So, you're rebuilding
Pamphlets, for those who need them.
DETROIT PISTONS
THE BAD NEWS
Nothing ran clever, the Pistons didn’t sneak up on anyone, Troy Weaver didn’t pull something amazing for Jerami Grant, we’re all still just sort of here.
Worst net rating in the NBA. Kelly “Lunch Lady” Olynyk turns 31 in April, he turned bad at NBA basketball only recently and is owed another $25 million between now and 2025. Trey Lyles carried the Pistons so much Detroit had to trade him.
Plus, Detroit owes a first-round pick (protected 1-through-18 in 2023, protections declining every May) to Oklahoma City as soon as it gets good.
Plus Marrrrrvin Bagley.
THE GOOD NEWS
Detroit held onto Cory Joseph past the trade deadline, he owns a player option in July but nobody signs into Pistondom, thereby returning Hayes to the starting lineup. Saddiq Bey is up to 16 points per game despite all the squeaking it takes.
This summer the Pistons will have enough cap space to trade for all sorts of players who don’t want to be there.
BEST PISTONS REBUILD
Joe Dumars couldn’t find any free agents for his cap space in 2001 so he traded for a bunch of players that didn’t want to be there.
Dumars deftly took advantage of the NBA’s new luxury tax, reaping basketball benefits off owners (Colangelos, Maloofs) looking to save a line item. Not every move was a winner but Dumars rolled with it, even turning his blown lottery choice (Rodney White) into the first-round pick swapped for Rasheed Wallace in 2004.
WORST PISTONS REBUILD
Every one after that.
Like when Dumars dealt Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson while extending Rip Hamilton to too long of a contract, or when he passed on prime Rajon Rondo, or every single coach he hired after firing Flip Saunders. Charlie Villanueva B/W Ben Gordon, Josh Smith B/W Brandon Jennings.
Or in 2001, when Dumars sent Detroit’s rights to Orlando’s 2005 first-round draft pick back to Orlando in exchange for Orlando’s agreement to delay accepting a Phoenix Suns pick owed to the Magic. This meant the Pistons could punt the lottery pick the Grizzlies owed them until 2002. Protections moved the pick to 2003, where Joe used it on Darko.
INDIANA PACERS
THE BAD NEWS
You tried to win, and didn’t. Rick Carlisle and 2021’s summer of rest set to fix everything, it fixed nothing, everything is broken (including Myles Turner’s foot). You just traded a 7-footer with skills and two All-Star Games and two more seasons under contract.
THE GOOD NEWS
Upon acknowledging all the guys who couldn’t walk, Indiana copped to its first rebuild. The club has a giant ka-chunk of cap space this summer. Even more if Indiana deals its hold on Cleveland’s first-rounder, and/or the remaining three years and $67.6 million the Pacers owe the never-there Malcolm Brogdon.
The Sabonis swing was a win: Buddy Hield is annoying as hell but he scores and doesn’t miss games, Tyrese Haliburton could see his number retired by this franchise, and as executives the Carlisle/Kevin Pritchard pairing is a go.
OUTLOOK
Indiana should end its season with the fourth or fifth-most lottery balls and assets to move up. Carlisle lends “like this guy/fuck this guy”-coaching credibility to his front office calls, he’s seen the bullshit someone like Buddy Hield put the Kings through and didn’t mind a bit.
THE PACERS NEVER REBUILD
The Pacers always shoot to win now, sometimes to the club’s detriment. Reggie Miller was drafted onto a playoff team, Rik Smits added to a roster that fell short of the postseason in the final game of the season.
Indiana came closest to blowing it up in 1988-89, losing its first seven games before coach Jack Ramsay retired:
“I didn’t see the immediate prospects of knowing when we were going to get our full roster, and this was not something I wanted to go through for 82 games,” said Ramsay, who has been forced to choose between rookie Rik Smits, Stuart Gray and Greg Dreiling at center.
This is back when playing a rookie center could get you jailed.
Mel Daniels coached the Pacers for two losses before George Irvine had to come down from the front office to lead the club to its first win. Irvine and Pacer president Donnie Walsh eventually hired Detroit Piston assistant Dick Versace, and his perm, as new Pacer coach:
Versace led Bradley for eight seasons prior to the pros, including a surprise 32-3 run in 1986. He quit on the team soon after, when NCAA recruiting violations surfaced, leaping to the safety of Chuck Daly’s bench.
Versace said he has wanted to coach in the NBA all along.
“I was probably going to make a move anyway,'“ he said. “It was time for a new challenge. I didn’t want to follow a coach who was 32-3, even if it was myself.”
Versace’s mother, an author, was the inspiration for The Flying Nun.
“When I started to read Hemingway, I started to realize it was not unmanly to love nature and to be contemplative and philosophical,” Versace said.
“I was considering being an expatriate in Paris for a couple of years. It sounded like an interesting way to live. I could sit around the outdoor cafes, plan my day. That’s what they do.”
That’s what they do.
“They wrote poetry and novels and short stories and traded ideas, went to the flea market, had love affairs. It was a really exciting period of time.”
You shoulda gone to Paris.
Here’s a shot of Versace’s Pacers, late in the 1988-89 and season out in Portland, back when NBA teams actually sent announcers on the road:
Indiana tried to win: Versace finished the season with a 22-31 mark, the team drafted George McCloud No. 7 in the 1989 draft.
McCloud, troubled by personal woes, was playing in Italy and the CBA within five years. He made a third of his three-pointers in Indiana, averaging 5.5 points. Legend has it George sat out a season-deciding postseason game in 1992 because “held his ankle in a funny way” while talking on the telephone.
Versace was gone by then, fired in early 1990-91 after a 9-16 start:
“It’s just part of the business,” Versace said. “I thank the Pacers for giving me the chance to do something I always wanted to do, coach a team into the playoffs. It’s not the end of the world. It’s the first time I’ve been fired, so I don’t know how to react.”
Again, I’d go to Paris.
HOUSTON ROCKETS
THE BAD NEWS
The Nets just got Ben Simmons and picks for James Harden. Feels like a deal Houston shoulda made.
Victor Oladipo never worked, and you just traded for Dennis Schröder … to play? You sat John Wall all season, landing increased scrutiny on whatever the hell you trade his contract for. You didn’t flip Eric Gordon, for some reason.
The No. 2 draft pick shoots 38 percent, teams score over 117 a game on you.
THE GOOD NEWS
The Rockets’ 2022 pick is steadily settled with No. 3 odds. Houston has five years’ worth of future picks & swaps with the Nets to throw around if, say, the owner gets real anxious to try to win a lot of games up front.
Between the Nets and Milwaukee the Rockets are guaranteed a first-rounder until 2027, which is good because Houston still owes (1-4 protected) picks to OKC in 2024 and 2026.
OUTLOOK
Every rookie shoots 38 percent, at least Jalen Green has two years in the country at his current profession. Cade Cunningham cavorted with co-eds this time last year, Jalen Green shared a hotel room with Jarrett Jack, that counts for something.
Smith just turned 20 and gets to the line a ton, pro that he is. Alperen Şengün, longtime professional and a teenager until JULY, is also a lot of fun (for both teams). They’ve developed rotation guys in 21-year old Kenyon Martin Jr. and Garrison Mathews, Stephen Silas is going to be fine.
HOUSTON’S WORST REBUILD
We are in it.
Tanking for Twin Towers turned into Hakeem who hung around for Steve Francis who helped put Yao Ming in the playoffs before Tracy McGrady came along a little before Daryl Morey took over.
Count this season’s trip to the lottery and Houston made the playoffs all but 14 times since 1974. The Rockets are a classic NBA team, it’s been good so far.
HOUSTON’S BEST REBUILD
The 1983-84 Houston Rockets started 20-26 before suffering zero catastrophic injuries and finishing the last two months on a 9-27 tear, securing the club a coin flip for the top pick in the 1984 draft.
Said Rudy Tomjanovich, then a Rockets scout: "When the prize is Hakeem Olajuwon or (Michael) Jordan (taken third overall in 1984), there's going to be a lot of things said.”
The game before 1983-84’s season finale1, Rockets coach Bill Fitch started 38-year old Elvin Hayes, playing him 53 minutes in an overtime loss to the Spurs. Elvin, set to retire at season’s end, missed 13-20 shots but dished 11 assists, scoring 16 points and pulling 17 rebounds.
And probably two hamstrings, didn’t matter, Fitch started Hayes the next night against the Kings for old time’s sake.
[Hayes] will play his last game in the NBA in Kansas City tonight the Kings.
Coach Bill Fitch said he may start Hayes “for old times sake. It’s the last go-round of one of the greats. He deserves to go out in style.”
Big E ran 35 minutes on a Sunday night in Kansas City, going out in stylet:
As one local Houston reporter, Fran Blinebury, recalled, “He looked like he needed an IV stuck in his arm out there.”
OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER
THE BAD NEWS
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t the prettiest active player in the NBA anymore:
THE GOOD NEWS
2022: Suns pick, Clipper pick, Thunder pick
2023: likely Denver’s pick, option to swap with Clippers, Detroit’s (protected 1-18, 1-18 in 2024, 1-13 in 2025, 1-11 in 2026 and 1-9 in 2027), Washington’s (protected 1-14, 1-12 in 2024, 1-10 in 2025, 1-8 in 2026).
2024: Clipper pick, Thunder pick, Houston (protected 1-4), Utah’s (protected 1-10, 1-10 in 2025 and 1-8 in 2026).
2025: likely Miami’s, likely Philly’s, option to swap picks with Houston (protected 1-10) or the Clippers (unprotected).
2026: Houston’s (protected 1-4), Clipper pick, Thunder’s pick.
OUTLOOK
Youthful.
FIRST REBUILD IN THUNDER HISTORY
It doesn’t have to end this summer, but it needs to move soon. The West is vulnerable, permeable, Memphis put pressure on everyone building a contender on top of a rookie contract.
The problem is every other NBA team, they’re going for it. Dealing cap space and picks for an already-there star isn’t as available as it often is, plus everyone’s eyes will be on Presti as he loads up his First Choice. Anyone can draft a player, but acquiring someone else’s old draft selection is another matter entirely. And a pricier one.
We’ve seen the Presti Paradigm, and it looks nothing like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Josh Giddey. It’s been cool to watch Mark Daigneault lead a team that has no business winning 18 games by the All-Star break to 18 wins by the All-Star break. This group has no business making the top ten in anything yet Daigneault’s crew is at No. 11 defensively after bowing to the Spurs on Wednesday.
But, let’s go.
Presti has excuses to roll it over again, this summer’s crop of available helpers is hardly available, let alone helping. A great GM overcomes the market, though, because the cart only requires filling five to a side. You just need a couple of players, I’m anxious to see which ones Presti picks.
ORLANDO MAGIC
THE BAD NEWS
I’ll be honest, 47, that’s a lot of losses. Especially for a team typically scheduled to play what Miami recently chewed up and spat out.
Jonathan Isaac is whatever and he’s owed three years and $52.2 million after this season. Markelle Fultz tore his ACL 13 months ago and is owed $33.5 million the next two seasons.
Free agents don’t tend to come to Orlando unless they are from Orlando. And even then.
THE GOOD NEWS
The Magic are young and they already have Wendell Carter Jr. under long contract and they’re gonna get Mo Bamba next. The Magic don’t miss on draft picks and don’t plan to start in June.
Cole Anthony earning this many free throws at such a young age is encouraging, as is the idea that Franz Wagner cannot legally buy a mug of hops at the Hofbrau until late August.
Despite the lingering contracts the Magic have enough cap space to lure Michael Jordan out of retirement, provided Charlotte takes Terrence Ross in a sign-and-trade.
Orlando has its own picks and will (likely) get Chicago’s first-round pick in 2023 and Denver’s in 2025.
OUTLOOK
Anomalous personalities on this club, different dudes. I’m fascinated to see the Magic finish this roster off.
The bouncy Jalen Suggs and Anthony learn their positions together. Draft-classers Carter and Bamba run the same way, none of these guys are as old as Kerry Wood’s 20-strikeout game.
The Magic have the second-most losses, pulling a top-two pick puts a superfluous big man on the board. A deal dangles. There are picks to trade and salary slots to fill and this could get fun, soon. Orlando is next up.
WORST MAGIC REBUILD
Two weeks into 2001-02 and Phoenix Suns coach Scott Skiles has a problem.
“We’re nine games into our season and we have been on the floor twice for loose balls.”
Scott, name all your kids.
“One word, kind of an old fashioned word, comes to mind when you think of him, and that's ‘hustle’.”
You know who he’s talking about.
“There are certain players in the league who have the reputation of giving it to you every single night, and he’s one of them.”
That is one hundred fucking percent Charles “Bo” Outlaw that Scott Skiles is talking about.
Orlando traded Bo to Phoenix because nobody was diving for loose balls, and because Grant Hill averaged 18.1 points and 9.6 rebounds for the Orlando Magic at the time.
Luxury taxes loomed, dealing Outlaw (plus a first-round pick and $3 million) to Phoenix for Jud Buechler (makes half as much, worked with Grant Hill in Detroit) made sense.
Hill played another two games after the trade, gingerly, before sitting a contest. He’d work another night, sit four games, then have season-ending ankle surgery.
“When you’re wearing cheap shoes, and you don’t wear Nike, it’s going to happen. They gave him all that money to wear those cheap Filas,” Charles Barkley, the NBA star-turned-basketball analyst, said during TNT broadcast Dec. 5 when Hill was sidelined then for a fourth consecutive game after a short-lived comeback from offseason ankle surgery.
That’s Darren Rovell, running on.
Check out his lede:
Fleeting comments can have lingering implications, so when word came Tuesday that Grant Hill’s latest ankle injury would sideline him for the remainder of the season, the buzz of Charles Barkley’s comments two weeks ago was still in the air.
Darren it was December of 2001, you, weirdo.
The 2002 first-round pick Orlando sent to the Suns to absorb Bo Outlaw’s contract was originally Phoenix’s, dealt to the Magic in 1999’s Penny Hardaway sign-and-trade.
Controlling their own sad wings of destiny, the Suns missed the playoffs in 2002 and used the selection on Amar’e Stoudemire, an Orlando native who coulda fit nicely alongside Florida fella Tracy McGrady on the Magic.
Don’t blame anything on Grant Hill’s ankles until you talk to me, first.
BEST MAGIC REBUILD
Frankly, it’s this one.
The Magic were an expansion outfit that lottery lucked into Shaq and Penny and three future first-round picks from Golden State. The Magic traded two of those picks (coulda been: Kobe, Dirk) to clear space for Brian Shaw, using another on Mike Miller (whom they dealt for Drew Gooden).
The Year 2000’s Hill/Tracy McGrady free agent swipe was nice but by 2004 McGrady wanted out. Orlando had the top pick in the 2004 draft and Magic owner Rich DeVos wanted to show T-Mac who the real boss was:
“Tracy is not in control of the team. He’s a player, he’s a participant. We’ll have to see how that goes.”
Magic senior vice president Pat Williams believes DeVos can present a strong case for a quick rebound in Orlando.
“He once sold an anvil to a drowning man,” Williams joked about DeVos. “He once convinced his wife she looked fat in a fur coat.”
Tracy did not buy the anvil, the Magic drafted Dwight Howard.
Employing ex-hockey executive John Weisbrod as general manager, the Magic traded McGrady to Houston for two older, not-as-good guards: Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley. In early 2004-05 the Magic swapped Mobley (a key cog in 2006’s Clipper playoff run) for 21 games of the much older and very broken Doug Christie.
Hockey Guy also fired coach Johnny Davis after a 31-33 start, letting interim coach Chris Jent (5-13) ease the Magic into the lottery, where they’d take Fran Vazquez (zero NBA games) with the pick Joe Dumars traded (back) to them in 2001.
Yeah, the Darko one. Full circle.
NOT REBUILDING (BUT CUTTING IT CLOSE)
SO, YOU’RE PORTLAND
I thought you were rebuilding.
You traded C.J. McCollum and Norman Powell and I had this whole bit about how in the early 1980s Dr. Jack and Larry Weinberg blew the coin flip that could have landed the Blazers the rights to Ewing, Barkley, Drexler and Mike Schmidt, but then the 2021-22 Blazers had to go and win four games in a row. You’re back in the race.
The kicker was trading Nickeil Alexander-Walker, see, he’s a good kid but he’s exactly the sorta player you want firing away on a team lapping up lottery balls.
Instead you have Anfernee Simons, dropping 31 on Memphis, wearing the number Portland retired for Weinberg in 1992, pushing Portland into a play-in.
SO, YOU’RE THE SPURS
You’re trying to compete for a play-in spot because your fans want it and because your coach is soon to break the all-time record for things at his job.
The beautiful byproduct of that is Derrick White, whom Celtics fans will credit with four charges per game whether the ref calls it or not. Or Lonnie Walker IV, who should burn for five or six more minutes per contest with White gone. Or Dejounte Murray, a player whom other NBA players admire like a car with a nine-figure price tag.
I want to watch Pop coach combo guards for at least the rest of the decade.
SO, YOU’RE SACRAMENTO
You’re going for it, we get it, 2006, Gawen DeAngelo “Bonzi” Wells.
Sorry, but every time I play Tankathon, you win. Sacramento is 3.5 games out of tenth place, it has two teams to jump just to play the team to play the team. That’s no way to do “playoffs.”
So De’Aaron Fox and Sabonis can’t stay in front of anyone. You shouldn’t be bothered, there are two sides to this court. Go on, you see what Charlotte is doing.
Stop with this Moe Harkless, Justin Holiday bullshit. Start your rookie and start who you hope will take up your cap space (Donte DiVincenzo) and let’s give Alvin Gentry some Clipper flashbacks, please.
And, yes, I call it “play Tankathon.”
I’ve played the “SIM” button on the Tankathon website more than I have any video game since 2002, when Anthony Thomas led the Bears to the Super Tecmo Bowl (update I downloaded for my desktop PC in my basement apartment).
SO, YOU’RE WASHINGTON
You’re not rebuilding until the Bradley Beal saga ends. Until then, this bunch is in the hunt! This is hell!
SO, YOU’RE NEW ORLEANS
You say you’re not rebuilding, but then you keep playing Garrett Temple NBA minutes in 2022.
LAST NIGHT AT DANCELAND
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