Best and worst moves of the 2024 NBA offseason: Northwest Division

The NBA’s Northwest Division is home to some of the heaviest hitters in the Western Conference. The Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets, and Minnesota Timberwolves finished as the top three seeds in the West last season. Along with the defending conference champion Mavericks, these three squads enter the 2024-25 season as the favorites in the conference.

Oklahoma City and Denver are coming out of the offseason with some major changes to their rotations (good and bad), while Minnesota took a big swing in the draft to try to extend their window.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz have been wandering in the wilderness for a few years, looking to find their next great core pieces. They have prioritized the draft and younger players, each coming away from the summer with important pieces for their futures.

With training camps around the corner, let’s evaluate the wins and losses among the offseason moves for these teams.

Denver Nuggets

The Nuggets lost a hard-fought battle to the Timberwolves in the second round of last season’s playoffs and are looking for revenge coming into the new season. Unfortunately, they have lost a significant rotation piece for the second summer in a row, with starting shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope moving on to Orlando. Being hamstrung by spending limitations, they will go into the season with unproven young players looking to fill his shoes, leaving questions about this part of the rotation. As long as Nikola Jokic is leading the charge, though, they will be tough opponents throughout the season and in the playoffs.

Best Move: Extend Jamal Murray for 4 years, $208 million

With a lack of other transactions that make a lot of sense at all, we’re going with the recent contract extension for Jamal Murray here as the Nuggets’ best move. Murray is coming off a disappointing playoff run and terrible Olympic appearance, but optimists will blame injuries for this and understandably so.

This extension is probably a bit of an overpay, especially for a team that has been unwilling to do extra spending. But Murray is an absolute bucket-getter when healthy and has great chemistry with Nikola Jokic. With their roster construction the way that it is, there is no obvious alternative path to acquiring a player of Murray’s caliber, making this deal close to a no-brainer.

Sure, his regular season counting stats don’t measure up to the highs he has shown in two playoff runs, but there’s just so much proven history of him and Jokic demolishing opponents when they’re on the court together. Per lineup data from Cleaning the Glass, the Nuggets were plus-15.7 points per 100 possessions (99th percentile) with these two on the court last season. Going further back, they were plus-12.7 (98th percentile) in 2022-23, and plus-11.8 (96th percentile) in 2020-21 (Murray missed 2021-22 with injury). There is no denying the magical synergy these two have, and as long as they’re on the court together, they’re going to crank out wins like a machine.

Locking him in now for four more years instead of having to give him a fifth year on a new contract next offseason can also be considered a small win for the Nuggets, allowing for a bit of risk mitigation.

Worst Move: Sign Dario Saric for 2 years, $10.6 million

The worst thing that went on in Denver this summer was losing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to the Orlando Magic, but since that’s not an affirmative transaction that was made by the team, it’s getting left off on a technicality.  Besides this change, the Nuggets signed a couple of veterans for the bench — Russell Westbrook and Dario Saric. For different reasons, these are both rather puzzling additions.

Both were overpays in adding a player option on the second year of their contracts, giving them all the power to make a decision that will likely go against the team’s preferences next summer. When there seemed to be a tepid market for these players, this additional concession was unnecessary. Was there really that much competition for their services? Both had pedestrian seasons last year on minimum deals. Saric looks like a better theoretical fit on the court, but he is paid even more salary than Westbrook.

In the end, the additional salary and convenient result of being hard-capped at the second apron by using the taxpayer mid-level exception on Saric earns this signing the honor of the worst move. After giving the same contract to Reggie Jackson in 2023, Jackson picked up his option and the Nuggets had to pay three second-round picks to off his salary. Perhaps Saric will play so well that he won’t be a salary dump candidate next offseason, but with this team being so tightfisted with their financials, it sure seems like they missed an opportunity to learn a lesson here.

Minnesota Timberwolves

The Wolves are coming off their best season in 20 years, having taken down the defending champs and making it all the way to the Western Conference Finals, where they fell to the Mavericks. With a sky-high payroll above the second apron, they came into the offseason with very little flexibility to make significant changes. They did have a couple of distant draft picks at their disposal, however, and they used those to make a high-risk play that would significantly impact the future of their team.

Best Move: Rob Dillingham trade

With a 36-year-old starting point guard in Mike Conley and only minimum-salary contracts to offer in free agency, the Wolves decided they needed to make a splash to add some long-term upside to their backcourt. Banking on Anthony Edwards keeping them in the hunt for the foreseeable future, they traded a first-round pick swap in 2030 (protected top one) and an unprotected first-round pick in 2031 to the Spurs for the No. 8 pick in this year’s draft, where they selected Rob Dillingham.

With the second apron restrictions in place and few other avenues to add a player of this caliber, Minnesota pulled a lever that will shape their fortune for years to come. They did a good job of identifying an opportunity to trade into the top 10, something a team this good does not usually have a pathway to do.

Dillingham is a shifty shot-creator who has shown the potential to knock down jump shots both on and off the ball, which would provide a nice synergy with the more ball-dominant Edwards in the backcourt. He is also a pretty slick ball handler who has shown flashes of playmaking potential.

With few other available avenues, this was a creative gamble using the last few bullets they had in the chamber to acquire a big-time talent, giving them a shot at a point guard of the future they would have otherwise had difficulty obtaining.

Worst Move: Rob Dillingham trade

Yep, you read that right. Trading those two draft picks for the unproven Dillingham has extremely high variance potential to be either a genius move that heavily contributes to the Wolves’ sustained success or a giant whiff that dooms them to be lost at the end of the decade.

Sure, Anthony Edwards might end up being so good that he can drag a mediocre supporting cast to the playoffs on his own, but that’s tough to ask of anyone. More likely, he’ll need some real help to keep the team in contention. With Conley and Rudy Gobert on the wrong side of 30, no more draft assets to trade, and a financial reckoning coming hard and fast, there’s no telling what this team will look like in 2030 and 2031.

Dillingham is intriguing as a scorer but is not the elite athlete you would hope for at his size. Speaking of which, he’s also tiny. At 6-foot-1 and under 170 pounds, he will have an uphill battle trying to finish around the rim and is likely to get completely trucked on the defensive end. The Wolves defensive structure has shown they can get away with a small guard in Conley, but it is unlikely they’ll have a rim protector like Gobert behind Dillingham by the time he’s ready for big minutes. If Dillingham doesn't develop into an above-average starting point guard, things have a chance to get ugly.

If this move doesn’t work out, the Timberwolves could be in a very rough spot by the 2030 season, where it would be debilitating to be struggling to get wins while owing their picks to San Antonio.

Oklahoma City Thunder

After grabbing 57 wins and the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference last year, the Thunder did not rest on their laurels and made some big moves this offseason. They re-signed Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins to long-term, value contracts and traded their square peg Josh Giddey for a round one in Alex Caruso. They also nabbed big man Isaiah Hartenstein in free agency and even somehow picked in the lottery of the draft, taking project guard Nikola Topic. The team has loaded up again for another run to the top of the West, this time looking even more well-equipped to do so.

Best Move: Sign Isaiah Hartenstein for 3 years, $87 million

As a team that struggled with keeping opponents off the boards last season (29th in the league in opponent offensive rebound rate per Cleaning the Glass), Hartenstein is just what the doctor ordered. Not only does he do a good job of clearing the defensive glass to end possessions, but he’s even more elite at collecting offensive rebounds himself, an area where the Thunder ranked just 27th in the league. He offers lineup versatility to allow the Thunder to play him with or without Chet Holmgren on the floor, allowing them to mix and match depending on the matchup.

Hartenstein also provides a high level of defensive productivity. He ranked 83rd percentile in on/off differential for defensive points per possession with New York last season, proving he makes things happen on that end of the court. In particular, he excelled in both containing the pick-and-roll and defending the rim, providing a wide range of utility. Additionally, with his additional strength over someone like Holmgren, he can be assigned to the bigger post-up threats in the league while allowing Holmgren to roam as a help defender, where he is elite as well.

While this acquisition did cost the Thunder a pretty penny, the final year of his contract is a team option, allowing maximum flexibility right when new contracts for their other young stars are kicking in. The team hit it out of the park with this move.

Worst Move: Draft Dillon Jones at No. 26

Admittedly, there isn’t much to dislike about what the Thunder did this summer. Even drafting an injured player in Topic at No. 13 seems like a fine move, since they do not need his services right away and he is a talent that would not have otherwise been available that late in the draft. With a lack of other options, we’re going with the Dillon Jones pick at No. 26.

This late in the draft, there really aren’t high expectations of anyone drafted in this range, but there are some reasons to wonder about this pick. It is unclear what kind of role he will be able to play in the league, as Jones plays a lot of bully ball best deployed in the post but stands barely 6-foot-5 and struggles to hit outside shots. While he possesses superior physical strength, his lateral quickness and leaping ability leave something to be desired, prompting questions about what role he’ll play on defense as well.

At the end of the day, he was an extremely productive offensive hub at Weber State, but this selection has some potential warts at the moment and the team gave up five second-round picks to make it happen.

Portland Trail Blazers

Portland continues to employ a bit of a mystifying combination of expensive veterans and promising young players, leaving them a decent amount of functional depth but without any stars to pull it all together. They took a center at No. 7 in the draft who may start the season third on the depth chart, traded two other picks for a young wing, and have failed to find a new home for any of their high-dollar veterans. While there still could be some wheeling and dealing before the season, they’re looking like a competent but ultimately underwhelming squad destined for the lottery yet again.

Best Move: Draft Donovan Clingan at No. 7

The love that the Portland Trail Blazers had for Donovan Clingan was one of the worst-kept secrets in the league leading up to the draft. Jonathan Givony had it publicly pegged as early as the beginning of June, and it was likely known throughout the league even earlier than that. That said, picking at No. 7 meant that the team was going to have to do their homework to ensure they came away with the highly-rated prospect.

The Blazers get credit here both for selecting the monstrous defensive presence out of UConn and for conducting the research around the league necessary for them to be able to confidently trust their draft board and take him without having to spend extra assets trading up.

Though it remains to be seen how effective he’ll be able to be outside the paint on either end of the floor, Clingan looks to have a very high floor as a defensive rim protector. His 7-foot-2 frame, along with good strength, rebounding prowess, and high-end defensive instincts should allow him to become a steady center for the Blazers in the future. And who knows, he could find himself in the rotation sooner rather than later, with Deandre Ayton and Robert Williams being trade candidates and/or injury-prone.

Worst Move: Deni Avdija trade

Though the perception of a mismatched roster of expensive veterans with young players and a lack of direction can frustrate fans, it’s tough to quibble much with any specific move they did make this offseason. Other than their draft picks, they signed Devonte Graham and traded for Deni Avdija, keeping most of last year’s roster together.

With that in mind, the Avdija trade is going to grade out as the most questionable move. Trading two first-round picks for a role player when you’re a team far away from contention just makes you a bit queasy. Granted, the 2024 pick, though in the lottery, was the last pick in the lottery and in a draft that most around the league were down on. Also, the 2029 first they traded will be only the second-most favorable of three picks between Portland, Milwaukee, and Boston, reducing its upside as well.

Two first-round picks are two first-round picks, though, and giving that up as a team that most would guess is going to finish second-to-last in the Western Conference at best next season is still a dicey proposition. The Blazers are clearly a team that wants to avoid completely bottoming out, and acquiring a young glue piece in Avdija assuredly helps them do that. He’s also young enough to grow with their other young players, but the prospects of what those draft picks could be when compared to the expectation of Avdija makes this deal a bit sour for some fans.

Utah Jazz

The Jazz were active in the draft this offseason, making three selections in the first 32 picks, but remained in a holding pattern for most of the free agency period. Choosing to hold onto their cap space to offer a renegotiated-and-extended contract to star forward Lauri Markkanen, there were few scraps left in the free agency pool once this was done. They are clearly willing to be patient as they continue to stockpile picks and young players, hoping to eventually find that star running mate for Markkanen to vault them up the standings. For now, 2024-25 will likely include valiant attempts to “Sag for Flagg.”

Renegotiate and extend Lauri Markkanen for 5 years, $202 million

Though the Jazz clearly dangled Markkanen in trade talks throughout July, they ultimately chose the safe route of locking him up long-term, allowing him to remain their leader this season and maybe even put him back on the trade block next summer.

Markannen was criminally underpaid after blowing up in the middle of his previous contract and an extension of that contract was not tenable. With the cap space available to them, the Jazz were able to give him a $24 million raise for the upcoming season, allowing them to extend his contract from that number, making it a win-win for both sides. With the raise this season, it seems the Jazz were also able to negotiate the slightest of discounts for the end of the contract, making it a bit more team-friendly.

Other than the uncommon circumstances of being able to renegotiate the contract before extending it, there aren’t many complicated elements to this transaction. It’s just a solid deal for both sides that makes sense.

Worst Move: Sign Drew Eubanks for 2 years, $9.8 million

As mentioned, the Jazz weren’t left with many other options in free agency with their cap space earmarked for Markkanen. One thing they did agree to early on in free agency, though, was a two-year contract with Drew Eubanks.

It’s not all bad, since the second year of the deal is a team option. But paying Eubanks anything over the minimum is just not a great look at the moment. He signed with Phoenix last summer for the minimum and did not have a good year. Granted, Utah likely had to pay him a bit extra to come to a rebuilding team, but being "worst" is a relative distinction.

Among bigs who played at least 750 minutes last season, Eubanks ranked 82nd out of 85 players in turnover rate, per Cleaning the Glass. The Suns also played at a minus-3.5 differential (36th percentile) with him on the court last season. He has shown glimpses of energy and rim protection in the past, but it seems like the Jazz could have done better with this money.