NBA Free Agency: Winners and Losers

The NBA free agency period is an exciting time for hopeful fans that are eager to see their teams upgrade with fresh talent.  While many teams improve due to their free agent additions, others inevitably go in the other direction.  This may be due to teams losing a star player to free agency, going into a rebuilding stage or overpaying the wrong talent.

A few talented player remain available, but top options like Brandon Jennings and Nikola Pekovic are restricted free agents likely to end up back with their original team.  The major moves have already been made, so it's time to grade the Winners and Losers of the off-season.

Winners

Houston Rockets
The Rockets had been stockpiling assets for years, hoping to cash in for a franchise player.  They accomplished that goal last summer by acquiring James Harden from the Thunder, but that was only step one.  That was enough to push them from the lottery to postseason, but to be a true contender they needed to pair Harden with another star.  Now they have done that, by adding Dwight Howard.

Howard is coming off his worst season in the past 7 years, but was hampered by injuries and struggled to fit into the Lakers system.  He still has the skills to be an elite big man on both sides of the floor and potentially is the biggest difference maker to switch addresses this summer.  Sure, he's caused a lot of headaches and embarrassed himself for his flip-flopping antics and backstabbing, but with the security of a new max contract easing his mind, that hopefully won't be a big concern.  At least not in the short term.  The bigger concern is that a big reason why Howard felt he never fit in with the Lakers is because he hated their style of offense.  Someone should have signed him up for a League Pass subscription so that he could have actually watched some of the Rockets games last year.  That might have clued him in to the fact that Houston plays with a very similar style.  Howard claims his preference is to park himself in the post, despite the fact that there are few big men that can match his ability to dive to the hoop off of a pick-and-roll and Harden is one of the best at facilitating those sets.   That combination could be nearly unstoppable if Howard would only realize it. Otherwise, Houston may find themselves needing to change their style and pace to conform to Howard's wishes, which wouldn't allow them to utilize the best talents of his teammates.

Red Sox at the break

If someone were to tell you back in April that the Boston Red Sox would cruise into the All-Star break with the best record in the American League, you probably wouldn't believe them.  You may need to pinch yourself just to make sure you aren't dreaming.  Yet here we are in mid-July with the Sox having banked an AL best 58 wins before the break.

Of course many Sox fans will take this early season success with a grain of salt, with haunting memories of recent failures still stirring fresh in their minds.  There was the gut wrenching end to the 2011 season, when the Sox 7-20 record in September was responsible for blowing a 9 game lead in the standings that cost them a playoff spot on the final day of the season.  It was the worst late season collapse in league history and one of the worst records the team had produced in any month in franchise history.  "The Collapse" was followed up by the forgettable Bobby V season, when a toxic clubhouse sunk the team to the basement of the AL East.  Boston ended up waiving the white flag at the trade deadline, shipping out a quarter of a billion dollars worth of long term salary in a blockbuster trade with the Dodgers.  Their 69-93 record was the third worst record in the AL, leaving little hope for a quick turnaround.

The worst to first turnaround caught most of us by surprise, but maybe it shouldn't have.  Ok, so nobody would have thought they would be this good, considering 58 wins at the break is a franchise record.  There is still a lot of talent on this roster though.  When you upgrade the manager to John Farrell, remove a few bad apples (looking at you, Josh Beckett) and get a little luckier in the health department, improvement should be expected.  A repeat of last season just wasn't going to happen.

Who should be All-Stars?

MLB presents it's midsummer classic next week to showcase the game's brightest stars.  Well, that's the intention anyway.  Every year we see players get snubbed in favor of less deserving ones.  The fan vote has a lot to do with this, as it often becomes a popularity contest rather than an indication of the league's best (well at least Derek Jeter didn't get voted in this year).  The illogical rule that still forces rosters to include at least one player from every team is another reason.  Seriously, do we really have to include anyone from the Padres or Astros?

The ballots are already in and the teams have been announced, but let's take a look at how these All-Star rosters should have looked like.

American League

Catcher

Fan vote: Joe Mauer 

Reserves: Jason Castro, Salvador Perez

My picks: Joe Mauer (.316/.397/.465, 8 HR, 32 RBI, 3.9 WAR)

Jason Castro (.266/.330/.474, 12 HR, 31 RBI, 2.3 WAR) 

The fans got this one right, as Mauer is far and away the best catcher in the AL.  There is a steep drop off after that, but Castro is an acceptable choice as a backup.  Especially since we had to find a way to squeeze in an Astro somewhere.  Otherwise the case could be made for Carlos Santana stealing that spot.  He's slowed down considerably after a torrid start to the season, knocking him down to the honorable mention category.  

First Base

Fan vote: Chris Davis

Reserves: Prince Fielder

My picks: Chris Davis (.310/.388/.696, 34 HR, 86 RBI, 4.0 WAR)

Prince Fielder (.267/.363/.463, 16 HR, 69 RBI, 0.8 WAR)

Somewhat surprising that the fans voted in Davis over the more popular Fielder, but it's clearly the correct choice.  Good job, fans!  Davis has been mashing throughout his breakout season, leading the majors in HRs and trailing only Miguel Cabrera in RBIs and Runs Created.  That average is likely to continue to steadily drop, but the power is legit.  Fielder has been a mild disappointment by his lofty standards and is a negative value on the defensive side, but the 1B pool in the AL isn't nearly as deep as it used to be, so he's an easy choice as a reserve.  

Celtics clean house

We knew it had to happen eventually.  That probably doesn't make it any easier for Celtics fans, but a re-building stage was inevitable.  The first domino to fall was the departure of coach Doc Rivers, who was let out of his contract last week to allow him to take over the head coaching spot with the Clippers.  After that, we had to expect the rest to come crumbling down.  Boston then broke out the dynamite by dismantling the core of what was once a championship team in a blockbuster deal with the Brooklyn Nets.

The Celtics will send Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry to Brooklyn in exchange for Gerald Wallace, Kris Humphries, Keith Bogans, MarShon Brooks, Kris Joseph, and three future first round draft picks (2014, 2016, 2018).

If that sounds like an underwhelming haul for two future Hall of Famers and a former Sixth Man of the Year, well... maybe that's the point.  This team may need to get worse before it can get better.  Even at this late stage of their careers, the talent being exchanged is completely lopsided in Brooklyn's favor.  Boston wasn't expecting to get back any solid building blocks in this deal (although GM Danny Ainge has always been enamored with Brooks).  Those draft picks are the key to the deal.  The rest is just garbage thrown in to make the salary cap math work.