Dallas Strikes Out Again: The Dallas Mavericks missed out on their big free agent targets once again. This has almost become an annual thing (save for getting Wesley Matthews last year after one of the most bizarre set of events involving Deandre Jordan). Dallas wanted Michael Conley and Hassan Whiteside as their key cogs in the starting lineup playing perhaps the two most important positions in the modern NBA, point guard and center. Whiteside returned to Miami and Conley signed the largest contract in NBA history with Memphis. They also whiffed on Dwight Howard. Reportedly they didn’t feel Howard was worth the max but Howard ended up signing a very value oriented contract with Atlanta that Dallas could have easily beat and enticed Howard how there’s no income tax in Texas. They also let their largest free agent, Chandler Parsons, walk. All this in 24 hours! The rationale for letting him walk is there, he wanted a lot of money and he has bad knees. However, at some point Dallas has to stop blowing up their roster. They let countless under 27 year old guys walk away only to become key members on other teams (Jae Crowder, Al Farouq Aminu, Brandon Wright, and now Parsons). Mark Cuban’s (Mavericks owner) problem is he only wants to sign the top free agents but there’s nothing wrong with building a team around B and C class guys. Hell that’s how they won their only championship. Now once again a lot of the top tier guys are gone and some of the rising second tier guys are gone too. Where do they go now? There’s still some reasonable talent left over in free agency. They can still sign guys like Loul Deng, Joe Johnson, Al Horford (unlikely), Brandon Jennings (risky), Kent Bazemore, and Marvin Williams. The problem is Dirk Nowitzki is tired of losing in the first round of the playoffs and none of these guys helps get out of there. Dallas really only has two options. They either need to make smart budget signings or they need to let Nowitzki finally walk and start over. There’s plenty of available big men still such as Bismack Biyombo and Ian Mahinmi. The larger problem is they have a glaring hole at point guard and there’s very little talent available at that spot. They can resign Deron Williams on a bargain contract and look for more secondary ball handlers such as Jamal Crawford, Dion Waiters, and Lance Stephenson. They can still fill out a quality roster with these types of guys along with smart vets like Jared Dudley and Gerald Henderson but this summer it will be tougher than ever. People are throwing money at every free agent. Will this finally test Nowitzki’s and Rick Carlisle’s patience?

 

The Resurgence of the Memphis Grizzlies: Memphis might still have an old team and the most expensive player in NBA history despite being a bottom ten market, but these were worthy moves. The last two years of Michael Conley’s deal with hurt but Memphis realistically only has a three year window to compete. Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph, and Conley are all on the decline. However, signing Chandler Parsons is huge. This is the biggest free agent acquisition in franchise history (somewhat sad that Parsons is such a big signing despite never even being an all star). Sure this entire starting unit is prone to injury but when you’re a small market, you take large gambles. Parsons brings new skills to a stale offense. He can be a secondary ball handler and he can shoot threes. These are two things Memphis desperately needed throughout the years. Memphis also drafted the interesting point guard prospect, Wade Baldwin. All this and Memphis still has room (approximately 8 million but can dump Vince Carter to create more) to lock up another solid start at shooting guard. This team’s window of competing for a championship is probably over but they are going to be fun to watch as long as they’re healthy. Look for David Fizdale to freshen up the offense and defense as well. Memphis owes two lottery picks still so this was the right decision. They need to continue going for the championship because we know how hard it is to build a championship squad in such a small market.

 

The Fall of a Giant: What the hell are the Lakers doing? 64 million for Timofey Mozgov is Billy King level bad. Mozgov isn’t even an upgrade over last year’s disaster, Roy Hibbert. Based on offensive plus-minus, Mozgov was the second worst center in the league. The Worst? You guessed it, Roy Hibbert. What an upgrade. It’s a puzzling move because it’s hard to see how Mozgov fits the timeline of the other players on the roster. On the plus side, the Lakers did resign Jordan Clarkson to a very affordable four year 50 million dollar contract but that probably has to do more with the fact that he was subject to the Gilbert Arenas Provision so other teams could only offer him 5.6 million for the first two years.

 

Big Al the Bargain: Signing Al Jefferson to a 30 million dollar contract across three years was a great move by Indiana. Sure skeptics will point to Jefferson’s disappointing 2015-16 season but he played just about the entire season injured. Everyone thinks that just because a few times won the title playing small that that’s where the league is heading but every one of the last four champions had a strong post player. The modern NBA isn’t about simply going small, it’s about being versatile and that is exactly what Al Jefferson brings. Indiana wants to play fast but Jefferson still has a PHD in post play. When the offense stalls, you can bring in Jefferson to get some easy buckets. Want to know one of the reasons Golden State flamed out in the Finals? They couldn’t make any baskets inside the three point line. Being able to attack in various ways makes defenses work harder and Jefferson’s crafty post play with surely age well. Time will tell whether he can keep up being a decent defender.

 

The Downward Spiral of OJ Mayo: After violating the NBA’s drug policy for the second time OJ Mayo has been banned from the NBA. With all the craziness going on in free agency, this was definitely one of the biggest surprises. Mayo is only the 11th player to be banned for failing this policy. We all know how lax the NBA is with testing for drugs because otherwise it has to be entirely normal for men to put on 20 lbs of muscle every NBA summer. Mayo has experienced quite a fall from grace in the NBA. He came in as one of the most hyped shooting guards at the time. The comparisons to every great shooting guard came and Memphis looked like it was on the brink of turning things around except things never clicked for Mayo. There were reports of Mayo being lazy, difficult, and showing up out of shape to summer camps. Eventually he got in a fight over a card game with Tony Allen and the team let him walk. Mayo had plenty of other opportunities to prove himself but he never quite became that explosive scoring shooting guard. Instead he settled for contested jumpers and lazy defense. This suspension will cost him somewhere in the 30 million range considering this summer’s cap boom. Perhaps this was NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s warning to fellow players that drugs won’t be tolerated. Also to be clear, Mayo was banned for using serious drugs in the cocaine/methamphetamines category. This wasn’t a performance enhancing drug scandal we’re so used to so let’s hope Mayo can get the help he needs. He is eligible for reapplying in two years.