LASH Roundtable: 5 Burning NBA Offseason Questions

Apr 2, 2014; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Houston Rockets head coach

talks to his players during a timeout against the Toronto Raptors at Air Canada Centre. The Raptors beat the Rockets 107-103. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

Gold: There’s no question that the winner of free agency was the city of Cleveland and the Cavaliers. There is no way you can match bringing in the best player in the world. I think the biggest losers of the summer are the Miami Heat, for obvious reasons, and the Houston Rockets. The Rockets were about 10 minutes away from forming a legitimate super team. Chris Bosh, Chandler Parsons, Dwight Howard AND James Harden? That’s a Finals team right now and for years to come. However, Bosh took the max in Miami, Houston decided it couldn’t bite the $16M Parsons bullet and let’s not forget they traded away Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin in anticipation of signing Bosh and Parsons. They went from the 1^st or 2^nd seed in the West to the 5^th or 6^th. Oh ya, the Lakers lost also. But I’d rather not get into that.

Shaked: People tend to forget that the NBA-champion San Antonio Spurs remained almost completely unchanged. They retained Gregg Popovich, Tim Duncan, Boris Diaw and Patty Mills, and drafted Kyle Anderson at the end of the first round for both the best and least sexy offseason. Of course, Cleveland landing LeBron is the sexiest headline of the summer, but all Cleveland did to earn his signature was be near Akron. The biggest winners had to be white restricted free agent wings. Who saw Chandler Parsons getting more scrilla from Mark Cuban than Dirk Nowitzki, or Gordon Hayward getting close to Paul George money?

The litter of losers to pick from is quite plentiful. Indiana forced itself to give up the team’s second leading scorer and rebounder, and leading assist man in Lance Stephenson by refusing to go into luxury tax territory. Miami became simply ‘one of those pretty good teams in the East’ that will fight for a middle playoff seed. I imagine Riley’s early strategy of signing Josh McRoberts and Danny Granger might have been different had he known LeBron wasn’t coming back. Our very own Lakers deserve a shoutout. Their potential Lin-Kobe-Swaggy-Boozer-Jordan Hill lineup is more competitive than it gets credit for even as a play for the future, but it still hurts after Mitch Kupchak shot so high. Some analysts have toned down their hate on Houston’s offseason debacle, but the truth is the fourth seed in a loaded Western Conference subtracted while the teams ahead either stood pat or got better.

Khoury: Big winner was Cleveland…duh! Big loser was the Lakers (if you’re a Lakers fan), otherwise a toss-up between Houston and Miami. Miami lost the best player in the NBA, and gave about $40 million too much to Chris Bosh–that should automatically make Miami the biggest loser. But, Houston made some of the worst and most puzzling moves in recent NBA free agency history, which make the Rockets pretty big losers as well. How can a team give away Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik for peanuts, let Chandler Parsons walk for nothing when he should have been under contract next season for pennies, and bend over backwards to open enough salary cap space for Chris Bosh, only to be rejected in the end? Ouch, Daryl Morey!