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

The Southeast Division is full of young teams and is home to the No. 1 and No. 2 picks from the 2024 NBA Draft. The Atlanta Hawks and Washington Wizards used those picks on prospects they hope will help them take the next step forward in their long-term plans, while the Charlotte Hornets also picked in the top ten with similar goals in mind.

Down in Florida, the Miami Heat are navigating a difficult cap situation while hanging on by a thread to their chances at Eastern Conference contention. The neighboring Orlando Magic, on the other hand, are riding high off a big step forward with their young roster and looking to build on that success.

After both high-profile and under-the-radar activity, let’s dive into the highs and lows of what went down this offseason.

Atlanta Hawks

The Hawks, after an up-and-down 2023-24 season and sneaking into the Play-In Tournament for the third year in a row, were bounced unceremoniously by the Bulls out of the playoff mix. Things were looking rough. Their two best players did not seem to complement each other, and they’d been stuck in the purgatory of not being good enough to truly contend and not being bad enough to benefit from a high draft pick. Then the lottery gods smiled upon them and made good on their three percent odds to receive the No. 1 pick in the draft. Things have to be looking up, right? Well, that remains to be seen.

Best Move: Dejounte Murray trade

With multiple seasons of evidence that Dejounte Murray and Trae Young are not additive pieces on the backcourt together, the Hawks decided it was time to split up the talented duo. They ended up moving him to New Orleans in exchange for Larry Nance Jr., Dyson Daniels, EJ Lidell, Cody Zeller, and two first-round picks.

Unless you are a huge Dyson Daniels fan, this is an underwhelming return. Short of some insane lottery shenanigans, the 2025 Lakers pick they received is unlikely to be better than late lottery and the other pick they received is low upside as well. Daniels plays a solid floor game and can defend on the perimeter (which is sorely needed in Atlanta), but the offensive limitations seem to significantly cap his upside.

So why is this listed as their best move? Well, they didn’t exactly hit a home run with the rest of their moves (keep an eye on that Vit Krejci guy, though). Most importantly, it was a worthwhile endeavor to pull the plug on the Murray-Young combo. Though it can be argued that the primary pieces they received in return have limited potential to significantly alter their fortunes, they still provide a chance. There is an element of the unknown that might just lead to catching lightning in a bottle. Keeping these guys together just did not offer that. It was clear what the upside was, and it wasn’t all that pretty.

Worst Move: Draft Zaccharie Risacher at No. 1

Let’s just get this out of the way … it is painfully obvious two months after the draft and before having played a single NBA game when a player is or is not going to live up to his potential. This take could never be proven incorrect by any realistic scenario known to man. Clear? Cool.

In many ways, Risacher leaves a lot to be desired as a No. 1 prospect. It’s not his fault that there did not seem to be any clear-cut superstar prospects in his draft class, but the Hawks still had their pick of anyone they wanted. The Ringer had him all the way down at No. 11 on their NBA Draft Guide big board, demonstrating the skepticism of some. Risacher is big, plays solid defense, can run the floor, and has the outline of a workable jump shot in the future. On the other hand, he doesn’t possess blow-by speed, doesn’t finish well at the rim, and the shooting is much more theoretical than realized at this point.

He's young, he has time, and he’ll need it. Even his star teammate is not expecting much from him out of the gate. The apple of many eyes coming into the draft and especially after Summer League, though, is Reed Sheppard, who looks like he could be an electric shooter and perfect for today’s game. He’d be a tough fit with Young, but one would have to think there was a solid trade option available as well. Here’s hoping Risacher can prove the doubters wrong.

Charlotte Hornets

The Pistons and the Wizards got all the headlines for their embarrassingly inept play throughout the 2023-24 season. But do you know who was the worst team in the league in net rating per Cleaning the Glass? The Charlotte Hornets. Their star player, LaMelo Ball, missed all but 22 games and starting center Mark Williams missed all but 19. They also committed to the tank after sending off Terry Rozier, PJ Washington, and Gordon Hayward for young players, picks, and salary relief during the season. Their offseason has been rather quiet, picking up a draft pick here and there while bringing back Miles Bridges. They’ll be banking on better health, a new coach, and internal development to improve their win total.

Best Move: Hire Charles Lee as Head Coach

After a second straight long season coaching the Hornets, Steve Clifford decided he was ready to step away. The team went just 48-116 in those two seasons, and though they were riddled with injuries, it seemed from the outside that he was having a hard time pushing the right buttons.

In his place, the team has brought in a young, first-time head honcho, Charles Lee. Lee has spent the better part of the last decade on the sidelines with the Hawks, Bucks, and most recently the Celtics, where he was part of their championship run in 2023-24. He decided to hit the ground running and put his stamp in place by immediately coaching their Summer League team, where they combined for a 7-1 record in the California Classic and Vegas Summer League events.

Lee looks like he’s going to bring an infectious energy and modern playstyle to a struggling team that has not made the postseason since 2015-16. The team has some intriguing young talent, with the Ball and Williams (health permitting), as well as No. 6 pick Tidjane Salaun and last year’s All-Rookie First Team selection, Brandon Miller. Coach Lee looks as equipped as any young coach to help them take the next step.

Worst Move: Josh Green trade

The Hornets acquired Mavs wing Josh Green in the league’s first-ever six-team trade earlier this summer. Though there were other moving parts, due to the sequence of reporting and order of operations with the moratorium period, we can surmise that the trade basically boiled down to receiving Green in exchange for sending out a second-round pick and cash.

This move is not something that is going to make or break the franchise. There’s also the possibility that Green significantly improves as either a defender or a shooter and turns this deal into a clear win. For now, though, it seems like they used positive assets and cap space to bring in a player who has not shown production commensurate with his salary up to this point. They did well in using their cap space to extract assets from the Nuggets for taking on Reggie Jackson, but this move took them out of the running to gain additional capital for adding other salary as well.

Miami Heat

Coming off a Finals run in 2023, the Heat’s 2024 season ended in disappointment as they were ousted by the Celtics in the first round. They seem to have decided to stay away from the second apron, which limited their flexibility and they now sit at around $4-5 million below that threshold with 14 rostered players. After losing multiple rotation pieces last summer, Caleb Martin departed this summer to join the Sixers, trimming their depth even further. Other than inking Bam Adebayo to a big extension, they were pretty quiet this offseason and will be relying on “Heat Culture” to continue to punch above their weight and make the playoffs, where they’re always dangerous.

Best Move: Draft Kel’el Ware at No. 15

When you’re a team operating on a budget, nailing your draft picks is one of the best ways to add cost-controlled talent. The Heat look to have hit it out of the park in 2023 with Jaime Jaquez Jr., and are looking to strike gold a second year in a row with Indiana University big man Kel’el Ware. Ware is an enigmatic player whose motor has run hot and cold throughout his playing career, but his physical talent is undeniable.

He’s huge, a great athlete, and has the tantalizing outline of the coveted big man archetype who can both stretch the floor on offense and protect the paint on defense. He is certainly a big swing, which has a high chance of leading to a strikeout, but the Heat’s organizational infrastructure is as ideal an environment as any in the league for most young players. For what it’s worth, he showed out well in Summer League too, finishing fourth in the league in scoring among rookies and showing solid activity on the boards.

Shout out to a cheap deal for Haywood Highsmith as an honorable mention as well.

Worst Move: Sign Kevin Love for 2 years, $8 million

Kevin Love, now 35 years old, has been around the league for a long time. He’s coming into year 17 and it shows. He was signed to a minimum contract, so there’s only so negative the signing can be. It’s a perfectly acceptable transaction. The part that makes it less appealing is the second year of the deal, which seems unnecessary for a player kind of on his last legs.

Love still brings elite defensive rebounding prowess and an intelligent passing game; however, he is having an even harder time moving his feet and protecting the rim on defense than his younger days, which were not good even then. Most importantly, he’s been struggling with his 3-point shooting accuracy as of late. He has connected on just 33 percent and 34 percent of his shots behind the arc in the last two seasons. He also scored just 1.02 points per shot on catch-and-shoot jumpers last season (39th percentile) per Synergy, which is rough considering he is primarily in the game to grab defensive boards and knock down 3s.

With little wiggle room against the second apron, perhaps there were better options for that minimum salary slot, but hopefully, the five-time All-Star will have a bounce-back year.

Orlando Magic

The young Orlando Magic, after finishing below .500 in 10 of their previous 11 seasons, rode their No. 2 ranked defense to 47 wins and an admirable playoff loss to the Cavs in the first round. They came into the offseason as one of only a few playoff teams with significant cap space and snagged two-time NBA champion Kentavious Caldwell-Pope away from the Nuggets. Attempting to maintain the good vibes, they also brought back multiple returning players like Mo Wagner and Goga Bitadze, while making significant long-term investments in Jonathan Isaac and Franz Wagner. The playoff experience and added depth have fans excited for the team to take another step this upcoming season.

Best Move: Renegotiate and extend Jonathan Isaac for 5 years, $84 million

Signing KCP is the headliner, looks to be a good fit, and could pay huge dividends. But it is quite a bit of money (with a player option in the final year), he’s on the wrong side of 30, and won’t be getting quite the same open looks he got in Denver. So, while more likely to turn out as the best move, we’re going off the beaten path a bit with a different pick here.

The Magic are getting points here for taking a gamble on a risky player with huge upside and for creativity with their cap space. Jonathan Isaac is arguably the most game-changing defender in the league on a per-minute basis. His health is obviously an enormous concern, but he got through a reasonably healthy season (for him) last year and after missing most of the previous four seasons, he might finally be trending in the right direction.

The Magic were able to use their cap space to give Isaac a guaranteed raise for this season to $25 million while using that raise as a negotiating point to get significant risk mitigation in the form of non-guarantees for the following four years of the extension. They are able to get out of the deal with little guaranteed money on the books if he continues to miss time but have him locked into a deal that accounts for less than ten percent of the cap moving forward if he stays healthy.  

Worst: Extend Franz Wagner for 5 years, $224 million

This is another maximum rookie extension that just doesn’t seem necessary. Wagner is an extremely promising young player and will have every opportunity to prove that this extension is actually a steal. But on a team that has never shown a willingness to dip into extreme spending on payroll, this has some potential to look icky later.

The team is already looking at scoring and jump shooting as a weakness moving forward. Solving that issue will likely require the acquisition of a player even better at these skills than Wagner and Paolo Banchero, which means this player is going to command a large salary. With big paydays looming for Banchero and Jalen Suggs, along with this Wagner extension, it’s tough to imagine they’ll have much room to fit that player on their books, limiting their upside.

This is a big bet on Wagner and hishis jump shooting last year (24th percentile on jump shots per Synergy) was just a blip on an upward trajectory. If it works out and he triggers his designated rookie extension raises by making an All-NBA team, it will have proven to be the right move. For now, it is an understandable and justifiable move, but it looks like somewhat of a risk that may not have been necessary before getting another season’s worth of data to see how his play improves.

Washington Wizards

Oh, the Wizards … they finally ripped off the Band-Aid and tore the roster down to the studs last summer, moving on from Kristaps Porzingis and Bradley Beal and boy does it show. This was largely by design, however, as they’re looking fully committed to a long rebuild. They ended up with two lottery picks in this draft and acquired a few veterans that could have trade value down the road as they continue to build toward the future as well.  

Best Move: Deni Avdija trade

Deni Avdija is a 23-year-old wing on an absolute steal of a multi-year contract and provides a solid floor game on both ends of the floor. He is an improving shooter, a solid passer, and a very reliable defender as well.

Why was it a good move to trade him, then? As mentioned, this team is going nowhere fast. Additionally, while he is a fantastic role player, he has not shown the high-end upside that would suggest he becomes an irreplaceable star player in the future. By the time this team is ready to compete, he’ll likely be on a much larger contract that may be a tough fit if they have other high-salary players on the books who are more robust building blocks.

Trading Avdija netted them the 14th pick in the draft (Bub Carrington), a future first-round pick, two future second-round picks, and veteran guard Malcolm Brogdon. Multiple firsts (at least one in the lottery) and seconds are a great haul for a player like Avdija, as solid as he is. The picks allow Washington additional bites at the apple to try to find a true star for the next iteration of their team. Also, if Brogdon is able to stay healthy (admittedly dicey), he could also yield assets in a trade at the deadline.

Worst Move:  Sign Saddiq Bey for 3 years, $19 million

The Wizards operated reasonably well this summer, so it’s tough to quibble with too much they did. They passed on Reed Sheppard in the draft, which loses you points just like it did for the Hawks, but they made a bit of a head-scratcher by signing Saddiq Bey to a multi-year contract.

After tearing his ACL in March, it is unclear if or when he’ll suit up for the Wiz this season. When he does return, it is reasonable to expect him to take some time to get back to the player he was before the injury. Even before the injury, however, Bey was having a hard time contributing as a high-level role player. He has never been a model of efficiency with his shooting stroke and put up career lows across the board in shooting last season. And though he looks the part, he has yet to show a consistent ability to be a plus defender on the court as well.

The salary committed to Bey and team expectations are low enough that this deal won’t negatively impact the team’s overall trajectory if it doesn’t work out. But being multiple years and fully guaranteed makes the move a bit riskier than necessary.