Who ultimately won and lost in the NBA's high-stakes summer?
Last week, I took a look at my winners of the offseason. This time around, let's consider the teams who didn't enjoy the same kind of success this summer for a variety of reasons.
Team that lost a superstar
The Thunder got an important commitment from Russell Westbrook last week on a renegotiation and extension that will keep him from hitting free agency until the summer of 2018. Oklahoma City also did well to snag Victor Oladipo and the No. 11 pick (used on Gonzaga big man Domantas Sabonis) from the Orlando Magic in exchange for Serge Ibaka, and I think replacing Dion Waiters with 2013 second-round pick Alex Abrines will ultimately prove a win.
Still, the best-case scenario for the Thunder over the next 12 months is to get back in contention -- where Oklahoma City was before Kevin Durant's departure, having come within a win of the NBA Finals. Without Durant, the Thunder aren't even a certain playoff team. It's impossible to lose a star of Durant's magnitude and not come out a loser.
Teams that indisputably got worse
It's not necessarily that the Heat lost longtime star Dwyane Wade to the Chicago Bulls; it's when that decision came, after most of free agency was complete. That left Miami a short window to use its cap space before matching an offer sheet from the Brooklyn Nets to guard Tyler Johnson.
The Heat ended up grabbing a handful of role players (Wayne Ellington and James Johnson) and former lottery picks (Dion Waiters and Derrick Williams) in an effort to rebuild the roster.
The newcomers are unlikely to replace the shooting Miami lost with the departures of veterans Luol Deng and Joe Johnson, and the Heat face an uphill battle to make the playoffs in the East if Chris Bosh is unable to return.
Like the Thunder, the Spurs did what they could to make up for the loss of their own former superstar (Tim Duncan) to retirement. Pau Gasol looks like an offensive upgrade, if nowhere near the kind of defensive presence Duncan was even at age 39. Still, signing Gasol meant shedding depth in the form of veteran Boris Diaw (traded to the Utah Jazz) and behemoth center Boban Marjanovic (signed by the Detroit Pistons as a restricted free agent).
San Antonio is also one of the bystanders most affected by Durant's move to the Golden State Warriors. While that potentially gives the Spurs a clearer path to the Western Conference finals, it's difficult to imagine San Antonio knocking off a Warriors team with Durant.
Teams that don't seem to fit together
Chicago Bulls
On the flip side, Wade's arrival only further complicates things for the Bulls, who now have three perimeter players -- Wade, new point guard Rajon Rondo and incumbent All-Star Jimmy Butler -- who are most effective with the ball in their hands and are below-average (Butler) or worse (Rondo and Wade) 3-point shooters.
Chicago head coach Fred Hoiberg will be challenged to keep all three players happy and effective -- and that's just on the offensive end.
When it comes to defense, Rondo and Wade aren't likely to help a Bulls team that lost its best interior defender in Joakim Noah. With Noah on the shelf, Chicago slipped to 23rd in defensive rating after last year's All-Star break (per NBA.com/Stats) and this year's team may not be any better.
Orlando Magic
The good: In Ibaka and center Bismack Biyombo, the Magic added a pair of quality interior defenders to a roster short on them. Orlando also signed restricted free agent Evan Fournier to one of the summer's better contracts: $95 million over five years, less than Fournier could have made on a four-year offer sheet from another team. And Scott Skiles' unexpected resignation allowed the Magic to upgrade with Frank Vogel as their new head coach.
Nonetheless, Orlando's roster still doesn't appear to fit together. Adding Biyombo and Ibaka pushes budding star Aaron Gordon to small forward, where his athleticism is no longer such a strength and his poor outside shooting crowds the floor. The Magic still may not be a playoff team, and re-signing Ibaka next summer would mostly take them out of 2017 free agency.
Without an obvious All-Star on the roster, Orlando is running out of opportunities to acquire the star talent necessary to contend.
The Kings mostly seem to have avoided the kind of costly missteps that have plagued them in the past. Sacramento traded down in the draft -- typically a good move in terms of value -- and maintained flexibility for next summer by only partially guaranteeing the 2017-18 salaries of free agents Arron Afflalo and Anthony Tolliver.
That management improvement seems unlikely to translate to better results on the court, however, because of an imbalanced roster. The Kings are counting on newcomer Garrett Temple to serve as a backup to Darren Collison at point guard, and still don't have a third point guard on the roster. Meanwhile, Sacramento's glut of centers (including No. 13 pick Georgios Papagiannis, who looks like a reach) will make it difficult for new head coach Dave Joerger to play the smaller lineups that are likely to be the team's best offensive units.
Teams that hampered future flexibility
Having added veterans Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov to fill needs, along with new head coach Luke Walton to shepherd the development of their young stars, the Lakers are almost certain to be better next season.
The question is whether they'll improve enough to justify cutting into their cap space for 2017 and beyond by paying Deng $72 million and Mozgov $64 million over the next four years. That's unlikely, even if Mozgov can return to his pre-knee surgery form at age 30.
With so many centers available in free agency -- and several still on the trade market -- there was little need for the Lakers to move so quickly to lock up Mozgov.
Like the Lakers, the Knicks got tired of waiting for marquee free agents to show interest. New York also moved quickly to sign a center (Noah) to a four-year, $72 million deal and dealt for injury-plagued former MVP Derrick Rose. Because Rose is in the last year of his contract, the Knicks have some flexibility left, but they'd have less than max-level cap space to replace Rose if he left. As a result, it's likely they'll bring back a similar cast of declining, injury-prone veterans around young star Kristaps Porzingis.
Again, New York probably hasn't improved enough to justify that kind of long-term spending. ESPN's Summer Forecast doesn't even peg the Knicks as one of the top eight teams in the Eastern Conference.
In fairness to the Blazers, their future flexibility was always going to be limited by new contracts for their young players, as Zach Lowe noted in a thorough assessment of their offseason last week.
However, spending so much on signing wing Evan Turner (four years, $70 million), along with matching a four-year, $75 million offer sheet to Allen Crabbe and re-signing restricted free agents Maurice Harkless and Meyers Leonard for four years and around $40 million, brings the luxury tax in play.
Along with locking up Most Improved Player C.J. McCollum to an extension, those moves likely push Portland into the tax for 2017-18. If the Blazers fall short of last season's unexpected run to the second round, that may look like a lot to pay for a roster that's not in contention. And while I don't doubt Terry Stotts' ability to utilize Turner's skills, his inefficient scoring has limited his value even when he has had the ball in his hands.
So while Portland was right to add now, and got good deals for Harkless and free agent Festus Ezeli, I'm not sure the Blazers got much better after this offseason's spending spree.