The NBA has become a league of wild deals and surprising offseason signings. This season we’ve seen the Lakers trade three high-quality role players, Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Montrezl Harrell, along with a first-round pick for Russell Westbrook. We’ve also witnessed the Nets and 76ers consummate a massive transaction that saw James Harden find a new home in Philadelphia, and Ben Simmons ends his outrageous game of Chicken with GM Daryl Morey, finally heading to the (hopefully) friendlier confines of Barclays Center.
- The Philadelphia 76ers Create A Big 3
- The Los Angeles Lakers Create A Dangerous Big 4
- The Los Angeles Clippers Bring In A Former Defensive Player Of The Year
- Are These Three Superteams Realistic?
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Injuries to Anthony Davis, Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Jamal Murray, and Michael Porter Jr. (just to name a few) have also thrown several organizations’ championship plans off course. We could see teams like the Lakers, Clippers, and Wizards take significant steps over the summer to get their rosters back on track toward a title, or at least a brighter future.
The 2022 offseason might be the craziest in the NBA’s history.
Below we’ll outline three new superteams that could be built over the summer.
The Philadelphia 76ers Create A Big 3
Philadelphia 76ers Receive: Bradley Beal
Washington Wizards Receive: Tobias Harris, Tyrese Maxey, Matisse Thybulle, 2023 First-Round Pick
Bradley Beal is set to become a free agent this summer, and the latest rumors have him interested in teaming up with Joel Embiid and James Harden in Philadelphia. The 76ers don’t have the cap space to sign Beal to a max offer, making a sign-and-trade their only workable option. Philadelphia would have to move Tobias Harris’s massive deal to make room for Beal, but there’s no way the Wizards would take on a player who’s never sniffed an All-Star team, turns 30 in the summer, and is due $77 million over the next two seasons. The 76ers would need to sweeten the pot with two excellent young players in Tyrese Maxey and Matisse Thybulle, along with a guaranteed first-round pick.
Suppose Bradley Beal moves to the City of Brotherly Love, forming a Big 3 with James Harden and Joel Embiid. In that case, they’d become the instant 2023 title favorites (they could be the favorites without Bradley Beal), forming an unstoppable offensive trio. All three players complement each other’s games perfectly.
Bradley Beal has seen his once excellent long distance shooting numbers steadily decrease over the last few seasons, plummeting down to an ugly 30.0% in 2021-22. He hasn’t magically forgotten how to shoot. Earlier in Beal’s career, he teamed up with an in-his-prime John Wall, a player who consistently broke down opposing defenses, creating a plethora of open spot-up looks for him. Fast forward to this season, and Beal, minus a legitimate playmaker next to him, has averaged only 2.7 three-point catch and shoot attempts per game, most of which he’s taken under duress. Picture what Beal would do next to James Harden, a player who charges into the lane like a lioness scattering a herd of antelope. James Harden has been mired in a supposed down year, yet he’s still second in the NBA in assist points created at 25.5 per contest. He’d set up Beal with the best shot opportunities of his career, allowing the former Florida star to reign death from deep on the league.
James Harden already looks incredible next to Joel Embiid. Despite getting blown out by 29 points against a pumped up Nets team, he’s averaged 22.3 PPG, 11.2 APG (versus only 3.0 TOV), 7.3 RPG, and 44.4 3P% with a +8.0 +/- as the 76ers have steamrolled the competition with a 5-1 record. The Beard appeared to be slightly pudgy and disinterested amidst the injuries and Kyrie Irving drama in Brooklyn, lowering his perceived value around the league. After he came to Philadelphia, a legitimate contender, he seemingly lost seven pounds overnight and regained the spark in his eye. If the 76ers bring in Bradley Beal, it’s easy to see James Harden coming into next season with a 12-pack, looking to destroy the league.
Joel Embiid is the MVP frontrunner. He’s the league’s best inside-out center, a player who features a stable of old school back-to-the-basket drop steps and spin moves along with an excellent mid-range face up game. He also has no problem stepping behind the three-point line where he’s connecting on 35.1% from deep for the season. Embiid spent nearly his entire career inside the cramped confines of the Ben Simmons half-court spacing quagmire. Now that he’s teamed up with James Harden, a player with legitimate outside gravity, he looks lighter, like a 10-pound cinder block has been lifted off his back. If Beal came to town, he might actually fly.
After our trade, the 76ers would feature a starting lineup of:
James Harden
Bradley Beal
Danny Green
Georges Niang
Joel Embiid
That’s a deep group with excellent three-point shooting across every position that would give opposing defenses fits with one of the all-time great offensive attacks.
On the other side of this trade, the Wizards would hate to lose their superstar. Still, instead of walking away with nothing, they’d land one of the best defenders in the league in Matisse Thybulle, a potential All-Star with Tyrese Maxey, and a solid veteran forward, Tobias Harris.
The Wizards probably wouldn’t have enough top-end talent to make the playoffs in the deep Eastern Conference next season, but they’d have an excellent group of good, young players. And if things broke right, Maxey could take off with more responsibility in Washington, and newly acquired Kristaps Porzingis could finally stay healthy for an entire season, building chemistry with his new point guard, forming a nice inside-outside punch together.
The Los Angeles Lakers Create A Dangerous Big 4
Los Angeles Lakers Receive: John Wall, Christian Wood
Houston Rockets Receive: Russell Westbrook, Talen Horton-Tucker
Things have gone from ugly to 90-year-old-green-faced-witch-with-a-mole-on-her-nose disastrous for Russell Westbrook in Los Angeles. He no longer feels comfortable bringing his family to home games because of the way the Hollywood crowd splashes personal abuses on him. A few days ago, his wife took to Twitter to let everyone know her husband is an amazing man and basketball player, which, while intended to help, actually gave this fire a blast of wind, turning it into a raging inferno. This situation is untenable. If the Lakers don’t find a way to trade Westbrook over the summer, the Purple and Gold faithful might boycott Crypto.com Arena.
Russell Westbrook’s value has dipped so low that some NBA insiders believe he’ll have trouble signing even a minimum contract with a team after his current deal is finished. The Lakers aren’t getting a nice haul for their embattled point guard. Perhaps the only way GM Rob Pelinka will be able to (kind of sort of) remedy this situation is by brokering a deal with the Houston Rockets for John Wall and Christian Wood.
John Wall has reportedly kept in shape throughout his Rockets mandated 2021-22 vacation, but nobody knows what he’ll look like next year. Wall could come to La La Land next season thin and humbled, ready to take a more minor defensive/secondary playmaking role than he was accustomed to before injuries broke him down. Or, he could show up slow and overweight, looking uncoordinated and unready after sitting out an entire season.
It seems unlikely John Wall will come to the LA circus next to superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis out-of-shape, especially after seeing what the media has done to a struggling Russell Westbrook this year. And for all the rotten press Wall has gotten for his massive contract, he wasn’t that bad last year. Throughout 40 games in Houston, he averaged 20.6 points per game, 18.2 assist points created per contest, and he held his assignments to a 47.3% mark from the field on defense.
John Wall is only 31, far from over-the-hill, and although he’s not the prototypical excellent long distance marksman you’d like to see next to LeBron James, his outside stroke is miles ahead of Russell Westbrook’s. At the same time, Wall has never been a lockdown defender, but again he’s a vast improvement over Brodie, who has shown throughout the year that he doesn’t care about the less glamorous end and could be the worst defensive point guard in the Western Conference.
In our transaction, the Lakers also land Christian Wood, a player who has looked lost inside the tank machine the Rockets are running this year. His defensive intensity has dropped significantly as the losses have piled up in Houston, and he’s spent entire halves disappearing from the offense, sadly looking on from the corner as rookie Jalen Green ups his “NBA experience level” by jacking contested look after contested look.
Wood would perform better next season for a Lakers team looking to actually win games. He’s a mini-unicorn, with the ability to alter shots at the rim and connect at a solid clip from deep. He’d also provide a real-life replacement at the center position for the eventual Anthony Davis injury.
The Lakers’ new starting lineup would feature John Wall, Austin Reaves (we don’t know if Malik Monk will resign over the summer), LeBron James, Christian Wood, and Anthony Davis.
We know the combination of a healthy LBJ and AD is enough to get the Lakers into the second round of the playoffs, and if John Wall and Christian Wood play well within their roles, the Purple and Gold could do some actual damage next season.
The Houston Rockets make this trade for only one reason: They’d hope Russell Westbrook opts out of his player option and searches for greener pastures instead of going the John Wall route and spending the year on his sofa. The Rockets would also love to trade a completely disinterested Christian Wood, who’ll undoubtedly run out of Houston as fast as he can once his contract is up, for an excellent young player in Talen Horton-Tucker.
The Los Angeles Clippers Bring In A Former Defensive Player Of The Year
Los Angeles Clippers Receive: Rudy Gobert
Utah Jazz Receive: Ivica Zubac, Norman Powell, Terence Mann
Let’s begin with the Jazz because, at first glance, our trade package for three-time All-Star Rudy Gobert might seem underwhelming. First off, this transaction would only go down if Utah is eliminated early from the playoffs, making this the sixth season in a row The Stifle Tower has led his squad down the playoff toilet, getting flushed in either the first or second round. Second, the Jazz continue to sweep away the rumors about a continuing Donovan Mitchell/ Rudy Gobert feud, but as the old cliché goes, “Where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire.” And if Utah feels they need to break up their duo, there is no way they’ll choose their center over superstar, Spida. Finally, Rudy Gobert is an excellent player. Still, he can’t produce his own buckets on offense, which makes him essentially a one-way player, and no organization will trade an All-Star or a budding All-Star for a player who can’t get it done on both sides of the court.
The Jazz are stocked full of excellent shooting wings (Bojan Bogdanovic, Royce O’Neale, Jordan Clarkson, and Joe Ingles) who struggle to contain their assignments on defense. This is a problem they can escape in the regular season but can’t run from during a seven-game playoff series where opposing players step up their intensity on the less fun end, taking away many of the open looks they’re used to launching.
If the Jazz make this trade, they will bring in much-needed two-way depth with Norman Powell and Terence Mann, two excellent offensive role players who go 110% on defense. The Jazz would also replace Rudy Gobert, the best defensive center in the league, with Ivica Zubac, an excellent rim protector in his own right, who also has a much more advanced offensive arsenal. Zubac has a feathery touch around the rim and out to the free throw line, a solid array of post moves, and he’s an excellent roll man with soft hands at the basket.
The Clippers would trade away some of their depth for a chance to become one of the best defensive teams of the new century.
The Clippers have been without superstar Kawhi Leonard the entire season as he recovers from a partially torn ACL. And their second superstar, Paul George, has also missed all but 26 contests in 2021-22 with an elbow issue. Both players are expected to be back in action next year.
Kawhi Leonard is a top-5 player in the NBA when he’s healthy and could be the best one-on-one defender we’ve seen in the last ten years, an athlete capable of locking down anyone from Giannis Antetokounmpo to Stephen Curry. Paul George isn’t quite at Leonard’s level, but he’s a top-20 player who has made four All-Defensive teams during his 12-year career. Together, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George form the best two-way wing combination in the league.
Rudy Gobert is the premier rim protector in the league. The Stifle Tower has a 7-9 wingspan he uses to contest 13.0 shots per game. Gobert’s ability to single-handedly cover the lane has allowed the Jazz’s stable of weak perimeter defenders to crowd their assignments on the perimeter with the knowledge their center is waiting behind them, ready to cancel out any penetration they allow. Imagine what Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, two of the best ballhawks in the league, would do with Gobert waiting behind them. They’d smother their covers to death.
If our trade went down during the offseason, the Clippers starting unit would feature Reggie Jackson, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Marcus Morris Sr., and Rudy Gobert, a grouping that, barring injury, would be very difficult for any Western Conference opponent to beat in a seven-game playoff series.
Are These Three Superteams Realistic?
Perhaps you think the Jazz will never trade Rudy Gobert, their three-time Defensive Player of the Year. Or maybe you believe the Lakers have no shot at dealing Russell Westbrook after the type of appalling defense and shooting he’s shown this season.
You could be correct, but did anyone expect the 76ers to land James Harden two months ago? Or did anybody predict at the start of the season the Portland Trail Blazers would blow up their entire team, trading away CJ McCollum, Norman Powell, Robert Covington?
If there’s one thing we know about the NBA, it is that anything can happen. Bradley Beal very well could be tired of losing in Washington, paving the way for a Wizards and 76ers trade. The Lakers will almost certainly find a way to handle their Russell Westbrook problem. And if the Jazz are trounced from the playoffs in the first or second round for the sixth year in a row, they’ll likely shake things up.
