NBA free agency winners and losers: OKC Thunder, Dallas Mavericks, and Denver Nuggets

The NBA’s moratorium period came to an end this weekend teams can now officially sign deals with players they agree to terms with over the last week. It’s been a long week full of headlines that shook the structure of the NBA with some teams making big deals, and others remaining awfully during the most important week of the offseason.

We saw big money deals getting handed out like candy on Halloween as veterans like LeBron James and Paul George getting $50+ million dollar contracts. The biggest contract signed was OG Aninoby who got a five year deal worth $212 million dollars. Pascal Siakam got a four year deal worth just over $200 million dollars.

While the players who are on the verge of signing these deal are no doubt happy, how is it going to affect their teams? Who are the winners and the losers in free agency?

Winners

Oklahoma City Thunder

There wasn’t a lot this Oklahoma City Thunder team was missing. When you earn the one seed in one of the toughest Western Conference’s we have ever seen and then get even better in free agency, that only spells promise for the future. This is a young talented team that had depth, and talent at all positions, except for their center position. Chet Holmgren was a revelation in his first year with the Thunder, but bringing in Isaiah Hartenstein is only going to make this team that much better. He is a non stop energy guy that bangs on the boards and has developed an offensive game. He doesn’t need the ball, he goes and gets the ball. What’s even better is he is going to make it that much harder for teams to defend Holmgren and the rest of the weapons they have in OKC.

Sacramento Kings

It was one of the latest deals to be agreed on in the free agency period and the Sacramento Kings may have been saving the best for last. After Paul George and LeBron and most of the big names on the market had already been scooped up, DeMar DeRozan was the last man standing and I don’t know if he could have found a better place to go. He will now join De’Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis, and newly resigned free agent Malik Monk in Sacramento. This is a team that gave the Warriors all they could handle in a playoff series two years ago, but missed the playoffs this season. DeRozan is going to bring champion experience and veteran leadership to a team that needs exactly that.

Dallas Mavericks

Dallas let the league know they aren’t satisfied with a trip to the NBA Finals. They want much more than just a Western Conference Championship, and proved it by going out a luring Klay Thompson out of Golden State. It seemed destined that Klay was leaving the Bay, and it didn’t seem like Dallas was on the radar, but the fit couldn’t be much more perfect. This is a guy that doesn’t’ need to see much of the ball to get his shots up. That’s exactly what Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving need. Both of them have plenty of the ball, and can create shots for themselves or for their teammates. In the Finals, they needed someone like Klay desperately. Not only does he bring his 41.3% career shooting from long range, but he’s a four time champion who will help bring a sense of maturity and a winning attitude to a team that isn’t missing much.

Losers

Denver Nuggets

This season’s defending champions came into their title defense season having lost Bruce Brown and Jeff Green last offseason. Their bench was desperately thin, and that ended up costing them in the the playoffs when they met up with a deeper, younger and more physical side in Minnesota. They had a chance to add to their roster, but instead they lost a two time NBA champion in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and now they are left in even more despair than they were at the start of last season. The Nuggets went from a team looking like they were on the verge of a dynast to a team that looks like they don’t know how to sustain a team with a three time MVP who is in his prime.

Golden State Warriors

The Warriors are getting old. We have been seeing it over the last couple years. Steph Curry’s incredible ability to make shots is always going to dazzle, and at the moment it doesn’t seem like he has missed a beat. But Draymond Green is not the same player he used to be, and even though Klay Thompson may not be the same player he once was, they let him go to the Dallas Mavericks. They have a young crop of players led by Jonathan Kuminga, but he is not ready to take on the role of a super star just yet and the rest of the youngsters are role players at best. Buddy Hield is heading to the Bay, but he isn’t going to be the kind of game changer the Warriors need. If it looked like the end of the Warriors dynasty was closing in at the end of the season, the free agency period did nothing to make us think otherwise.

Los Angeles Clippers

With a new stadium, a new logo and a new era coming in LA, the Clippers didn’t do enough to keep their team that they invested so much in over the last few season together. With Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and James Harden all on the same team they had stretches where they looked like they could complete with the best teams in the league. The PG, Kawhi experiment was decimated by injuries and now George is heading to Philadelphia. The Clippers relevance that they so desperately sought now seems to have evaded them again. They signed Harden to a new deal, but he and Leonard aren’t going to be enough to compete in a near impossible Western Conference.