Atlanta Hawks
All bets are off in Atlanta following head coach Mike Budenholzer's departure. The team looks to be gearing up for a protracted rebuild, the type of project with built-in turnover.
Dewayne Dedmon and Mike Muscala own player options for next season. One or both could be gone. Malcolm Delaney is set for restricted free agency and, at 29, doesn't really fit Atlanta's window.
Four other players have non-guaranteed contracts. Miles Plumlee is immovable, but Kent Bazemore's price point ($37.4 million through 2019-20) doesn't look so bad. Atlanta also has three first-round picks in June 21's draft at the Barclays Center, as well as oodles of cap space general manager Travis Schlenk intends to use as an unwanted-salary sponge.
This could go either way. Plumlee, John Collins and Taurean Prince are the the only Hawks ostensibly assured of a return. Probably DeAndre' Bembry too. But Atlanta won't look drastically different unless it finds new homes for some of its pricier players—including Dennis Schroder—and loses Dedmon and Muscala to free agency.
Indiana Pacers
Nobody expects the Indiana Pacers to blow up their post-Paul George darling. They won 48 games during the regular season, Victor Oladipo played like a top-20 star, and their never-give-up scrap-and-claw party in the first round of the playoffs has further endeared them to Indiana.
Still, the Pacers' books are fluid.
Seven players have non-guaranteed salaries for 2018-19: Ike Anigbogu ($650,000), Bojan Bogdanovic ($1.5 million), Darren Collison ($2 million), Al Jefferson ($4 million), Alex Poythress (fully non-guaranteed), Lance Stephenson (team option) and Joe Young (team option). Both Cory Joseph and Thaddeus Young, meanwhile, hold player options.
Indiana has a standing dinner-date offer from Max Cap Space. But it entails busting up one of the rosier stories from this season. Moving on from Joseph and Young would be one thing if they opt out. Waiving Bogdanovic and Collison, along with declining Stephenson's option, is another matter.
The Pacers will have more cap space than most other teams, so change is inevitable. But they'll more likely than not keep the skeleton of their core together. About-facing into something different would be more expensive, and let's face it: They need to see whether their success can carry on for another year before pandering to a win-now timeline.
Portland Trail Blazers
So. Many. Questions.
Will the Portland Trail Blazers look to trade CJ McCollum after the New Orleans Pelicans swept them in the first round of the playoffs? Could Damian Lillard grow disenchanted with their lack of flexibility and request out?
Does general manager Neil Olshey have enough assets in the bank to pawn off the two years and $36.5 million remaining on Evan Turner's contract? What about the $21.9 million Meyers Leonard is owed through 2019-20?
Could Jusuf Nurkic price himself out of town in restricted free agency? What about Shabazz Napier? And Pat Connaughton? Is Ed Davis, an unrestricted free agent, good as gone?
Odds are the Blazers will err on the side of continuity next season, mostly because they don't have much of a choice. They're light on desirable trade chips, and it'll take some nifty maneuvering to duck next year's luxury tax. A potential blow-up probably won't come until later, in 2019, if it comes at all.
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