NBA Offseason: 5 biggest blunders

With the eyes of the basketball world focused on Spain for the inaugural FIBA World Cup (or, if you prefer, the re-branded World Championships), and training camps still a month away, the business of the NBA is largely on pause. As the dust from a tumultuous summer continues to settle, it’s a good time to take stock of which teams appear to have blundered in their offseason deal-making.

While a team like Miami obviously had a wretched offseason on balance, with LeBron James returning to Cleveland, this wasn’t really a blunder on their part. Pat Riley and company were aware =James could choose to sign elsewhere and were prepared for the eventually. The franchise recovered quickly, retaining Chris Bosh and securing a decent free agent haul headlined by Luol Deng and Josh McRoberts. Miami made the best of the bad hand they were dealt.

Not every team can say the same. The moves or series of moves which follow were largely of the offending teams’ own doing, whether a bad trade, an outlandish signing or in one case passing up on an near too-good-to-be-true opportunity.