The First Off-Season NBA Trade

            Avid readers of the blog (all five of you) might recall a series I was going to do outlining what every NBA team should do in the off-season. Three things have postponed this series.

1. Real life
2. The NBA Draft is scheduled to happen two days after Game 7 (it won’t happen, but Heat-haters can feel free to still hold out some hope), which doesn’t leave a lot of time to watch the NBA Finals, blog about what teams should do before the draft, and play TECMO Super Baseball.
3. One of the teams I wrote about in the first column traded two key players today, making that document a worthless waste of bandwidth.

           No Credentials is good at changing gears though, so we’ll discuss the aftermath of today’s trade. In what could best be described as a salary dump, New Orleans shipped Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza to Washington in exchange for Rashard Lewis’ expiring contract (which they will buy out) and mid-second round pick in this year’s draft. Before we get to the long-term thinkers, let’s discuss the Wizards.

            Washington has significantly upgraded their defense along the front-line in the past three months. Pairing Okafor with Nene (who was acquired in a trade with the Nuggets) will give the Wizards a solid safety net behind John Wall, while Trevor Ariza still brings enough to the table to match up against quality 2s and 3s. Unfortunately, none of these three guys are elite scoring options. Nene can do a little work in the post, but at best you’re getting 15 points a game out of this guy, not 20. Okafor and Ariza will be lucky to have a combined average of 20 PPG this season. Fortunately for the Wizards, they still have the third pick in the draft. Adding Okafor means that they will likely avoid drafting Andre Drummond (this year’s most likely bust in the first round). Florida’s Bradley Beal makes the most sense if he’s available. He would fill the black hole Washington has at shooting guard.
            As for New Orleans, I love this trade for them. While having Okafor to help protect Anthony Davis made some sense, it’s more sensible to ship off any veterans and burn the forest down. Getting rid of cap-hogging contracts improves the Hornets’ chances of resigning Eric Gordon (who will be second most valuable player on the free agent market). Adding a second round pick in a deep draft isn’t a bad thing either. Look for the Hornets to add another big man at 10 to pair with Davis for the foreseeable future. New Orleans won’t be as good this year as they would’ve been with Okafor, but their long term outlook is brighter.

NBA Off-Season Game Plans - New Orleans and Charlotte

Every few days, No Credentials will look at the long term prospects of each NBA team. We'll look at who each team has under contract, their cap space for next summer, and how No Credentials thinks they should manager their off-season. We'll start with the biggest winner of last night's draft lottery paired with last night's biggest loser.

 

New Orleans Hornets

A-Level Potential Players Under Contract = None (SG Eric Gordon is a restricted free agent)
B-Level Potential Players Under Contract = PF/C Emeka Okafor
C-Level Players Under Contract = SF Al-Farouq Aminu, SF Trevor Ariza, PG Jarrett Jack
Cap Space = $17 million
The No Credentials Plan = Thanks to the luck of the draw (or David Stern rigging the lottery, you believe what you want), New Orleans will know that Anthony Davis will be in the fold. The Uni-Brow is fortunate to begin his NBA career alongside Emeka Okafor, who will allow The Uni-Brow to primarily serve as a weak-side shot blocker. Even if Davis doesn’t develop an offensive game for five years, he will still be a dominant force on the defensive end.
            The draft won’t end for New Orleans after selecting The Uni-Brow. The Hornets also have the tenth pick, acquired in the Chris Paul trade from the Clippers. What they should do with this pick depends largely on whether or not Eric Gordon will return. If Gordon stays in the fold, they should address the point guard position (my vote would be for North Carolina’s Kendall Marshall, but Weber State’s Damian Lillard would also be in the mix). If it appears Gordon is going to bolt (many folks believe that Gordon has wanted to join the Pacers ever since he arrived in the NBA), Austin Rivers should be the pick.
            In a perfect world, New Orleans opening night starting line-up next season would be Marshall-Gordon-Ariza-Uni-Brow-Okafor, which is an intriguing group. After resigning Gordon, New Orleans would be best served just adding short term contracts to fill out the team. Even with Gordon healthy, this group would have a hard time making the playoffs in the ultra-deep West, so making a 5-year, $30 million dollar offer to a veteran doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Give the kids a year or two to develop, and by 2015 we could be talking about a very dangerous Hornets team.

Charlotte Bobcats

A-Level Potential Players U.C. = None
B-Level Potential Players U.C. = PG Kemba Walker, C Bismack Biyombo
C-Level Players U.C. = SG Gerald Henderson
Cap Space = $10 million
The No Credentials Plan = Man does it suck balls to be a Bobcats fan. You missed out on Anthony Davis. You only have $10 million in cap space this off-season, thanks to paying DeSagana Diop and Corey Maggette a combined $17 million (ouch). At least the second pick will net them a potential A-Level prospect in Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (Yahoo has Thomas Robinson going second, but don’t believe them. A bunch of monkeys run their sports outfit). The team will stink for another two or three years, but at least they’ll have another solid prospect to group with Biyombo and Walker. Diop is a $7 million expiring contract, so Charlotte would be wise to flip him to a team desperate for cap space in exchange for a couple of picks.
            If Charlotte thinks outside of the box, they should strongly consider moving down in the draft. Portland (who owns the sixth and eleventh picks) would be a logical trade partner. I don’t think it would be all that hard to talk the Trail Blazers, a team that many had pegged as a dark horse for this season’s title, into shipping them their two first round picks, plus a future first along with it. When you’re as bad as Charlotte, acquiring as many solid assets as possible is the best course of action.