The NBA draft is over, but a wild summer’s just beginning

As we fight off our NBA draft hangovers, it strikes me that no team in position to challenge the Warriors next year did anything of note to vastly improve themselves on Thursday.

The Cavaliers lost their chance to land Jimmy Butler, who goes to a rising club a couple of years from competing with Golden State (at best). The Celtics lost that same chance and weren’t able to reel in Paul George either. The Spurs stayed put. The Rockets didn’t clear any cap space in an effort to chase a big-name free agent. The Blazers simply made blue-chip draft picks.

If we’re looking for a reaction to the Warriors this summer, it didn’t come on draft night despite a number of deals being pulled off. We have a week before free agency begins, and more deals could come about since cap space for the 2016-17 season is burning a hole in some teams’ pockets. And things should get nutty when the timer sounds on July 1.

But for now, teams aren’t striking back yet. So we wait.

Miss any of the proceedings? Our tracker has every pick. Here is every trade spelled out.

The Timberwolves absolutely fleeced the Bulls in the Jimmy Butler trade. Minnesota gave up Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn, and the No. 7 pick and received not just Butler but the No. 16 pick, too. The Bulls used No. 7 on Lauri Markkanen, a big shooter they never watched or met with during the run-up to the draft. The Bulls’ front office sold this as getting three lottery picks for Butler. This is an outrageous abuse of language.

LaVine was a late lottery pick ... three years ago. He’ll be a free agent in another year. Kris Dunn, bless him, was the rare four-year college player who went in the lottery to a bad, young team and still didn’t put up the numbers to make either All-Rookie team. That’s bad. Plus, the Bulls threw in No. 16, which is awful close to the lottery! And there’s nary a future pick in the deal. What an awful trade.

Speaking of the Wolves, they won my live draft grades. I was skeptical of the Sixers’ decision to move up until Joel Embiid dunked on the Balls on Twitter. I strongly believe that the Kings will win a few Summer League titles.

Ricky O’Donnell, who knows the prospects well, gave his hometown Bulls not just any ol’ F. He gave them a big fat F.

The Wolves are aimed squarely at the playoffs. Pressure’s on Andrew Wiggins, then.

You’ll be surprised to learn that LaVar Ball got a good deal of camera time at the draft. Most painfully, he guaranteed Lonzo will take the Lakers to the playoffs in Year 1. L.A. was only 15 games out of No. 8 this past season ...

We wrote a ton of stuff. It’s all piped into this StoryStream if you want to check it out.

The Paul George saga went to an interesting place on Thursday. Pacers GM Kevin Pritchard said he has deals on the table to trade George at anytime and called PG’s declaration he’d leave a “gut punch.” There’s no way he’s coming back to Indiana next season.

The Lakers are saying they are all-in on chasing two superstars in 2018. We’ve heard this story before, but the front office is completely new. We’ll see.

When you make yourself eligible for the draft, you’ve really got to delete all of your tweets.