There have been 36 trades and more than 150 players have signed new contracts since the 2020 NBA offseason officially began in mid-November.
Chris Paul (traded to the Phoenix Suns), Russell Westbrook (traded to the Washington Wizards), James Harden (traded to the Brooklyn Nets) and Anthony Davis (re-signed with the Los Angeles Lakers) are the big names on that list, but several other moves have stood out in the first month of the season.
Here are the transactions over the past couple months that have made the biggest impacts early in the 2020-21 season.
Gordon Hayward | Charlotte Hornets
This is not an apology for the backlash the Hornets received when they signed (via trade) Hayward to a four-year, $128 million contract. The criticism was warranted considering that the Hornets used the stretch provision on the $27 million owed to Nicolas Batum, committing an average of $30 million annually to a player who had appeared in only 125 games since 2017-18 and will be 33 years old in the last year of his contract.
However, it is important to take the front-office blinders off, set aside the future financial concerns and ask yourself this question: Does Hayward make the Hornets an improved team right now?
The answer through the first 14 games of the season is a unanimous yes. Hayward is posting career highs in points (22.2), field goal attempts (16.2), true shooting percentage (61.3%) and points in the paint (9.6).
If Hayward continues to play at this level, he will be named to the All-Star team for the first time since 2017. His reliable presence on the wing helps this rebuilding franchise overall right now, and the debate over whether he is overpaid can be a topic for another year.
Christian Wood | Houston Rockets
After going undrafted out of UNLV in 2015, Wood had been the ultimate journeyman. He played for five different teams, got waived three times and signed three 10-day contracts while earning a combined $4.3 million in that five-year span. He failed to find a temporary home until he was claimed by Detroit in 2019. But Wood bet on himself and it resulted in a three-year, $42 million contract with the Rockets this offseason.
In the first month, Wood has quickly answered the critics who said the 24 PPG and 9.6 RPG he averaged after the All-Star break with the Pistons were a result of his playing for his next contract. Wood is averaging a career-high 22.6 PPG and 9.5 RPG in 33 minutes of action, despite a first month that was filled with dysfunction on and off the court during the Harden trade talks.
Since the trade -- before suffering an ankle injury on Wednesday -- Wood has averaged 27 points and 14 rebounds and his $13 million-per-year contract is considered one of the best value contracts in the NBA. His starting salary this season currently ranks No. 16 among all centers and No. 99 overall.
Chris Boucher | Toronto Raptors
A 5-9 record is not what the Raptors expected heading into this season. Despite the slow start, Chris Boucher has emerged as the clear favorite for Most Improved Player and a candidate for Sixth Man of the Year.
Boucher suffered a torn ACL in the 2017 Pac-12 tournament, eventually going undrafted three months later. He would go on to sign a two-way contract in Golden State and spent most of the 2017-18 season rehabbing his knee and playing in the G League. When his two-way contract expired in Golden State, Boucher played with the Raptors' summer league team in 2018, eventually signing a two-year, $1.85 million contract with only $50,000 guaranteed in the first year.
Named the G League MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in 2018, Boucher began to carve out a role last season. In the 10 games in which he averaged more than 20 minutes per night, Boucher averaged 17.8 points and 8.4 rebounds. The sample of games was enough body of work for Toronto to sign him to a two-year, $13.5 million contract, one of the best bargains in the NBA (ranking No. 186 among all players in 2020-21).
Boucher has gone from being an emergency rotation option to becoming the Raptors' most consistent center (if not player). He is posting a team-high plus-4.8 points when in the lineup and has averaged 7.1 minutes in the fourth quarter. Throw out his four-minute cameo in a loss to Philadelphia on Dec. 29 -- I am still baffled about the limited minutes -- and Boucher overall is averaging 23.8 MPG, 16.1 PPG, 7.0 RPG and a team-high 116.8 offensive rating.
The aftermath of the Harden trade
The Cleveland Cavaliers took an opportunistic approach to the Harden deal, using a $3.93 million trade exception to set themselves up for the future. The exception, created via the Jordan Clarkson deal in 2019, allowed the Cavs to finagle enough salary to bring back a key piece in the three-way trade.
An outsider might look at the trade and ask why the Cavs would acquire a center in Jarrett Allen when they have Andre Drummond putting up All-Star-type numbers. Why not just pay Drummond max-type money and keep the 27-year-old under contract for the foreseeable future? Or if the cost of Drummond was too high, why not go into free agency with $25 million in cap space -- especially since the trade involved moving the Milwaukee Bucks' 2022 first-round pick?
Acquiring Allen (a restricted free agent in 2021) gives Cleveland a starting center who is five years younger than Drummond and projects to be half the cost (think in the $15 million-$16 million starting salary range).
The trade also has Cleveland in position to explore the trade market for Drummond with Allen now on the roster. Here is how Drummond and Allen compare in this season when in the starting lineup:
It's likely the Cavs would have ended up overspending on a watered-down 2021 free-agent class if they had held on to their space, and that Bucks pick should land near the end of the first round. Overall, this is looking like a great piece of business.
Sam Presti | Oklahoma City Thunder
A rival front-office executive summed it up best when he described the architect of the Thunder, Sam Presti: "It feels like Sam has an alarm clock that goes off when it is time to move a player."
For example, after losing in seven games to the Houston Rockets in the first round in the 2020 playoffs, Presti could have stood pat, retaining Chris Paul and Dennis Schroder while overpaying Danilo Gallinari. The Thunder would have been good enough to compete for the No. 6 seed but built around an aging, expensive roster with a clouded future. The same would have gone for keeping Russell Westbrook and Paul George.
That sentiment is important because Presti has not only turned over the roster twice in consecutive offseasons, but he has balanced staying competitive while adding young players and draft assets. Oklahoma City has 17 first-round picks and numerous pick swaps over the next seven years.
The Thunder's plan continues to identify veterans who have strong locker-room presences and positive on-court impacts, giving them trade value down the road. This year those players are George Hill and Al Horford.
The Thunder have the second-lowest payroll in the NBA at $95 million and are 6-7 through the first month of the season. Their young players are developing nicely, and that same alarm clock will likely sound for Hill and Horford within the next year.
Desmond Bane and Xavier Tillman | Memphis Grizzlies
Memphis' strong draft record continued this past November with the additions of Bane and Tillman. The Grizzlies, led by GM Zach Kleiman, have developed a trend of drafting players (such as Ja Morant and Brandon Clarke) with more college experience instead of going for less developed prospects who potentially have higher ceilings.
In the 2020 draft, Memphis traded into the first round to select the 22-year-old Bane with the last pick in the round. The trade cost two future second-round picks along with the Grizzlies' taking back the $1.8 million contract of Mario Hezonja. In the second round, Memphis moved up five slots, from No. 40 to No. 35, to select the 22-year-old Tillman.
Although neither player likely will win Rookie of the Year as Morant did, both have played a big role in helping a Memphis team decimated with injuries stay above .500. Bane is shooting a team-high 48.9% from 3 and averaging 8.6 points in 22 minutes. Tillman had come off the bench in seven games before starting in a recent win over Phoenix. In his past five games, the forward is averaging 22.2 minutes, 10.6 points and 4.4 rebounds, and has a defensive rating of 99.6.
Memphis has given us a reminder that it is OK to select a player who went to college for more than one season.