Similar to years past (and my draft reviews, for those of you who read them), I grade offseasons on a curve based on the opportunities available to that management team over the summer. A team hampered by a years-old trade or messed up draft pick do not get further penalized for it while teams that squandered resources absolutely do.

That said, here is how the 2014 NBA offseason shook out.

Great Offseasons

Cleveland Cavaliers: Surprise, surprise. Clearing the space to add the best player in the world was just the start since the Pied Piper of Akron brought in another top-10 player in Kevin Love and cheap depth in Mike Miller and Shawn Marion. Losing the #1 overall pick hurts, but LeBron James turns 30 this season and his window may be narrower than some think. A pre-prime Love is the best big man LeBron has ever played with and if Dion Waiters and Tristan Thompson can embrace smaller roles this could be the best squad top to bottom of King James’ career. Really. An absolute triumph from the big moves on down to picking up the compelling resource that is Brendan Haywood’s supremely weird contract.

Philadelphia 76ers: Let’s recap: the Sixers chose the player with the highest ceiling in this draft at #3 overall, got back their own future first by moving down two spots while still getting their man (even though I was lower on Dario Saric than they were) and grabbed a mid-first for an expiring contract that had no chance of re-signing with them. Work in picking up a mentor for Joel Embiid in Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and some fun second round picks and you have a phenomenal summer for a team that knew exactly what they wanted. I am surprised they did not get in the Jeremy Lin sweepstakes since Sam Hinkie’s old boss was willing to send a first round pick, but the Sixers are in the catbird seat as a team with huge in-season cap space that can ransom out picks and young players from teams looking to get under the luxury tax. Amare, anyone?

San Antonio Spurs: The Champs improved while also retaining Boris Diaw and Patty Mills at fair prices, along with an extension for Tony Parker. Kyle Anderson was a bona fide steal and will be a perfect fit for San Antonio’s system as he becomes a more well-rounded player. The best team in the league lost no one of substance and did not have to overpay their own guys. Absolutely remarkable.

Denver Nuggets: No team in the Western Conference improved their roster more than Denver despite a lack of cap flexibility. The Nuggets traded down in the draft and selected a player in Jusuf Nurkic that was among the top guys on my board remaining at their original spot. Bringing back Arron Afflalo at the low cost of Evan Fournier while also drafting Gary Harris gives them a quality starter at every position and a credible backup at every spot too.

Charlotte Hornets: Adding Lance Stephenson without having to give up any talent makes the summer a huge win for Charlotte. He gives them talent at a position that was a black hole last season and should strengthen their surprising defensive performance last season. Losing Josh McRoberts hurts but they have two Indiana Hoosier PF’s who have a shot at success in lottery picks Noah Vonleh and Cody Zeller.

Utah Jazz: Dante Exum was the top player on my draft board for a reason. It will take him a few years to figure everything out but basketball players with his physical gifts do not come around very often. Utah grabbing him fifth overall was excellent and Rodney Hood should fit nicely with their unusual swingman group. The Jazz also took fliers on Carrick Felix and Steve Novak without giving up much and brought back Gordon Hayward on the Hibbert Max which will be fine as the cap explodes in the near future. I just wish Utah had used their remaining cap space as a bludgeon to get an asset like what Milwaukee did with the Clippers.

Minnesota Timberwolves: Flip Saunders ended up getting quite the haul for Kevin Love, even as someone who does not think Andrew Wiggins will be the best prospect in this draft. Wiggins and Anthony Bennett alongside Gorgui Dieng, Ricky Rubio and Zach LaVine give the Wolves a fun group for the future. Unfortunately, Coach Flip forced GM Flip to make a silly short-term play by giving up Miami’s first rounder to rent Thaddeus Young for the season. Now we just have to see if Harvey Dent can decide whether Minnesota should try to contend or just steer into the skid for at least one season.

Phoenix Suns: Phoenix added a young starting-caliber point guard to their stable at a great price in Isaiah Thomas without giving up any assets. That alone would put them in the great category but locking up Eric Bledsoe on a fair contract and bringing in even more guard depth in Zoran Dragic and Tyler Ennis made it even better. Losing Channing Frye hurts but a non-elite power forward should not make that kind of money and the Suns should have workable replacements in-house. I also liked the selection of Bogdan Bogdanovic late in the first and TJ Warren with the last pick in the lottery- both could work out nicely on a team looking for quality depth now and down the line.

Detroit Pistons: While the NBA continues to be a player’s league, quality coaching is one of the biggest market inefficiencies around. Stan Van Gundy’s credentials are strong and he has a wonderful piece of clay in Andre Drummond to mold into his next interior star. Basketball Operations SVG made some interesting choices, particularly paying Jodie Meeks for three seasons but adding depth at a non-prohibitive cost provides Coach SVG with some leverage on the carryover players, many of whom could be on the move at or before the trade deadline.

Los Angeles Clippers: Hard capping themselves by signing Spencer Hawes and Jordan Farmar to their contracts limited LA’s best team a little this season but they would not have been able to build quality depth any other way. Doc Rivers made a strange call by taking back contracts from the Bucks while including a first rounder to absorb Jared Dudley’s contract- they likely could have given the Sixers or Jazz the same assets and not carried cap hits of $950,000 for the next five (five!) seasons. Despite that curiosity, a great team improving their biggest weakness with limited means makes it a highly successful summer.

Milwaukee Bucks: Jabari Parker ended up in a great situation because bookends of Giannis Antetokounmpo and a hopefully rejuvenated Larry Sanders protect his weaknesses while providing the opportunity to unleash his offensive gifts. Furthermore, Milwaukee upgraded meaningfully at coach- Jason Kidd makes sense as the man to find and develop whatever guards the team ends up acquiring. I’m sure Bucks fans saw the nice pieces the Celtics and Lakers picked up for cap space and wished some of their unfortunate contracts from last summer were not on the books but the team did well to fleece the Clippers out of a future first for a very minor sacrifice. A few more fliers on young talent would have been nice but Milwaukee has enough lottery tickets in their rotation to make Jason Kidd’s job plenty challenging.

Good Offseasons

Chicago Bulls: They brought in a metric ton of talent in Nikola Mirotic, Pau Gasol and Doug McDermott while only losing Carlos Boozer and DJ Augustin so the offseason has to be considered a success. Unfortunately, the Bulls failed to bring in a primary ballhandler to spell Derrick Rose and handle that burden if he gets injured so the team ‘s future sits precariously on the health of a player who has missed a ton of time. Chicago got better but chose a terrifying road for the near term.

Dallas Mavericks: Dallas made a huge bet by trading Jose Calderon and some nice little assets (Shane Larkin and a high second round pick among them) for Tyson Chandler. The defensive anchor on their title team has an expiring contract and we have no idea how much he has left in the tank. Mark Cuban and company did brilliant work stealing Chandler Parsons away from Houston without giving up any assets though spending that money did yield the result of Shawn Marion and Vince Carter ending up elsewhere. Rick Carlisle has an amazing challenge building a scheme around a roster where his three best offensive players all play positions other than point guard. I also loved the pickups of Al-Farouq Aminu and Jameer Nelson, two players that could be meaningful parts of a playoff run.

Memphis Grizzlies: Replacing Mike Miller, James Johnson and Ed Davis with Jordan Adams, Vince Carter and Jarnell Stokes could work out well for Memphis and they did a nice job locking up Zach Randolph on a fair extension. The next challenge is convincing Marc Gasol to stick around for another contract since he plays such an important part in their continued success.

Toronto Raptors: First things first: retaining Kyle Lowry was huge for the franchise and getting him at $12 million per season turned out to be an absolute steal with the market and the gigantic TV deal. The Raptors ended up in Good rather than Great because they chose not to be particularly ambitious by committing about $13 million on next season’s books to Greivis Vasquez and Patrick Patterson, two players who should not start on a team this good. Having only $30 million combined next season for Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross would have made them a fascinating destination in a weird free agent class but those new commitments put a significant dent in the possibilities available. We will have to see if Masai reached to take Bruno Caboclo in the late first but I loved adding Louis Williams and Lucas Noguiera at the cost of John Salmons’ partially guaranteed contract.

Washington Wizards: This turned into a pretty nice salvage operation. After Trevor Ariza left for the Rockets, I was worried that Washington’s 2013-14 season could be more aberration than the new normal. Fortunately, they got Paul Pierce on a great contract and added DeJuan Blair and Kris Humphries for frontcourt depth. Ernie Grunfeld still unsurprisingly overpaid Marcin Gortat in years and dollars and the Wizards still have issues with their swingman rotation but they kept the team afloat which is an accomplishment.

Boston Celtics: Even without making the big decision on Rajon Rondo, Danny Ainge did a nice job accumulating assets without sacrificing talent. Both Marcus Smart and James Young could end up starting for the C’s eventually and picking up Tyler Zeller and Dwight Powell in a salary dump was an inspired move. Ainge overpaid a strange piece in Avery Bradley after drafting Smart and will need to figure out something with Rondo because failing to capitalize on such a nice trade piece would be a tough pill to swallow for a team that will do plenty of losing.

Miami Heat: Miami did a nice job rebounding for the short-term after the best player in the world decided to head elsewhere. Adding Josh McRoberts, Luol Deng and Danny Granger on reasonable contracts while drafting Shabazz Napier adds functional depth that will make a difference in an 82 game season. Unfortunately, replacing LeBron with Deng will have cascading effects on both ends of the floor that make playing into May a more distant dream. I did not like the huge contract for Chris Bosh but the new national TV deal and corresponding cap increase will take some of the sting out of it.

Enh Offseasons

Houston Rockets: Even if you take declining Chandler Parsons’ team option as a precondition of Dwight Howard coming to Houston last July, Daryl Morey made some strange decisions this summer. Picking up the pieces of Parsons’ uncompensated departure by acquiring Trevor Ariza makes the team better but paying to shed Jeremy Lin’s expiring contract to add cap space continues to puzzle. Even if the hope was that Chris Bosh would head west, the Lakers did not have the leverage to demand immediate action on a trade that helped them substantially. Losing Lin and Asik (a much better move since they picked up a first rounder rather than trading one away) means the Rockets have to depend on new players to step up and that can be a risky proposition even with a nice selection of depth players. Taking Clint Capela 25^th overall pushes Houston up a little too since he was a top ten prospect in this stacked draft class.

Brooklyn Nets: Brooklyn put themselves in a bind by having so many players who had control over their own future. Shaun Livingston took more money from the Warriors while Paul Pierce and Andray Blatche just chose to get out of dodge. Bojan Bogdanovic will contribute and Jarrett Jack helps the team avoid calamity if Deron Williams has to miss time. Relying on improved health and internal improvement is a hard sell for an older team but I have trouble blaming management for events that would have been hard to prevent.

Golden State Warriors: Bob Myers and the rest of the Golden State front office made the decision to largely stay put despite a rumored possibility that they could have acquired Kevin Love early in the summer. While the Warriors did a great job adding backcourt depth in Shaun Livingston, Leandro Barbosa and Brandon Rush to correct a major problem last season, they actually got shallower at Center and now only have two players who can man the position with any notable experience: one who missed the playoffs and another who did not play at all last season. Like Chicago, Golden State chose to make their season more perilous and stressful.

Atlanta Hawks: Adreian Payne was an inspired pick for a team that could use another piece of frontcourt depth but they made a strange call adding cap flexibility by using Lucas Nogueira to dump Louis Williams’ pretty manageable contract and then not doing a whole lot with the cap space generated by the trade. Bringing in Thabo Sefolosha helps but it felt like a summer of wasted opportunities.

New Orleans Pelicans: Omer Asik makes New Orleans substantially better this season but giving up another quality pick forces the Pelicans to re-sign the Turkish anchor after this season and he will be unrestricted.  Even though they had limited flexibility in terms of salary, Dell Demps made very few moves to produce a deeper team now or later unless John Salmons somehow answers their prayers. Playing with Anthony Davis in a great city should yield more lottery tickets than just Russ Smith, though I do like him quite a bit as a disruptive guard.

Portland Trail Blazers: Limited somewhat by being close to the cap with contracts they were not interested in moving, Portland kept the band together by bringing in Chris Kaman and swapping Mo Williams for Steve Blake. The Blazers did a nice job improving their depth last summer so it was less of a glaring issue but they are relying a ton on internal improvement for a team right in the middle of a stacked Western Conference where many of their competitors took much more active steps to improve.

Bad Offseasons

New York Knicks: Beyond the sheer shock of the Knicks picking up draft picks in a trade, evaluating their offseason comes down to whether you think having Carmelo Anthony on the roster makes bringing in a second star in 2015 or 2016 more likely. I think it hurts their chances with most targets and makes them too good this season to grab a much-needed key piece in a draft where they actually have their pick. Plus, adding a no-trade clause to Carmelo’s deal means that even if the national TV contract makes his contract palatable the team still cannot move Melo for assets without his approval. Jose Calderon and Derek Fisher will make their offense more tolerable but the rim protection will be less than non-existent most of the time.

Indiana Pacers: When you lose a talent like Lance Stephenson for nothing and his new team got a great value, something went horribly wrong. Indiana turned around and spent about half that salary on CJ Miles who cannot do any of what made Born Ready so integral to last year’s top seed in the East. Paul George’s injury changes the short-term and long-term trajectories of the Pacers but they did themselves no favors this summer.

Los Angeles Lakers: Yet again, the Lakers lacked the courage to embrace their flaws and bottom out to build future assets. Picking up a late first for Jeremy Lin was a step in the right direction but giving Swaggy P a four year contract and blocking Julius Randle by picking up Carlos Boozer went the other direction. While the Sixers and Rockets locked young talent into multi-year non-guaranteed contracts, Ed Davis, Wesley Johnson and Xavier Henry can all hit unrestricted free agency next summer. The Lakers may end up being bad anyway but they played the off-season incorrectly.

Sacramento Kings: Sacramento started the off-season with an interesting roster and a lottery pick but without a ton of financial flexibility. They end it with a substantial downgrade at Point Guard (at a similar price), a fun prospect who plays the same role as last year’s pick and not a whole lot else. The Kings also were a part of the strangest trade in the off-season where they gave up Quincy Acy for the ability to pay someone about the same amount they owed Travis Outlaw over two years rather than one. That can be a problem when the team in question was not going to be good this season and will have more opportunities to improve next summer.

Orlando Magic: This is legitimately rare but I believe I would have done every single move differently from what Rob Hennigan did this summer. Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton are fine players but neither fits particularly well with Orlando’s current players and there were excellent talents on the board at both selections. To compound matters, they offered up a first round pick to move up two spots for Payton, gave away Arron Afflalo for Evan Fournier too early in the summer and signed Ben Gordon in the worst contract of the off-season. On top of everything, they decided to give a huge contract to Channing Frye, a 31 year old who missed a recent season due to a heart condition and happens to play the same position as the player they took fourth in the draft weeks before. Absolutely incredible.

Oklahoma City Thunder: I hope people remember that part of David Stern’s legacy is moving a team from Seattle to Oklahoma City and saddling them with an owner apparently unwilling to pay what was necessary while his team was in title contention. This summer the Thunder let a valuable trade exception expire, decided to retain Kendrick Perkins and used their first-round picks on a player who will not play for them this year and another on someone recovering from a serious injury (though I loved Mitch McGary his last healthy season). OKC compounded those mistakes with minimal improvements in July, functionally swapping Thabo Sefolosha for Anthony Morrow being their most notable change. Teams in OKC’s situation need to behave like the Clippers and maximize their limited resources which makes the Thunder off-season so much more egregious.