NBA Draft has some options in Nikola Topić and Isaiah Collier but the Spurs are still in a position where they just have to draft the best player available.

I understand that the tank is on but I’m a little surprised that the Spurs didn’t make a play for point guard at the deadline. I’m not expecting anyone great but with Devonte’ Graham and Cedi Osman’s expiring* deals out there, it feels like they could have brought in a live body. (Graham’s not expiring but his 12 million next year has only about 3 million guaranteed.) Perhaps the asking price for guys like Davion Mitchell was too high.

The end-of-the-season spotlights will be on Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell. Keldon has plateaued a bit although I think he suffers the most from not having a true PG running the show. Vassell is good but I expected a bit more of a breakout this year and he just kind of is what he is and what he seems to be is a 4th starter. How these two close out the season might determine their long-term standing on the team.

CHARLOTTE HORNETS - Will they finally fire Mitch Kupchak?
Mitch didn’t have a bad trade deadline - he managed to get first-round picks for Terry Rozier and PJ Washington and also brought in Grant Williams, who I think isn’t as bad as he seemed in Dallas. He didn’t get much out of Gordon Hayward’s big expiring deal but at least he didn’t do something stupid with it.
Still, the Hornets are a mess of a franchise. Even worse, they will have some cap room this offseason, and the only people who are happy to see Mitch Kupchak with cap space are agents of middle-of-the-road talents. Mitch has consistently overpaid free agents from the infamous Timofey Mozgov signing, overpaying injury-prone, downside of their careers SFs in Gordon Hayward and Luol Deng. Terry Rozier actually played up to his contract (which seemed like an overpay at the time) but once he re-signed, it was almost immediately seen as a contract they wish they didn’t have. Remember the Tony Parker signing? No. Nobody does. Except for Tony’s agent, who laughed his way to a cool 400k percentage.

Mitch hasn’t exactly won the draft either. The Hornets are a Golden St. Warriors brain fart (taking James Wiseman over LeMelo Ball) away from being a complete mess. Mitch kicked off his campaign of error by swapping picks with the LA Clippers. Mitch ended up with Miles Bridges. The Clippers moved up to get Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The next year, PJ Washington wasn’t a bad pick but the pick after was Tyler Herro. After the LaMelo gift in 2020 came the disastrous ‘21 draft of James Bouknight and Kai Jones, both of whom were waived before their rookie deals were up. In ‘22, the Hornets traded away the pick that was used on Jalen Duren. They did take, a few picks later, Mark Williams, who has been quite good when healthy. They have one more second-rounder from the Duren deal but the first-rounder they got in the deal turned out to be Nick Smith Jr.. I like Nick but he and a bunch of rando second-rounders don’t seem worth the #13 pick.

What might save Mitch’s job is taking Brandon Miller over Scoot Henderson. Miller has broken out of late and looks to be, at the very least, a professional scorer in this league. He’s been flashing a bit on defense so he could be a legit star.

The biggest question on the horizon for whomever is running the Hornets is - What to do with Miles Bridges? Bridges is no Shai but he’s a solid player in this league and can put up points with the best of them. His off-the-court baggage is beyond ugly but at this point, the Hornets are beyond worrying about PR points. They shouldn’t overpay Miles to keep him in Charlotte but they also can’t really afford to lose him for nothing.
The Hornets also need to find a defensive-minded guy to team with LaMelo in the backcourt but it seems like the NBA Draft might have a few options there for them.

PORTLAND TRAILBLAZERS - How good are their prospects?
This has been a lost season for Portland. Scoot Henderson arrived and wasn’t nearly as ready as promised. He’s showing some signs of life recently but there are still major questions about his ceiling. Shaedon Sharpe’s been banged up but he hasn’t had the breakout campaign that many had hoped for, and he might be done for the season. The idea that a change of scenery might awaken DeAndre Ayton was proven to be completely false. Ayton’s been his usual lackluster self on the floor and recent reports are that he’s been a complete nightmare in the locker room. The Time Lord Robert Williams only got six games in before he was lost for the season.

On the bright side, Anfernee Simons, Jerami Grant, and Malcolm Brogdon have all maintained or maybe even improved their trade value a bit. Jabari Walker and Toumani Camara seem like actual NBA players.

The Blazers seemed like they were toying with the idea that this could be more of a reload than a rebuild but after this season, it seems like they need to complete the teardown. Try to get picks and prospects for Grant and Brogdon. Hope they can find a taker for Ayton - maybe Troy Weaver will add him to his collection of disappointing bigs. I’d probably hold onto Simons since he’s still just 24 and, quite frankly, the jury is still out on Scoot and Sharpe. The Blazers have their own pick this year and the Warriors pick (top 4 protected) so they could add a couple more young talents to the roster, and then settle in for a year of growing pains as they await the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes.

But I think the lesson from this season is clear - things are going to need to get worse before they get better.

Memphis Grizzlies - WTF?
What a year for the Grizz. People often use the term injury plagued when discussing someone who gets hurt a lot but, in Memphis, it seems like there is an actual injury contagion in the locker room. The one good thing is that Memphis owns their pick in 2024 and the injury-ravaged team should get a top talent in the draft. Given that the draft is a crapshoot, Memphis might consider trading the pick for a veteran but I think they should probably keep it; the team is already in the luxury tax for next season and they need to get some cheap, cost-controlled talent to balance the books.

Toronto Raptors - Can they get a Top 6 pick?
In one of the most ill-advised trades of the decade, Masai Ujiri gave up a lightly protected first-round pick for Jakob Poetl. If their 2024 pick is 7th or later, it goes to the Spurs, and right now, the Raptors are 7th. The likely answer to this question is No. It’ll take a tank for the ages to get this talented squad to drop down to the depths of the Pistons, Wizards, Hornets, Spurs, Blazers, and Grizz.
Which leads to the question: What do we have here?
The core of this current team is Scottie Barnes and Immanuel Quickley and I actually love the way that they complement one another. And even though he’s probably not in the team’s long-term plans, I really like Bruce Brown’s fit with those two.
The wild card is R.J. Barrett. I’m not a believer but the best-case scenario for the Raptors is that he continues to play well and knock down threes at a near 40% clip to improve his confidence/trade value.
Elsewhere, Poetl isn’t worth the 7th pick but he’s a solid big man and a legit starter. Gradey Dick and newly-acquired Ochai Agbaji should get some minutes to show what they can do. I’m also interested in seeing Jontay Porter get a shot. He’s the brother of Denver’s Michael Porter Jr. and was a 5-star recruit but the kid just couldn’t stay healthy. But he might be skilled enough to stick in the NBA.

All of that being said, what Toronto seems to have is the pre-Jalen Brunson Knicks. They could surprise and win some games and make the playoff but it’s more likely that they’ll land around 11th place. However, Toronto is in line to have $40 million in cap space this year, so they might want to look at their team needs and try to figure out Who is their Jalen Brunson?

Brooklyn Nets - What’s the plan?
It seems like Brooklyn’s main goal is to be mediocre enough so that the picks they sent to Houston for James Harden (‘24 first, ‘25 swap, ‘26 first, ‘27 swap) don’t turn out to be the second coming of the Pierce/Garnett debacle. But, honestly, even mediocrity might be out of this team’s reach.
They’ve finally unleashed Cam Thomas and are letting him get buckets and hopefully, he can put up enough gaudy scoring numbers that teams will come calling for him this offseason. They should talk up staying in BK to free-agent-to-be Nic Claxton because they absolutely can’t afford to let him walk. Rookies Jalen Wilson and Noah Clowney should see more playing time as the season winds down so the Nets can see what they have to offer.
Once the offseason rolls around, every single player - including Mikal Bridges (who can walk after ‘26) - should be available. The Nets can’t bottom out but I feel like they may need a grand reshuffling to keep treading water in mediocrity.

Houston Rockets - Will Ime remain patient?
There were rumblings that Ime Udoka wanted to make a move at the deadline to bring in more veterans and that’s understandable. The Rockets are a very young team and Ime has never dealt with that in his coaching career. He’s always worked with teams that were fairly well-established or had established stars; this is his first time building from the ground up.
The second half of this season will be about the young guys maturing and continuing to improve on defense. (Ime can’t be thrilled that his team leader in blocks per game is… Fred VanVleet.) If Houston doesn’t see this team put together a little run in the second half, I wouldn’t be stunned if Ime pushes once again for more vets. And Houston has the assets to pull off a superstar deal. Not only do they have a lot of young talent, but they have Brooklyn’s draft picks from the Harden trade coming due. If the offseason falls apart on Daryl Morey, I wouldn’t be stunned if Houston made a legit run at Joel Embiid.

Atlanta Hawks - Is mediocrity inevitable?
No franchise has been as consistently mediocre as the Atlanta Hawks. Even when they’ve been really good they haven’t really felt like threats. Has there been a less imposing 60-win team than Atlanta’s Al Horford, Paul Millsap, Kyle Korver, and Jeff Teague?
But the real question for Atlanta is How do they clean up this roster?
Trae Young and Dejounte Murray haven’t worked together (ATL’s 54 - 57 when they both play) so Murray is likely gone this offseason.
They have a glut of guys who profile as 4th or 5th starters: Bogdan Bogdanovic, Saddiq Bey, DeAndre Hunter, Clint Capela, and Onyeka Okongwo. Jalen Johnson is showing upside but can Atlanta get him to the next level? And how much do they pay to retain Bey (an RFA this offseason) and Jalen (extension eligible with one year left on his rookie deal)?

Quinn Snyder can spend the rest of the season trying to salvage the Trae/Dejounte pairing and also getting his squad to play some defense. But moving forward, the team should start scouting potential 2nd star replacements for when they move Dejounte, and a 3 & D guard to pair with Trae. A true PF wouldn’t be so bad either.

Chicago Bulls - Is it time to tank?
Apparently, Bulls GM Arturas Karnisovas wants to re-sign DeMar DeRozan. My guess is that he’s hung up on What Might Have Been? from 2021-2 when the Bulls were 27 - 13 and first place in the Eastern Conference, only to have an injury to Lonzo Ball derail their entire season.
And he’s probably looking at the Denver Nuggets, who suffered through a lost season and a half when Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. got hurt, but eventually won the title.
I’m just not seeing it. The Bulls don’t have Nikola Jokic. The Nuggets also had younger stars who were coming into their own. DeRozan will be 35 next season and Nikola Vucevic will be 34. Zach LaVine will be 29 and coming off yet another injury. Lonzo’s a complete question mark.
Honestly, the only argument for bringing everyone back is, “What else can we do?” LaVine’s trade value is nil right now and Vooch’s is only slightly better. Letting DeRozan walk doesn’t salvage their cap situation and they’d still be pretty close to capped out. The Bulls will likely get around the 11th pick - hardly a sure thing - so why not trade for a veteran to help get the current team over the hump?

Again, I’m just not seeing it. Chicago’s window with DeRozan and Vooch is a year or two, at best. LaVine was struggling before the injuries this year so he may be starting to head downhill. Unless a star trade comes out of nowhere, I’d think that blowing it up would be the best course of action for the Bulls. Sign-and-trade DeRozan, get something for Caruso, dump LaVine and Vooch, let Coby cook in ‘24-25, and save the first-round pick owed to the Spurs - Top 10 projected in ‘25, Top 8 in ‘26 & ‘27.

The bottom line is that the promise of the 2022 season is a What Might Have Been, not a What Could Still Be.