NBA Power Rankings: Offseason’s good, bad and ugly

WELL DONE

7. Phoenix Suns – Honestly, didn’t love their draft. But T.J. Warren was one of the pleasant surprises of summer league. Replaced the departed Channing Frye with Anthony Tolliver, a downgrade but similar type of player. However, the ranking this high is based solely on the non-LeBron coup of the offseason, signing Isaiah Thomas away from the hapless Kings for a song. The Suns now have all the leverage in any negotiation with restricted free agent guard Eric Bledsoe and can either bring him back on an affordable deal or use him as bait in a sign-and-trade, possibly even to re-enter the Kevin Love sweepstakes.

6. Philadelphia 76ers – Feels slightly dirty ranking a team trying to be bad this high. Still, a great offseason just from a talent acquisition standpoint. Joel Embiid was easily the top prospect this year before his injury issues. Last year’s top pick Nerlens Noel looks like a rim protecting, court-covering defensive menace in the making, added potential steal K.J. McDaniels in the second round and got a free first round pick for taking the player they would likely have targeted at 10 anyway at 12 in Dario Saric. Still the bottoming out and assembling high draft picks was the easy part, assembling a winning team over the next two summers is where the difficulty level rises considerably.

5. Chicago Bulls – The best things that happened to or for the Bulls this offseason were the deterioration of Miami and Indiana. Without making a single move, their shot at the Finals increased substantially. Add to that the impending (again) return of Derrick Rose, the addition of skilled big men Pau Gasol and Nikola Mirotic as well as strong summer league showings for rookie Doug McDermott and 2nd year swingman Tony Snell mean their offense will be better. Not that it could be worse after last year’s eyesore, but with their defensive intensity intact the Bulls will be dangerous in the extreme if their offense can become even average. The one concern is they perhaps overpaid for the McDermott pick, which helped Denver’s offseason.

4. Dallas Mavericks – Yes, Chandler Parsons got a LOT of money. But if you were told before the offseason that Dallas would be paying Parsons and Dirk Nowitzki a combined $23 million per season, you’d take it in a second, right? Add to that the re-introduction of defensive stalwart Tyson Chandler, and the Mavericks look to have re-tooled on the fly to give Nowitzki one more run at a second championship.

3. San Antonio Spurs – Easy game. Re-signed all their own guys for below market rates and had one of the Spursiest players in the draft fall to them at 30 in Kyle Anderson. Should start next season as a strong contender to repeat as champs.

2. Washington Wizards – Re-signed their more important free-agent in Marcin Gortat. Chose to let Trevor Ariza walk rather than reward a contract year, and will replace most of his production more affordably with Paul Pierce. Otto Porter and Glen Rice, Jr. both lit up summer league to further bulwark the wing depth, while they upgraded from Trevor Booker to DeJuan Blair and Kris Humphries (one of the value signings of the summer) on similar money. No huge moves just solid progress for a team who’s biggest improvement is going to come from within as John Wall and Bradley Beal continue to mature.