The Biggest Winners And Losers Of 2016 NBA Free Agency
Winner: Golden State Warriors
I mean, duh. You get the crown jewel of the summer’s free agency, 99.9 percent of the time you’re going to be a winner. Adding a former MVP and future Hall of Famer still in his prime to a 73-win team that should’ve won the NBA Finals is a terrifying prospect not only for 2016-17, but for the next half decade or so.
The Golden State Warriors now have the two players who won the last three league MVP Awards, they’ve got a perfect replacement for Harrison Barnes on the wing who can be plugged into an already deadly system, and somehow, Klay Thompson is now their fourth best player.
https://twitter.com/BalIersA/status/754315991287496708
The Dubs had to shed quite a bit of depth to get there, renouncing Barnes and Festus Ezeli, trading Andrew Bogut for peanuts and watching Marreese Speights and Leandro Barbosa sign elsewhere.
But Golden State also did a decent job replenishing that depth and replacing Bogut in the starting lineup, acquiring one of free agency’s biggest steals with Zaza Pachulia, who agreed to a deal worth a measly $2.9 million.
Pachulia is a serviceable defender and rebounder, and though he’s nowhere near Bogut’s level as an all-around player, WHO THE HELL CARES? THEY GOT KEVIN FREAKING DURANT.
Added: Kevin Durant, Zaza Pachulia, David West, Damian Jones, Patrick McCaw. More to come.
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) July 7, 2016
Guys like the newly re-signed Ian Clark and James Michael McAdoo, not to mention rookies Damian Jones and Patrick McCaw, will need to hold their own in expanded roles, but the Warriors have quite possibly the most lethal lineup in NBA history.
Whenever you add a top-3 player to another top-3 player and assemble a five-man group deserving of names like the “Apocalypse Lineup,” you probably won the summer.
Next: Loser: New York Knicks