thelesterlee
The NBA is a league where a team can dramatically change the trajectory of their organization with one single trade yet so many teams are afraid to swing for the fences or admit when their previous swings for the fences have failed. You can keep treading water OR..you can blow. it. up.
Here are 5 NBA teams that should blow everything up:
1. Utah Jazz
At what point do you look around and realize your championship window is closed and all those regular-season wins don’t mean shit when the Phoenix Suns and Memphis Grizzlies have already passed you and the Kawhi-Clippers/Jokic Nuggets and Doncic/Mavs are all better than what you currently have in your building?
This is without even mentioning the clear disdain Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert have for each other. Gobert coughed on some mics at a press conference, shut an entire NBA season down and no one has returned that man’s texts since.
Rudy Gobert gets Klay on a mismatch, seals him in the restricted area, and gets completely ignored pic.twitter.com/6NK07PFH1n
— ProCity Hoops (@ProCityHoops) April 3, 2022
They hate this man.
Joe Ingles will be 35-years old next season coming off a torn ACL. He’s the heart and engine of this Jazz team and his career is about to end. Time to send Mitchell and Gobert elsewhere and restart.
2. Portland Trailblazers
We’ve already seen the C4 being planted when the Blazers traded CJ McCollum to the Pelicans. Time to officially blow things up and free Damian Lillard. Dame is at a fascinating point in his career where being a dominant scorer is cool and all but we’ve all seen it doesn’t actually result in wins. Portland probably should’ve traded him a year earlier and not, ya know, currently when his value is at its lowest.
Lillard is clearly in an abusive relationship with this organization as he won’t stop declaring his undying loyalty to them despite their inability to ever truly put a competitive roster around him. How can you love a team that gave you 35-year old Carmelo Anthony and it was like, one of the best moves the team had ever made. They don’t love you like you love them.
3. New Orleans Pelicans
The New Orleans Pelicans blew the team up in 2019 when they traded Anthony Davis to the Los Angeles Lakers and somehow lucked into drafting Zion Williamson. 3 years later and they need to blow this team up and trade Zion Williamson.
Ironically, New Orleans hitched their wagons to two generational talents and two players who have the lowest threshold for pain in NBA history. I truly believe either player would take a game off if the arena was a little too chilly during the pregame warmups.
I have no idea why they would trade for CJ McCollum but I suppose you have to applaud the NBA for expanding the playoffs to the top 10 seeds and tricking teams like the Pelicans to try at the end of the season instead of tanking.
But man, this team is going nowhere and giving Zion a max contract because he was good for 5 weeks once is crazy. Brandon Ingram deserves better.
4. Brooklyn Nets
Kevin Durant should be on the Brooklyn Nets next season. Every other person with a jersey, parking spot or key to the facility to be updating their LinkedIn pages this summer. There is absolutely no reason why a team with KD should be battling for the 10th seed.
I was about to say that there was no way they could’ve predicted what happened with Kyrie Irving this season but like—nah, we all knew Kyrie was one bad day from becoming the Joker. Brooklyn not only willingly signed up for this but they attempted to put out the James Harden fire with BEN SIMMONS—the NBA player most like to just suddenly retire after a bad game. The only other player more likely to randomly retire midseason is, well, Kyrie. Genius team building going on in Gowanus.
Also real quick, we know Ben Simmons is a bit of a, uh, complicated guy. And we know Blake Griffin is just a straight-up asshole. What is that locker room like with two of Kendall Jenner’s exes sitting next to each other with wildly erratic moods?
Man, free Kevin Durant.
5. Los Angeles Lakers
Pretty much everything I said about the Nets but replace Kevin Durant with LeBron James. Anthony Davis was supposed to be the Prince Who Was Promised but if they asked the Phoenix Suns to give them DeAndre Ayton in exchange for Davis, would Phoenix even say yes?
You know how Isaiah Thomas spent the last few seasons begging for a job on Twitter and going viral every 4 months for dropping 70 points at the local YMCA? Russell Westbrook should be on that same wave next season. He should be like Jamal Crawford where former NBA players all say he’s a ‘real hooper’ who should be in the league even though we’re watching him airball and shotput layups off the backboard.
Maybe sign some 3-point shooters? Some big men that aren’t named DeAndre Jordan. They’re going to fucking sign DeAndre Jordan.
