The Summer-sports lull is here, but most importantly, the NBA season is over, leaving avid basketball fans grasping and clinging at whatever small sliver of sports gossip falls through the July news wires. With NBA teams officially allowed to begin wooing free agents at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, here’s a few observations ahead of the impending NBA offseason.
Kevin Durant should join the Golden State Warriors
No, I’m not a Warriors fan. I am not a Thunder hater, either.
I don’t even enjoy watching Kevin Durant play that much, even understanding that he may be the best pure scorer in the NBA with a freakishly long build and unnaturally elite ball control.
I have no biases on this particular subject, which is probably why I’m going to be wrong. Durant has biases and feelings and emotions and, undoubtedly, like the rest of us, worries what other people think of him.
But if he didn’t worry about that, and if he didn’t let emotions and raw feelings cloud his judgement, and if his No. 1 goal during free agency is to join a team where he has the best chance to win an NBA Championship, then he should play for Golden State.
Yes, the Warriors may have embarrassed the Thunder just a few weeks ago, when they came back from a 3-1 deficit in the Western Conference finals to send OKC home just as it was peaking.
But if Durant really only cares about winning, then he should join the team that he can’t seem to beat.
Sign a one-year deal with the Warriors, set yourself up for a mega contract once the NBA’s salary cap increases after next season and then enjoy a long-term deal next to MVP Steph Curry and All-Stars Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, accompanied by a handful of shiny new rings.
Are the Pelicans wasting Anthony Davis?
Davis played on the USA Basketball team before playing a single NBA game. He was drafted No. 1 out of Kentucky and then was immediately shipped off to play with the NBA’s elite, where he won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Four years later, that has still been the biggest highlight of his career.
Davis has been bogged down by a rebuilding New Orleans team, and the 6-foot-10 power forward seemed to cement his future when he signed a five-year extension with the Pelicans in 2015.
Since drafting Davis, New Orleans has gone a mediocre 136-192, only breaking the 35-win mark once.
But because they have Davis, they haven’t been terrible enough to land a high enough draft pick in the NBA Draft lottery, and therefore positioning themselves in basketball purgatory — not quite good enough to win in the playoffs, not quite bad enough to acquire elite talent through the draft.
So, in the meantime, New Orleans is stuck, and Davis is stuck.
He’s just 23 years old and has plenty of time left in his career, but the Pelicans’ roster, as currently constructed, doesn’t scream title contender. It barely whispers playoff berth.
New Orleans’ next best player is Ryan Anderson, a high-scoring power forward who also happens to be an unrestricted free agent this summer with no guarantee that he’ll stay.
The Pelicans need to get Davis help, or they’ll end up wasting his youth and his prime on a team with no chance at a championship.
The Timberwolves, at long last, are going to be good
Trading away Kevin Love may turn out to be the best decision in Minnesota’s history.
Among the pieces they got back from Cleveland in the trade was No. 1-overall pick Andrew Wiggins, an ultra-athletic 6-foot-8 forward who has almost limitless potential, and who is young enough to be finishing up his final year in college.
In 2014 Minnesota drafted Zach LaVine, who has since become a two-time NBA Dunk Contest Champion and who is also just 21.
Then came Karl-Anthony Towns, whom the T-Wolves took with the first pick in the 2015 draft, and who may have a higher ceiling than Wiggins and Lavine combined.
The 6-foot-11 forward/center hybrid can dribble, shoot, pass and defend, and did it all on his way to being named 2016 NBA Rookie of The Year.
But that’s not it.
Tom Thibodeau — the ex-Chicago coach that led the Bulls to the Eastern Conference finals, who led them to five playoff appearances in five years, who was named the 2011 NBA Coach of the Year, and who served as an assistant coach for USA basketball when they took gold at the 2014 FIBA World Cup — was hired as Minnesota’s new coach in April.
There are many qualities that NBA teams find appealing about Thibodeau, but at the forefront are his player development skills. He coached a young Derrick Rose during his MVP season in 2011 and honed the defensive skills of both Jimmy Butler and Joakim Noah, helping Noah become the 2014 NBA Defensive Player of the Year.
Thibodeau couldn’t have found a better landing spot than Minnesota.
He’ll be coaching the NBA’s best young core, and it isn’t out of the question to expect the Timberwolves — a team that hasn’t won more than 40 games in 11 seasons and hasn’t made the playoffs in 12 — to make the playoffs in two years, if not next season.
Ian Cohen is the Sports Editor. You can contact him at icohen@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @icohenb.
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant (35) and head coach Billy Donovan watch from the sideline against the Golden State Warriors second half in Game 3 of the NBA basketball Western Conference finals in Oklahoma City, Sunday, May 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
