2000 NBA Off-Season Losers

By Jeff Karl

This was a busy summer in NBA basketball, with lots of highly regarded free agents. Some jumped ship, while others stayed loyal. InsideHoops points out the biggest losers of the NBA off-season.

NBA Losers this Summer

Detroit Pistons

Hello, rebuilding stage. Superstar Grant Hill is gone. Christian Laettner is gone. Lyndsey Hunter is gone. Those are three starters. The Pistons now consist of all-star Jerry Stackhouse and, uhhh, errr, Cedric Ceballos, who they got in exchange for Laettner. They have a few decent role players, in Jerome Williams and Ben Wallace, and a new rookie point guard with nice leadership ability in Mateen Cleaves, but this is a team that's about to start losing lots of basketball games.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Rebuilding. Shawn Kemp is gone. While that will free up lots of refreshments and snacks at team meetings, it doesn't help the team win any extra games. All it does is free up some money to start this team from scratch. This team now stars Andre Miller, with expendable Brevin Knight on the bench, about 28 shooting guards and small forwards who aren't particularly good players, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who breaks his feet, ankles, knees, back and head at the start of every single NBA season. Time to gather up lottery picks and salary cap space for about three years.
 

Chicago Bulls

They were aiming for Tim Duncan and Grant Hill, then Eddie Jones, Tracy McGrady, Jalen Rose and Tim Thomas. They had the salary cap space to sign several of those guys. They wound up with Ron Mercer and Brad Miller. The Bulls will still improve this year, just not dramatically like they hoped. They drafted the best player available in Marcus Fizer (though he plays the same position as Elton Brand). With Mercer and, lucky fans selected prior to gametime in the backcourt, and Fizer, Brand and Ron Artest in the frontcourt, plus Miller at center, this team should win some games. No playoffs for Chicago, but they won't repeat last season's horrible results, either.
 

Toronto Raptors

The Vinsanity and McGrady show is now just Vinsanity. Tracy left town to play near home in Disneyworld. The Raptors added Mark Jackson, who can still run a team but has very few years left, and they managed to get rid of Doug Christie (who wanted out) and receive Corliss Williamson, who can play small forward and allow Carter an advantage by moving back to shooting guard. But this team took a step backwards. Losing McGrady hurts. He is ready to bust out. The Raptors should still win games, and could make the playoffs, but no one would be shocked if they missed out.
 

New York Knicks

After coming close to making about 800 trades, the only move New York managed to make was to re-sign Kurt Thomas. After the Heat revamped their entire team and the Magic added Hill and McGrady, the Knicks failed to improve. Naturally they're a playoff team, but seeing them go out in round 2 wouldn't be surprising.
 

InsideHoops.com

9/14/2000
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