Even for someone whose job it is to track and evaluate the most minute of transactions in the NBA, the summer is a dizzying time.
Through Tuesday, counting news both official and more-or-less official, 103 players find themselves on a different roster than the one with which they ended last season. Another 99 will go out to a training camp in hopes of making a team but otherwise have no previous NBA experience. There also are a handful of others who once played in the league -- and hope to do so again.
Given this avalanche of new faces and new places, you'd think the league's landscape would be wholly altered from what it looked like just a month ago. That's not really the case. Star players largely dictate the standings, and if they stay put, the standings don't change that much. There always is some shift, of course -- young teams moving up the ladder, other teams run into injuries, statistical regression or just plain bad luck. Sometimes a coaching change can shake things up, for better or worse.
In the end, an NBA general manager can only put together the best on-paper roster he can and manage the long-term strategy of his franchise.
With that in mind, let's look at the teams that appear -- on paper -- to have changed the most since the season ended. We're not so much concerned with roster slots that will go to rookies and other long-term investments who won't have major impacts on 2015-16 results. We're concerned with the respective rotations through the league, the 10-man depth charts that determine the outcome of most games.
Using projected Wins Above Replacement (WARP) for 2015-16, we assembled two rough baseline forecasts for every team's expected 10-man rotation. One was made up of the players each team had rights to at the close of last season, while the other includes the players each team has heading into late summer. Whose 2015-16 projection has improved -- and worsened -- the most over the last month?
Most improved
1. Los Angeles Clippers (14.7 WARP gained)
Key rotation gains: Paul Pierce, Lance Stephenson, Josh Smith, Pablo Prigioni, Cole Aldrich
Key rotation losses: Matt Barnes, Hedo Turkoglu, Glen Davis, Spencer Hawes
If Doc Rivers ends up trading Jamal Crawford, Austin Rivers would move back into a rotation slot, which would knock a couple of wins off the Clippers' summer gain. No big deal, though, because Los Angeles would still comfortably top this list. Pierce is a major upgrade over Barnes despite his age, and even though he's a star name, he's proved the last two seasons he can produce exceptional value as a role player.
Getting Pierce to sign filled the Clippers' biggest hole, but not far behind on the to-do list was upgrading a woeful bench. The talent level in that regard has been unquestionably improved, with Prigioni, Stephenson, Smith and Aldrich taking over for a quartet that collectively would have been forecast to produce minus-2.2 WARP. Doc Rivers has to figure out how the talent will fit, and that's a concern. The starting lineup is off-the-charts good, but how will a bench group that includes, Stephenson, Smith and either (or both) of Austin Rivers and Crawford share the ball? Either way, it's a much better problem for the Clippers' boss to tackle than the one he faced before the endearingly fickle nature of DeAndre Jordan kept him in an L.A. uniform.
2. Charlotte Hornets (8.5 WARP gained)
Key rotation gains: Nicolas Batum, Frank Kaminsky, Jeremy Lin, Jeremy Lamb, Spencer Hawes
Key rotation losses: Lance Stephenson, Gerald Henderson Jr., Mo Williams, Noah Vonleh, Bismack Biyombo
It's fair to question the overarching aims of the Hornets, as Zach Lowe did this week. Charlotte may have just simply improved its expectations from the 2016 lottery to a 2016 first-round playoff defeat, but the rotation does look better than it did at the close of last season. Moving Stephenson would have been huge for Rich Cho even if no talent had come back in the deal. But he landed Hawes in what amounts to an excellent buy-low opportunity.
Batum is a markedly better player -- to the tune of nearly six WARP -- than Henderson. Sure, if he bolts after the season and Vonleh develops into a bonafide starter, it's a bad deal in the long-term. That's not what we're looking at here. Lin wasn't as good as Mo Williams last season, but he's also younger and has a better baseline forecast. Kaminsky doesn't have Vonleh's ceiling, but he might have a more immediate impact. There's still some upside in the rotation in Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Cody Zeller and Lamb. We might well look back at the Hornets' 2015 offseason and see short-sightedness. But in terms of 2015-16 expectations, Charlotte is better off than it was a month ago.
3. Dallas Mavericks (7.5 WARP gained)
Key rotation gains: Deron Williams, Wesley Matthews, Zaza Pachulia, Samuel Dalembert
Key rotation losses: Monta Ellis, Rajon Rondo, Tyson Chandler, Al-Farouq Aminu
Surprise! If you're assigning a confidence factor in these ratings, the Mavericks would score very low. That's because of the injury uncertainties surrounding Williams and Matthews. If healthy, that duo figures to be much more efficient than the ill-fitting Rondo-Ellis backcourt. They complement each other well and come much closer to fitting the physical prototypes for the positions they play.
The Pachulia-Dalembert-and-whoever-else combination in the middle figures to be a clear downgrade over what Chandler provided a season ago. Then again, Chandler has a lot of mileage on him, so there's no guarantee he would have been as effective going forward. Statistically, the downgrade in center rotation is somewhere between one to two wins. There are major defensive concerns with this roster, both in the middle and on the wing. That's where this happy forecast might well fall apart when we really start piecing together rigorous projections. Nevertheless, if Williams and Matthews can stay on the court at something resembling their former levels, don't be shocked if Dallas is once again a top offensive team.
Least improved
1. Brooklyn Nets (13.4 WARP lost)
Key rotation gains: Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Shane Larkin, Wayne Ellington, Thomas Robinson, Andrea Bargnani
Key rotation losses: Deron Williams, Mirza Teletovic, Mason Plumlee, Alan Anderson
Hollis-Jefferson better hit the ground running because this is an ugly roster. Jarrett Jack is a fine reserve guard. But on this club, he projects to start, while being backed up by Larkin, whose baseline is below replacement. Speaking of replacement, Joe Johnson is one of two tent-pole pieces left in Brooklyn, and his inevitable creep toward replacement level should continue this season. Keeping Brook Lopez was a no-brainer, but who will help him? And if Lopez gets hurt, look out below. The bench projects to just 1.7 WARP as a group, with Robinson leading the way at 1.9. Perhaps the reserves will gel into a better group than that, but even given error bars in these rough forecasts, the Nets look like one of the league's worst teams on paper.
2. Philadelphia 76ers (5.7 WARP lost)
Key rotation gains: Jahlil Okafor, Nik Stauskas
Key rotation losses: Joel Embiid
Figuring out a 10-man rotation for either the "before" or the "after" Sixers is kind of like throwing darts blindfolded. A couple of things are going on here. First, the Sixers' forecast suffers from the lack of the presence of veterans JaVale McGee and Ish Smith, two unrestricted free agents who were Philly assets at the offseason's outset. (Remember, players don't actually become free agents until the moratorium begins.) Neither is a huge deal in themselves, but they were at least better than replacement level.
The tandem of Carl Landry and Jason Thompson are forecast for exactly zero WARP between them, so there are no veterans to prop up the Sixers' baseline. But, really, the big hit is Embiid, both in our hearts and on our spreadsheets. Though he didn't play last season, at the close of the 2014-15 season you'd still have to project him as the starting center going forward. Now he's out again and the Sixers have since drafted Okafor. Embiid carries the better rookie season projection, so there you go. In any event, it hardly matters. Short-term baseline forecasts are pretty much irrelevant to what the Sixers are doing right now.
3. Phoenix Suns (4.8 WARP lost)
Key rotation additions: Tyson Chandler, Ronnie Price, T.J. Warren, Mirza Teletovic
Key rotation losses: Marcus Morris, Marcus Thornton, Gerald Green, Brandan Wright
The Suns have balanced their roster from a positional standpoint, but they have done so with what appears to be a net loss in projectable talent. The new starting lineup is actually nearly eight wins better than the "before" group. Chandler is the reason for that as a major statistical upgrade over Alex Len. However, the considerably younger Len is apt to leap past Chandler at any time. The other four starters are unchanged, but the bench group is far more uncertain, and that's been an area of strength for coach Jeff Hornacek the last two seasons. Len will anchor that group, but he's actually a downgrade there, as the departed Wright is one of the top backup pivots in the league.
Whether it's Warren or another young Sun picking up Green's departed minutes, it's another sizable downgrade. Same for Archie Goodwin, who will presumably pick up the minutes that might have gone to Thornton. Maybe he's ready for that, but Goodwin at this point projects as below replacement level. The sharpshooting Teletovic was a nice pickup, but the overall reserve unit has an on-paper loss of 12.1 projected WARP. The good news is that if Chandler indeed upgrades the starting lineup and anchors the defense, Hornacek's track record suggests he will figure out the bench.