Welcome to the latest episode of Hot Takedown, FiveThirtyEight’s sports podcast. On this week’s episode (July 3, 2017), we’re bringing you an Independence Day show on the fireworks of free agency in the NBA. Since free agency began on July 1, Chris Paul was traded to Houston, Stephen Curry agreed to the richest deal in NBA history, and it’s been reported that Carmelo Anthony is willing to go to the Rockets or the Cavaliers. FiveThirtyEight’s Kyle Wagner joins us in the studio as we discuss the latest trades and speculate about who’s getting the best deals.

Here are links to what we discussed during the show:

• Check out ESPN for the latest buzz, rumblings and reports on the NBA free agency period.
• Back in January, Neil took a look at how to win with Carmelo Anthony.
• Kyle wrote that the Paul George trade makes the Thunder contenders again.
• FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver also takes a look at the latest NBA developments, noting that next season’s NBA heavyweights may include the Warriors, Cavs, Spurs, Rockets … and Timberwolves?
• Significant Digit: 73.5, the world record as of last year for the number of hot dogs consumed within the Major League Eating circuit. Joey Chestnut claimed the record in 2016 during a qualifying event for the annual Fourth of July competition at Nathan’s Famous on Coney Island.

Paul George is headed to Oklahoma City, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, and the Thunder may be back to being title contenders — or at least in the mix to be the West’s second-best team behind Golden State.

Just hours before the NBA’s free agency period begins, the Indiana Pacers have traded George to the Thunder for former No. 2 overall pick Victor Oladipo and rising sophomore Domantas Sabonis. Oklahoma City had acquired Oladipo and the draft pick that became Sabonis from Orlando in a trade for Serge Ibaka last offseason.

George is a free agent after this coming season, and it’s believed that he has not agreed to sign a contract extension. The assumption around the league has been that the Lakers are his preferred long-term destination, which is a large part of why the Pacers couldn’t even secure a draft pick for their outgoing star. So this is certainly a calculated risk for OKC, but MVP Russell Westbrook can also become a free agent after the 2017-18 season thanks to a player-option. And while he hasn’t been as forthright as George, his hometown Lakers have long been a rumored destination for him as well. So the Thunder are on the clock to sell themselves as a place where Westbrook can contend, or alternatively, to take their last, best shot at winning a title while they still have him. The George trade should accomplish both.

According to FiveThirtyEight’s CARMELO projection system, adding George to the Thunder and subtracting Oladipo and Sabonis should put the team at 51 wins:

The top-5 of Westbrook, George, Enes Kanter, Steven Adams and Andre Roberson are worth 53 wins all on their own. But CARMELO thinks so little of the Thunder bench that the rest of the roster is worth -2 wins. That bench was bad this past season, but young players like Alex Abrines and Doug McDermott may improve with an additional season with the team, and this season’s first-round draft pick Terrance Ferguson has potential as a spot-up shooter on the wing, which the team desperately needed last season. Still, with Taj Gibson likely leaving in free agency, the Thunder will be thin. But while their projection doesn’t put the team nearly at the level of the Golden State Warriors, or even the newly minted Chris Paul Houston Rockets, acquiring George should have an outsize effect on the Thunder.

It’s hard to overstate how perfect a fit this is for Oklahoma City. George isn’t Kevin Durant — he doesn’t rebound as well, and isn’t quite the playmaker that Durant can be when called upon — but he replaces a lot of what the former MVP took with him when he departed for Golden State. The most obvious way he helps is by giving Westbrook a legitimate partner in the offense. George is a very good shooter: He shot 39.3 percent from 3 last season, and has floated between 36 and 40 percent the past several years despite taking some of the most difficult shots in the league. George shouldn’t have to take on the world quite the same way in Oklahoma City.

George may actually end up fitting slightly better with Westbrook than Durant did — in practice if not in terms of absolute skill. Durant dominated the ball late in games for the Thunder; Westbrook would defer, often to a fault. This left Westbrook, an average at best shooter, on the perimeter, largely wasted. With George new to OKC, where Westbrook is the reigning MVP and undisputed team leader, the Thunder should be able to default to more sensible sets in crucial moments, with the ball in Westbrook’s hands but George actively involved.

That said, George’s ability to get his own shot should also be key for the Thunder. In the team’s first-round loss to the Houston Rockets, the bench units led by Oladipo were overwhelmed, often unable even to get a shot without their star. In Game 5 of that series, Westbrook played 42 minutes, scored 47 points and had a plus-minus of +12. The Thunder lost by six. George can be streaky, but his ability to carry an offense means the Thunder can survive spells without Westbrook.

But it’s George’s defensive ability and versatility that may unlock the Thunder’s potential. Oklahoma City had been constructed with a lopsided allotment of talents. They had more than enough rebounders and interior defenders, but few perimeter scorers or players who could perform the basic three-and-D role so crucial to successful teams. George is one of the best three-and-D players in the league, good enough to compensate for limited defensive players around him when the Thunder need offense.

Lineups featuring both George and Andre Roberson — a converted power forward who plays shooting guard for the Thunder despite being one of the worst shooters in the league — would seem to not only cover Westbrook’s defensive shortcomings, but possibly those of other players, such as Abrines or Kanter. Roberson is restricted free agent and reportedly declined a four-year, $48 million extension last fall, so he may be too expensive to re-sign, but given the Thunder’s lack of depth they may not have much choice. (And in a twist, George actually earns less than Oladipo this season, giving the Thunder a little extra breathing room under the luxury tax.) Giving Roberson’s projected minutes to Abrines results in the team’s CARMELO rating dropping from 51 wins to 47.

The Thunder were a deeply but narrowly flawed team last season. That happens when a Kevin Durant-sized hole is left in the depth chart. Paul George may not fill the whole thing, and he may not do it for very long, but for as long as he and Westbrook are in town, the Thunder are back.

UPDATE (June 30, 5:38 p.m.): Just as we were publishing this story, it was reported that Minnesota Timberwolves’ point guard Ricky Rubio will be traded to the Utah Jazz for a first-round draft pick. The story has been updated to reflect the trade.

It’s a dangerous time of year to be an NBA fan. With free agency officially getting underway on Saturday, and players such as Paul George available via the trade market, you can talk yourself into any number of far-fetched scenarios wherein your favorite team puts just the right pieces together and suddenly becomes a contender. (What if the Spurs added Blake Griffin? What if the Celtics brought in both George and Gordon Hayward?) Sometimes dreams really do come true — like when the Rockets landed Chris Paul this week — but most of the time, you’ll wind up disappointed instead.

At FiveThirtyEight, we sometimes play this dangerous game with spreadsheets — specifically, with a spreadsheet that projects team records based on our CARMELO player projections. And there’s one team that really caught our spreadsheet’s eye: the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Wolves already made their big move of the summer, acquiring the Bulls’ Jimmy Butler for Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn and an exchange of first-round draft picks. When we plugged the Wolves’ CARMELO projections into the spreadsheet,Assuming the Wolves re-sign restricted free agent Shabazz Muhammad but make no other changes.

“>¹ it came up with a projected record of 50-33.

But that doesn’t account for the significant cap space cleared by the Rubio deal. If Minnesota added free agent point Jeff Teague, for example, their projected record would improve to 53-29. If they signed Kyle Lowry instead, they’d project to finish at 58-24. They could also use the extra cap room to sign a frontcourt player.

Projecting the Timberwolves to win 50-something games seems awfully daring, especially for a team that’s burned CARMELO in the past. (CARMELO boldly projected the Wolves to win 46 games last season. Instead, they won 31.) But let me walk you through what the system is “thinking.” The projection reflects a combination of three factors: Butler, the Timberwolves’ youth, and their bad luck last season.

Jimmy Butler is really good, and he’s replacing players who were really bad

CARMELO expects Butler to be worth about 10 wins next season, as compared to a replacement-level player. Oftentimes, replacement level is too low a bar when it comes to assessing an NBA acquisition. If the Celtics added players such as George and Hayward, their minutes would partly come at the expense of other pretty good players such as Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder.And they also might have to sacrifice players such as Bradley and Crowder as part of trades, or to clear cap room.

“>² Thus, their net gain might not be as large as you’d think.

But the players the Wolves gave up for Butler weren’t making positive contributions at all, at least according to advanced statistics such as Real Plus-Minus and Box Plus/Minus. (CARMELO uses a combination of these stats to make its projections, weighting RPM more heavily.) LaVine is a good athlete who can create shots but who was woefully inadequate on defense; thus, he was no better than replacement level last season, these metrics figure. And Dunn, like many rookies, was overmatched, playing at a below-replacement-level clip. Thus, Butler is a true 10- or 11-win upgrade, relative to the players Minnesota gave up for him.

We should note, however, that where Butler falls on the spectrum between “really good” and “superstar” is a matter of some debate. According to RPM, Butler was the seventh-best player in the NBA last season on a per-possession basis and the third most valuable by wins added above replacement level when also considering his playing time. By a more subjective measure — the views of sportswriters voting for the All-NBA teams — he was somewhere between the 11th- and the 15th-best player in the league, by contrast.

Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins should continue to improve

The Wolves’ two former No. 1 overall picks are young — Karl-Anthony Towns turns 22 in November, while Andrew Wiggins will turn 23 in February — and both still have plenty of room to grow, especially on defense. Towns already has a well-rounded offensive game, having developed into a dangerous outside shooter last year (37 percent from 3-point range). But the advanced metrics are somewhat split on his defense, with RPM viewing it as below-average — unusual for a 7-footerRPM almost always rates players that tall as net-positive defenders.

“>³ — while stats based on opponents’ field goal percentages suggest that he does a respectable job of rim protection. Towns’s defense tended to fall apart in the fourth quarter last season, and overwork could have been an issue — he was second in the NBA in minutes played, behind Wiggins.

Wiggins’s indifferent defense has been a subject of frequent critique at FiveThirtyEight. But the advanced metrics are uniformly in agreement that it’s poor. He allowed an effective field goal percentage of 56 percent last season on shots where he was the nearest defender.And a maximum of 6 feet from the shooter; we consider shots where no defender was within 6 feet to have been uncontested.

“>⁴ NBA shooters also have an effective field goal percentage of 56 percent on uncontested shots, so it’s as though he wasn’t playing defense at all. Because Wiggins is a good athlete with a long wingspan — factors that usually predict good defense — the problems mostly boil down to technique and effort, and those things can sometimes be improved.

The Timberwolves were unlucky

Minnesota was outscored by only 1.2 points per game last season, and yet they went 31-51. If that seems like a mismatch, it is. A team with that point differential would typically expect to go about 38-44, according to the Pythagorean record as calculated at Basketball-Reference.com. Thus, the Wolves underperformed by seven wins last year, relative to their number of points scored and allowed. That’s because they didn’t play well in crunch time and went 10-18 in games decided by 6 points or fewer.

It’s easy to come up with hypotheses for why they played so poorly in these situations. Towns and Wiggins played too many minutes; Wiggins and LaVine took poor shots; Rubio isn’t a scorer, which limited their options in the half-court; they were bad on defense overall, and those differences are magnified in crunch time.

The fact is, however, that teams who underperform their Pythagorean records by as much as the Wolves did last season usually don’t have the same problem the next time around, or at least not to the same extent. There had been 19 previous cases since the NBA-ABA merger where a team underperformed its Pythagorean record by seven or more wins. On average, they fell only one win short of their Pythagorean record in the following season. There’s certainly some skill in which teams fare best in crunch time — and Butler, who’s both a good defender and a versatile scorer, can help the Wolves with that — but losing so many games in the clutch is usually partly a matter of bad luck.

What could go wrong — or very, very right

In addition to all the bad things that could happen to the Wolves from a basketball standpoint — injuries, poor chemistry, etc. — they’re also a challenging team to forecast. For the past two seasons, the Wolves have unquestionably had a lot of talent on their roster but have also unquestionably been bad. It isn’t quite as clear why this disconnect occurred. Towns, Wiggins, Rubio and LaVine are all somewhat unusual players, and they each engender disagreements both between the various statistical systems and between stats and “eye test” evaluations. The way RPM and CARMELO looked at the Wolves, Wiggins and especially LaVine were part of the problem last season, while Towns and Rubio were part of the solution. If that assessment was wrong, then jettisoning LaVine could be more costly than the system assumes. And as I mentioned, RPM and CARMELO view Butler as a borderline-superstar player and not “merely” an All-Star; that’s another source of uncertainty.

On the flip side, the Timberwolves do have some additional cap space and an opportunity to round out their roster via players such as Taj Gibson, J.J. Redick or Danilo Gallinari. Even modest improvements could go a long way because they don’t have a deep rotation as currently constructed.

Or the Wolves could go really bold and package Wiggins for another star. Before landing Butler, the Timberwolves were reportedly in the market for George, for example. But a straight-up trade of Wiggins for George would work under the NBA’s salary cap rules given the Wolves’ extra cap space. It would be a hugely risky move — George will be a free agent next summer and has said he wants to play for the Lakers — but a core of George, Butler and Towns could make the Timberwolves legitimate title contenders. Or at least, the spreadsheet says so.