Houston and Detroit knew when to go for it. These 3 NBA teams should be next to make the lottery leap

The Houston Rockets won 52 games in the 2024-25 season, 30 more than they did two seasons prior. The Detroit Pistons, who went 44-38 in the East, weren’t quite as successful, but their 30-game jump took place in just one year, as they were a dismal 14-68 in 2023-24. 

In both cases, the leap occurred after the front office decided it was time for a change: After years of irrelevance (three in Houston’s case, five in Detroit’s), these teams targeted veterans: Fred VanVleet, Dillon Brooks and Jeff Green for the Rockets; Tobias Harris, Malik Beasley and Tim Hardaway Jr. for the Pistons.

Houston got so good that it was emboldened to make bigger splash this summer. Detroit is not looking for its own Kevin Durant, according to team president Trajan Langdon, but, like the Rockets, could serve as a model for lottery teams that are looking to take a step forward. 

Who might those teams be? Let’s start with one that has already traded a 26-year-old guard for a soon-to-be-36-year-old one. 

Is Portland blazing toward respectability?

It is fair to question the value proposition of giving up two second-round picks to swap Anfernee Simons for Jrue Holiday. Whether the Portland Trail Blazers “won” or “lost” the trade, though, is less important than what it represents. After a 13-28 start, the Blazers went 23-18 with the NBA’s No. 3 defense in the second half of the season. The Holiday trade signals that they believe this was meaningful and want to build on it.

Simons, once called “as gifted as anybody I’ve ever drafted” by former team president Neil Olshey (who drafted Damian Lillard and Blake Griffin), was getting in the way of Portland’s backcourt of the future: Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe. Holiday complements both of them, and, because he can defend up and down the positional spectrum, will give coach Chauncey Billups lots of flexibility. Lineups featuring Holiday, Toumani Camara and Donovan Clingan are going to be nasty defensively.

The Blazers are not done. They have the No. 11 pick in the draft, and Simons was just one of numerous players who had reportedly been available for a long while. It’s probably time for Jerami Grant to go, too, and with Clingan entering Year 2, it’ll be weird if both Deandre Ayton and Robert Williams III are back. 

Would Portland be willing to part with draft capital from the Lillard trade to get someone like Lauri Markkanen? It’s not a completely crazy idea, but the Blazers don’t necessarily need to aim that high. Before the Holiday trade, ESPN’s Kevin Pelton suggested they go after a different Celtic: Sam Hauser would fit into their non-taxpayer midlevel exception, and, even if they want to be a defense-first team, they have to find more shooting somewhere. (This particular option seems less likely now that Boston has made another cost-cutting deal — more on that later.)

“I love that we’re at that stage where, as a front office, we don’t feel that pressure to keep taking swing after swing to try and hit on the next up-and-coming guy,” general manger Joe Cronin said in April. “I think we’re starting to feel really comfortable with our talent base, that we can be more diligent about adding specific types of guys.”

Based on Portland’s first move of the offseason, it is confident that Henderson, Sharpe and forward Deni Avdija, whom they acquired this time last year, are ready to play big roles on a serious team. That doesn’t mean the Blazers must make the playoffs next year — the 2023-24 Rockets finished 41-41, just outside of the play-in, after signing VanVleet and Brooks — but it means they’ll be looking for players who can be a part of a playoff rotation.

Are the Raptors ready to pounce?

The Toronto Raptors won 30 games last season, six fewer than the Blazers, and they did that in the Eastern Conference, where wins were much easier to come by. Like Portland, though, the Raptors finished stronger than they started, winning 22 of their final 43 games with the league’s third-best defense during that span.

Now, they’re trying to “build a roster competitive enough to at least have a puncher’s chance at reaching the Conference Finals and beyond next season,” per Sportsnet’s Michael Grange, but this probably doesn’t have all that much to do with what happened in the last few months of the season, since many of their wins came against teams that were battling with them for lottery balls. The better argument for Toronto being in position to make win-now moves is based on what didn’t happen last season.

The 2024-25 Raptors didn’t play the starting five they’d anticipated using — Immanuel Quickley, Gradey Dick, RJ Barrett, Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl — until January. Quickley (their only pull-up threat) and Poeltl (their only rim protector) shared the court for a total of 433 minutes (or 39 fewer minutes than the duo of No. 45 pick Jamal Shead and undrafted rookie Jamison Battle). Down the stretch, Toronto often opted not to play its core players late in games. Brandon Ingram, its trade-deadline acquisition, has yet to make his debut.

The Raptors, who have the No. 9 pick in the draft, were interested in trading for Holiday, according to The Athletic’s Jared Weiss. They’re likely to sign Poeltl, who turns 30 in October, to an extension, and they weren’t willing to include him in any offers for Durant, according to Sportsnet. Masai Ujiri has coveted Giannis Antetokounmpo for 12 years now, dating back to the 2013 draft, his first as Toronto’s lead executive. According to HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto, the front office has gauged the market on Barrett, who has two years and $57.3 million left on his contract.

If Antetokounmpo doesn’t tell the Milwaukee Bucks he wants out — and, at the moment, there’s no indication that he will do so — can the Raptors land a different star or find a non-blockbuster move that balances the roster? Barrett isn’t the cleanest fit offensively next to Ingram and Barnes, and Toronto ranked No. 29 in 3-point volume last season. There is more talent on the team that the record suggests, but, if it’s raising the bar next season, there is some work to be done to put this puzzle together.

Can the Hawks soar up the standings?

The Atlanta Hawks were going to be included in this column before they nabbed Kristaps Porzingis on Tuesday, giving up their No. 22 pick in the process. The Hawks cleaned up their cap sheet by sending Terance Mann to the Brooklyn Nets, but this shouldn’t be seen as purely a salary dump. Two weeks ago, Jake Fischer of The Stein Line reported that they were interested in another shot-blocking, floor-spacing center: the Indiana Pacers’ Myles Turner.

If Porziņģis can stay on the floor, he will single-handedly raise Atlanta’s ceiling on both ends, and dramatically so on offense. When it’s at full strength, I’m not sure who Quin Snyder will start — as presently constructed, he will have to choose between Porzingis and Onyeka Okongwu or between Dyson Daniels and Zaccharie Risacher.

And the Porziņģis deal might just be the first step. The Hawks, who finished 40-42 last season and lost in the play-in, are “still open for business,” according to The Stein Line. They have a $25.3 million trade exception from the John Collins deal, and they’re about $28.8 million away from the luxury-tax line, per capsheets.com.

If they don’t use that trade exception to add more firepower, they still have options. The Clint Capela era is all but officially over, but, if they feel they need Porziņģis insurance, re-signing Larry Nance Jr. would make sense. Don’t be surprised if they re-sign Caris LeVert, either.

Even if Atlanta did absolutely nothing this summer, it could have expected to make a push next season because of A) the availability of Jalen Johnson, who looked like he might make his first All-Star appearance before a season-ending shoulder injury in January, B) the development of Johnson and Risacher (and, ideally, Kobe Bufkin, who also had season-ending shoulder surgery in January) and C) the weakening of its competition in the East.

Like the Raptors, the Hawks can talk themselves into winning a round or two in part because their conference is increasingly looking like a mess. In the playoffs, the Celtics and Pacers lost their franchise players due to Achilles tears and the Bucks lost their second banana to the same devastating injury. Now, in less than 24 hours, Boston has traded both of its big acquisitions from the offseason before it won the title. In an environment like this, a couple of moves can go a long, long way.