Which struggling teams should have the most urgency to make major changes before the Feb. 10 NBA trade deadline at 3 p.m. ET?
Let's focus on a group of four teams currently outside the top nine in the standings in their respective conferences: the Boston Celtics, Indiana Pacers, Portland Trail Blazers and Sacramento Kings. The simplest argument this time of year is that these teams should "blow it up," making major changes to their core.
Such an aggressive strategy makes more sense for some teams than others, so we'll take a look at the cases and rank their need to make moves from highest to lowest.
Throughout the NBA season, I answer your questions about the latest, most interesting topics in basketball. You can tweet me directly at @kpelton. Tweet your questions using the hashtag #peltonmailbag or email them to peltonmailbag@gmail.com.
This week's mailbag also answers your questions about the Los Angeles Lakers' place in the oldest-in-age rotations for a game in NBA history and context for Evan Fournier's surprising dominance over the Boston Celtics this season after they allowed him to leave for the New York Knicks in free agency.
"Rank these teams by urgency to 'blow it up'/significant overhaul/trade-based euphemism: Boston, Indy, Portland, Sacramento."
-- Mike Richman
My pithy reply on Twitter was that the answer to this question is a product of the age of the teams' stars, and one of these teams (the Blazers, with 31-year-old Damian Lillard and 30-year-old CJ McCollum) is not like the others. But let's unpack that and rank the other three teams.
Since reaching the 2019 conference finals with a pair of upsets, Portland has tried a variety of constructions around the team's consistent core of Lillard, McCollum and (when healthy) Jusuf Nurkic. The Blazers have dealt future first-round draft picks to add defensive upgrades Robert Covington and Larry Nance Jr., and they've changed coaches. Nothing has worked to lift them back into legitimate contention.
As much success as Portland has enjoyed with the Lillard-McCollum backcourt, it's overwhelmingly likely their best results are behind them, making this time for a bigger change if possible.
Next in the rankings is Indiana, whose two best trade options (frontcourt starters Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner) are both 25. As with Portland, the Pacers have tried a variety of other changes around the Sabonis-Turner combo with no meaningful change in the team's outlook. It would be amusing to finally break up Sabonis and Turner when the team is actually playing better with both on the court (plus-4.3 net rating, per NBA Advanced Stats) than either alone, but in the case of Turner-only lineups, that's largely because of fluky opponent 3-point shooting.
I'd put Boston and Sacramento both in the same category of needing to continue to make changes around their core players. This is perhaps a bit more urgent for the Kings because Harrison Barnes, 29, has one full year left on his contract, meaning his trade value is likely to decline after February's trade deadline. If Sacramento can get multiple first-round picks for Barnes now, that move certainly should be made.
Otherwise, the urgency for the Kings to see immediate results is clearly driven only by the league's longest playoff drought (15 seasons). Sacramento is in this position precisely because of bad decisions that prioritized winning now over more sustainable long-term success, so why repeat those mistakes?
It's certainly possible that a backcourt pairing of De'Aaron Fox, 24, and Tyrese Haliburton, who will turn 22 in February, will prove not to maximize their value, but half a season is way too early to conclude that. And given Fox is more likely to be traded than Haliburton, who has two years remaining on his bargain rookie contract, a trade now would mean selling at the lowest point of his value.
As for the Celtics, I'm amused by the notion Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum are too similar to work together. Wasn't that the whole appeal of the LA Clippers pairing Paul George and Kawhi Leonard? Granted, the Clippers' wing duo hasn't yet achieved the kind of playoff success forecast when they teamed up, but they looked like a formidable postseason opponent before Leonard's partial ACL tear last spring.
Given Brown is 25 and Tatum won't turn 24 until March, giving them time to continue their development together -- preferably with a better playmaker at point guard than we've seen since injuries sidetracked Kemba Walker's career -- appears the wisest course of action.
"Has there ever been an older team than the Lakers team that took the floor Dec. 19 against the Bulls? I believe every player who played was over 32, except for Chaundee Brown Jr., who only played 5 minutes."
-- Max Wernecke
Great catch, Max. The 20 oldest sets of players to see action in a game this season all belong to the Lakers, but their Dec. 19 group -- including hardship addition Isaiah Thomas and neither of the team's two rotation players in their early 20s (Malik Monk and Austin Reaves), who were both in health and safety protocols -- was a full year older on average than any other despite the cameo from Brown (23).
With an average age of 33.7, that lineup was the third oldest in NBA history according to my research. The only older ones belonged to the 1997-98 Houston Rockets, who had seven players 34 or older, including future Pro Basketball Hall of Famers Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon. The oldest rotation in NBA history (average age 33.8) came on April 9, 1998, when those players were joined in the lineup by Eddie Johnson (38), Kevin Willis (36), Mario Elie (34), Brent Price (29) and Matt Maloney (26). Sadly, Charles Jones, 40, did not get off the bench.
After the Lakers, the next four oldest games belong to the 2007-08 San Antonio Spurs during a stretch when Tony Parker (25 at the time) was injured and replaced in the rotation by 34-year-old Damon Stoudemire. That left San Antonio with no players who were younger than 30 getting minutes.
"Evan Fournier's performance against Boston this season had me thinking: What are some of the greatest disparities between a player's scoring averages against a single team vs. their averages against the rest of the league? Seems like Fournier really has the Celtics' number."
-- Eli B
Here are this season's leaders in this measure, based on at least two games played against a specific opposing team:
It's no surprise Fournier leads the list, and even more remarkable given that everybody else in the top 10 has just two games against the opponent, allowing more opportunity for a single outlier performance to lift them up. The next-highest difference for players with three games was 11.6 points per game, barely half Fournier's edge against the Celtics.
Alas, Fournier missed the final head-to-head meeting with Boston because of injury, meaning he won't have any more revenge games coming unless the teams meet in the postseason.
How about all-time? For that, I used expected points based on games played in a given season and scoring average against all other teams. Adding those up across all seasons, for players with at least 20 games against an opponent, here are the biggest all-time differences:
Amusingly, Natt's highest-scoring season came with Denver, as he averaged 23.3 PPG during 1984-85 for his only All-Star appearance. David Wesley is the only other player on this list to play for the team he most tormented as a scorer.