Biggest Winners and Losers of the NBA Offseason So Far

There are a few outstanding dominos yet to fall in the NBA. Lauri Markkanen and Brandon Ingram could get traded. There are some potential difference-makers still available in free agency, including Tyus Jones and Luke Kennard.

But for the most part, it feels like this offseason's fireworks are pretty much behind us. And now's a good time to take stock of how the league has transformed since the Finals ended.

Whether through trades, free agency or the draft, several teams have undergone pretty dramatic changes. The biggest winners and losers can be found below.

This is probably the most obvious inclusion in the exercise. The Philadelphia 76ers almost completely overhauled their roster and landed the biggest free agent who was truly on the market in Paul George (we all knew LeBron James was't leaving the Los Angeles Lakers).

Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Kelly Oubre Jr. are the only players from last season's team who are back for 2024-25, but they'll be joined by a better and more malleable supporting cast.

Chief among that group, of course, is Paul George. He'll be entering his age-34 campaign, but George just averaged 22.6 points, 3.5 assists and 3.3 threes while shooting 41.3 percent from deep. His outside shooting will make it more dangerous for defenses to key in on two-man actions between Maxey and Embiid. And as a third option, he should do plenty of damage against third-option defenders off the bounce.

With George, Caleb Martin, Eric Gordon and Andre Drummond, Philadelphia has the start of a strong rotation. Even if the Sixers fill out the rest of the roster with minimum contracts, they should be considered among the top-tier title contenders.

And that's part of why George is a winner on an individual level, too. The Los Angeles Clippers' apparent unwillingness to give him the deal he wanted caused George to leave L.A. The Sixers were waiting for him with a max offer and a spot alongside one of the best one-two punches in the NBA.

The other side of that coin, of course, is the Clippers losing their No. 2 scorer without the cap space to meaningfully replace him.

L.A. did what it could to fill the gap on the roster with cap exceptions and minimum contracts, but Derrick Jones Jr., Nicolas Batum, Kevin Porter Jr., Mo Bamba and Kris Dunn won't combine to match the star power the Clippers lost.

This team is now a 33-year-old Kawhi Leonard, a soon-to-be-35-year-old James Harden and a motley crew of supporting players who will struggle to win games when Leonard is load managing (something the Clippers might have to be more serious about after he missed the end of another playoff run with an injury).

Five years after L.A. rocked the NBA landscape by landing both Leonard and George in the same offseason, the mini-era is over with just three series wins to show for it.

Sure, the post-George Clippers will be competitive, especially when Leonard is healthy, but there was no way to recover from the loss of George under this collective bargaining agreement.

With or without Klay Thompson, the Golden State Warriors' dynasty is likely over. The core won its fourth title in 2022, but it lost in the second round to a play-in team the next year and missed the postseason altogether in 2024.

It still feels like Stephen Curry has a couple All-NBA-caliber years left in him, and the Warriors had a solid offseason, but the Western Conference is absolutely loaded. The team that tops it is likely to be deeper and have more stars in their primes.

For example, Klay's new team, the Dallas Mavericks.

Led by Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving, Dallas just made the 2024 Finals. Luka is only 25 years old. He's just getting started making deep playoff runs. And with the way he engineers open looks on seemingly every possession, Thompson's role is going to be about as simple as it's ever been.

He can now be more of a standstill, catch-and-shoot threat as he enters his age-34 campaign. That should preserve his legs just a bit as he and his new team trudge through another long season.

Klay may not be the player he was 10 years ago, but for the Mavericks, he doesn't need to be. The mere threat of his shooting will open up the floor more than Jones or P.J. Washington could last season. And the heavy offensive lifting done by Dončić and Irving will make life easier on him.

The Boston Celtics just won the championship and have their entire core locked up for next season. The 76ers and New York Knicks just loaded up this offseason in an effort to catch them.

The Miami Heat, who've represented the East in the Finals in two of the five years Jimmy Butler has been there, mostly stood still. In fact, they were on the wrong end of the biggest Heat-related move this offseason.

After reportedly turning down a five-year, $65 million offer to stay with Miami, Caleb Martin eventually signed with Philly for $32 million over four years. Last season, he was fifth on the Heat in total minutes and played a crucial role in their 2023 Finals run.

Now, he's gone.

And while the development of Jaime Jaquez Jr. might ultimately make the loss negligible (Jaquez had more wins over replacement player last season), losing talent for nothing is far from ideal.

Add to that the fact that Jimmy Butler will be playing out what could be the final year of his contract without a forthcoming extension, and it's easy to be nervous about this team splintering.

Both of its recent Finals runs were unexpected, so Miami may surprise us again, but it doesn't feel like the Heat are in the contenders' tier after this offseason.

It cost a fortune in draft assets to land Mikal Bridges in a trade. And losing Isaiah Hartenstein to the Oklahoma City Thunder hurts. There's a hot-take artist out there somewhere who could describe the Knicks as one of this offseason's "losers," but you won't find that argument here.

New York, like the Minnesota Timberwolves with Rudy Gobert two years ago, was uniquely positioned to overpay for Bridges. Adding him is a lean into an already strong culture and identity (he's a fourth 'Nova Knick), and he's an ideal basketball fit, too.

With Jalen Brunson's ascension to superstardom, it makes sense to surround him with as much length, grit and defense as possible. And the Knicks now have a boatload of all of the above in Bridges, OG Anunoby, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo.

Julius Randle returning from injury this season could be a nice wrinkle, as well. His on-ball creation and scoring could carry non-Brunson lineups.

There are now real questions about depth inside. They may need to add a center to back up the oft-injured Mitchell Robinson, but if you look at the Knicks' major swing just in terms of the immediate, on-court impact, Bridges replacing Bojan Bogdanović (who was barely playing by the end of his time in New York) is a pretty big win.

Basically, since the start of the LeBron James era, Los Angeles Lakers fans have been promised splashy offseasons with plenty of star acquisitions.

They got one that worked with Anthony Davis, but they also got a disaster in the Russell Westbrook trade. And since the Russ deal, L.A. has sort of been stuck.

Now, for at least the last few months, there's been buzz about the Lakers loading up again. Much was made of their ability to trade three first-rounders this summer.

But so far, the only significant changes are the additions of rookies Dalton Knecht and Bronny James. The latter is obviously a big story because a father and son playing on the same team is new and genuinely fun. The former is an experienced college player who could have an impact similar to Jaquez's for Miami last season.

But those additions aren't likely to push L.A. out of the play-in mix it's been in for each of the last two seasons.

There's still time to make a move. LeBron taking slightly less than a max when he re-signed kept the Lakers under the second apron, so they can still aggregate outgoing salaries in trades. They can still attach a couple first-rounders in deals, too.

But as of right now, it looks like this team could be bringing back most of 2023-24's rotation. And with much of the rest of the West loading up, that probably isn't good enough.

Speaking of Hartenstein, three years and $87 million for a player who just averaged 7.8 points would seem to make him individually one of the offseason's more obvious winners. And he is, but we're going to focus more on the team that landed him.

OKC's identity as a small(ish) team that could play five out with Chet Holmgren was a big part of why it finished first in the West standings, but the Thunder were 27th in offensive rebounding percentage and 29th in defensive rebounding percentage last season.

Their lack of size hurt them in the playoffs, and Hartenstein is an immediate fix on that front. The 26-year-old 7-footer averaged 8.3 rebounds in 25.3 minutes last season, was 21st in the league in total rebounding percentage and eighth in offensive rebounding percentage.

But that's not all he does. Hartenstein has decent touch around the rim, is an underrated passer and even protects the rim. No one in NBA history matches or exceeds all of Hartenstein's career marks for points (12.5), rebounds (11.6), assists (3.5), blocks (1.9) and steals (1.4) per 75 possessions.

With that kind of versatility and Holmgren's perimeter skills, you can even imagine those two playing together.

And that's not the only reason OKC was a massive winner this summer. It also landed one of the league's best perimeter defenders in Alex Caruso in a trade that sent Josh Giddey to the Chicago Bulls.

Giddey is young and possesses an interesting combination of size and passing ability, but he was one of the few players in the rotation who messed up the Thunder's spacing. His poor shooting made him an easy choice for defenses to ignore. They can't do that against Caruso, who's a career 38.0 percent three-point shooter.

The Milwaukee Bucks are here for pretty much the same reason Miami is. While a couple other Eastern Conference contenders loaded up, the Bucks have mostly been offseason observers to this point, including watching starting shooting guard Malik Beasley sign with the Detroit Pistons.

Of course, Milwaukee's justification is probably every bit as strong as Miami's. Much of last season was pretty hectic, with the midseason firing of Adrian Griffin and a handful of injuries that made chemistry-building difficult with new point guard Damian Lillard.

Even through the chaos, when Lillard, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton were all on the floor, the Bucks were plus-16.3 points per 100 possessions. A full offseason with Lillard and Doc Rivers could help Milwaukee get off to a smoother start in 2024-25.

But Lillard is also entering his age-34 campaign. He's not likely to get much better on defense at this point in his career. Middleton turns 33 in August, and injuries have plagued him the last two seasons. Brook Lopez is 36.

Outside of Giannis, who missed the 2024 playoffs with his own injury, this team is getting old and lacks depth. If it doesn't make a deep playoff run in 2025, the pressure could be on soon.

From the start of the first season without Dwight Howard through 2022-23, the Orlando Magic were dead last (by a pretty decent margin) in win percentage.

For most of those 11 years, it felt like they were spinning wheels more than rebuilding anything.

But in 2021 and 2022, they landed Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero, two foundational talents with size and point forward chops. And this past season, they made it back to the playoffs and pushed the Cleveland Cavaliers to a Game 7 in the first round.

That made the Magic a player in free agency for what felt like the first time in a decade-and-a-half (they signed Tracy McGrady in 2000, Hedo Türkoğlu in 2004 and Rashard Lewis in 2007). And they emerged with one of the biggest names in this free-agent class in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

KCP's numbers from his time in Denver (10.4 points, 2.4 assists and 1.7 threes, with a 41.5 three-point percentage) may not leap off the screen, but he's the perfect low-volume, low-stress three-and-D addition to pair with Wagner and Banchero.

He'll gladly take on the defensive assignment of the opposition's best perimeter player and won't gripe about a lack of on-ball opportunities on the other end.

The Magic have their rising stars. Now, it's about surrounding them with smart, hard-working role players. KCP checks all the right boxes and brings championship experience, too.

If we're talking strictly about projected wins and losses for the 2024-25 season, then the Chicago Bulls and Brooklyn Nets were undoubtedly losers this offseason.

Both teams will be worse. Chicago lost DeRozan and Caruso. The Nets lost Bridges. But intentionally being bad now is undoubtedly the right choice for both of these organizations.

They maybe could've justified grinding to a mid-30s win total. If they ran it back and everything broke right, they might've even sniffed .500 records. But neither squad was anywhere near legitimate contention. And the 2025 draft, which features Cooper Flagg, is one to tank for.

In a separate deal from the Bridges trade, Brooklyn got its 2025 first-round pick back. Chicago will have its first if it stays in the top 10. Both teams should be angling for as many losses and ping-pong balls in the 2025 lottery as possible.

It's kind of tricky to spin Chris Paul's being cut by the Warriors before his $30 million salary for 2024-25 was guaranteed as a win, but we're going to do it anyway.

CP3 has been in the league since 2005 and has already made almost $400 million in NBA salary alone. And shortly after hitting free agency, he landed a one-year deal with the San Antonio Spurs.

This organization is famous for extending the careers and preserving the health of veterans like Tim Duncan and Manu Ginóbili. CP3 going there makes sense on that front, but this is more about his opportunity to play with another potential all-timer in Victor Wembanyama.

The young Frenchman could've made an All-NBA team as early as 2024-25 with or without Paul, but CP3's playmaking will surely make it easier.

For years, he's created wide-open, at-the-basket opportunities for centers like Tyson Chandler, DeAndre Jordan and Deandre Ayton. That alone should juice Wemby's efficiency numbers. But his experience and leadership should help, too.

Paul could've signed the minimum as a ring-chaser for some more experienced team, but this might ultimately be the smarter legacy play.

His lone transitional season with the Thunder in 2019-20 proved how valuable he can still be as a lead ball-handler, and this campaign with San Antonio has similar potential for him.

For most of the last 12 months, the 2024 NBA draft class has largely been lampooned as one of the worst we've ever seen, but plenty of winners emerged from that night.

The Utah Jazz landed three players who were top-five recruits when they were in high school in Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier and Kyle Filipowski.

The Atlanta Hawks jumped several spots in the lottery to land a potential three-and-D star in Zaccharie Risacher with the first overall pick.

The Houston Rockets were in desperate need of shooting and added Reed Sheppard, who could potentially be a dynamic three-point threat as early as this season.

The Memphis Grizzlies may have found a starting center in Zach Edey. The rich got richer when Nikola Topić fell to OKC. Dalton Knecht slipping all the way to the Los Angeles Lakers added some good vibes to a largely stagnant offseason. And the Denver Nuggets traded up for a player they've targeted for a while in DaRon Holmes II.

Drafts like this are often panned for the lack of big names at the top, but it's silly to put an artificial cap on the upsides of players in their teenage years or early 20s. With the right development, this group could yield plenty of contributors and maybe even some stars.