Every NBA fan was talking about this off-season even before the past NBA season was ended. And as expected, this off-season has shuffled the league like never before. Many NBA experts say that the league is now balanced as each team is trying to build around its best two players. We’ll talk about this strategy and how this NBA free agency has affected the league.
From playing with 5 all stars, The Golden State Warriors were not able to win the championship because of injuries. These injuries were so bad that by the end of the season only Stephen Curry and Draymond Green were the only remaining starters and after his quad injury, DeMarcus Cousins was not very consistent with his performances. If it wasn’t for Klay Thompson’s ACL injury, Warriors might have forced the Game 7 in the NBA finals.
After the end of the past season, everybody knew that this year’s free agency is going to be league altering. But nobody anticipated crazy moves like Paul George’s move to Clippers, KD and Kyrie playing together in Brooklyn, D’Angelo Russell to warriors and many other moves that potentially made the upcoming season very interesting. Many ‘Dynamic Duos’ are formed in this off-season. We’ll talk about them in a while.
LeBron James & Anthony Davis
It all started with Anthony Davis going to Los Angeles Lakers. Even though it costed almost all young prospects, Lakers were very keen to get AD on their team. After the all star break, everyone in the NBA was talking about this trade. The Lakers chemistry was affected by this and in the tough Western Conference, if you lose your focus even for a week, you will be thrown out of playoff contention. That’s what happened with the Lakers.
In case of Pelicans, Anthony Davis put his image on the line to play with LeBron and the Pelicans were no longer the same team and eventually ended at the bottom of the Western Conference.
Soon after the end of this season, Pelicans traded AD for Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Josh Heart and three first round picks including 4th overall pick in 2019. And the stage was set as LeBron and AD became the first duo of the 2019-20 season.
Kyrie Irving & Kevin Durant
As soon as the free agency opened, Kyrie and KD announced their decision to sign with the Brooklyn Nets. Even though Warriors were planning to offer a max contract to KD, he didn’t waste his time to choose Kyrie over Steph. And according to some reports, KD left Warriors because he felt like he was playing under Steph’s shadow. But in my opinion, he wanted to lead his own team and no matter how much love he got at Oracle, Warriors will always be the Steph’s Team. This might be the primary reason why KD left the Warriors. Nets agreed to the sign-and-trade deal where they traded D’Angelo Russell for KD to the Warriors. And a duo of Kyrie and KD was formed.
Now the question is that with the injury to KD, how much Kyrie can bring out of this nets team. With the Achilles injury, we can say that KD will be out for next season. So it will be difficult to understand how the chemistry of Kyrie and KD will work.
Paul George & Kawhi Leonard
According to some sources, after this free agency the Clippers have the best chance of winning the NBA title next season. After winning the NBA title recently, Kawhi has proved that you don’t need a super-team to win an NBA title. Even though the odds were against the injured Warriors, Leonard’s Raptors had tough playoffs where they were on the verge of elimination in both semis and conference finals. But it was a brilliance of Kawhi Leonard along with Lowry, Siakam and bench players the Raptors emerge victorious first against Sixers which could have gone either way and then winning the conference title against the MVP Giannis and his Bucks after trailing 2-0 in that series. After that series against Bucks, everyone knew that Kawhi only means business here and only a championship will do it for him. And not only did he win a championship, but he had also won a Final’s MVP award.
On the other hand, PG13 had a MVP caliber season which unfortunately ended in a series where they looked like overmatched against the backcourt duo of Lillard and McCollum. And I think Paul wanted to leave OKC because of Westbrook’s dominance in the team. He opted to play with Kawhi because he doesn’t react much, he doesn’t have any impossible requirements and he only means business.
In my opinion this is the most exciting duo we will be watching in the upcoming season.
Stephen Curry & Klay Thompson/D’Angelo Russell
With Klay Thompson injured, Warriors needed a shooter and a ball handler along with Stephen Curry. And they picked D’Angelo Russell to be that guy. Even though Russell is not as good as Klay on both ends of the floor, he can at least take some burden off from Steph. Russell has to hold his new team along with Steph until Klay returns.
One of the best back-court duos of all the time has to work efficiently after the return of Klay. But till then, for most of the season Russell has to give his best to keep Warriors in the Playoff contention. It will be interesting to see how Warriors manage this with two point guards.
James Harden & Russell Westbrook
Two former teammates in OKC where Harden was a secondary player after Westbrook before he joined Rockets to change their fortunes along with his. Both of the Guards have highest usage rate for past 3-4 years. So it will be interesting to watch how Mike D’Antoni adjusts his strategy for these two guys.
This trade can be a double-edged-sword for the Rockets. Even though they were former teammates, their fortunes have changed now so it will be difficult for them if things won’t work as expected.
Other Duos We Will be Looking for in the Upcoming Season
Luka Doncic & Kristaps Porzingis
Jamal Murray & Nikola Jokic
Giannis Antetokounmpo & Khris Middleton
Damian Lillard & CJ McCollum
DeMar DeRozan & LaMarcus Aldridge
Donovan Mitchell & Rudy Gobert
Ben Simmons & Joel Embid
Kemba Walker & Jason Tatum
Tell us what you think about these NBA duos and which one of them is your favorite.
Also tell us what you think about the upcoming NBA season and which team has the best chance to win a title this season.
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