These eight teams extended their seasons with a first round playoff series, but their offseason begin sooner than they were hoping following their elimination.

Milwaukee Bucks

The Big Questions:

- Which of their free agent guards do the Bucks want to bring back?

- Which of their free agent guards will give them the best chance to re-sign him?

- How much more do they need to add to a big man rotation with Larry Sanders, Ersan Ilyasova and John Henson?

Notable Free Agents:  Brandon Jennings (Restricted), Monta Ellis (Player Option), JJ Redick (Unrestricted), Samuel Dalembert (Unrestricted), and Mike Dunleavy (Unrestricted)

2013 Draft Picks Held: Own 1st Rounder, Own 2nd Rounder

The Lay of the Land: Having all three main guards in varying levels of free agency puts the Bucks in a strange situation. They have the ability to match with Brandon Jennings, but have to deal with a pure open market for both JJ Redick and Monta Ellis assuming the latter opts out.

I fully expect Jennings to either get a big offer or even sign the one-year tender and have zero idea whether Milwaukee would match even a near-max offer sheet. While Jennings clearly has plenty of talent, it feels like a hard argument to make that he can be the best player on a team that can advance at least one round in the playoffs. Jennings can be a key part of a great team, but likely not as the primary building block. Similarly, Redick and Ellis profile perfectly as players who will get overpaid if money is their primary objective in free agency. I could easily see Redick taking less to go to the right place and Ellis needs to go to an organization that values him and makes sense for his skills long-term. Since we do not know what either wants in their next destination, it feels like a shot in the dark to predict where they end up.

Beyond the guards, I love the core of Sanders, Ilyasova, and Henson particularly considering they all have at least one more season on their current deal. The looming extension for Most Improved candidate SANDERS! puts Milwaukee in a strange situation in terms of future cap space since he will get a meaningful pay raise and there are so many other unknowns in the franchise.

Boston Celtics

The Big Questions:

- How much longer does Kevin Garnett want to play?

- Will we see a full strength Jared Sullinger for most of 2013-14?

- Can Fab Melo become a rotation player for next season?

Notable Free Agents: None

2013 Draft Picks Held: Own 1st Rounder (traded 2nd Rounder to Portland)

The Lay of the Land: With so much money committed to their existing roster, Boston would have to make trades in order to look substantially different next season. The addition of Rajon Rondo at some point will give their depth a boost but the biggest lingering question is how much longer Garnett wants to play. While we have the same question about Paul Pierce, it would be awfully hard for this team to make much noise without Garnett until they get a talent infusion because of how their talent is structured.

Fortunately, Boston has a compelling group of young-ish players that can make this team much deeper if they are healthy and improve. Players like Fab Melo and Jared Sullinger can combine with Jordan Crawford and Avery Bradley to make teams sweat and give the elder statesmen some much-needed support. We will just have to see if they can deliver, especially before Rondo returns.

Atlanta Hawks

The Big Questions:

- Can they figure out a way to get Dwight Howard?

- Should they give Josh Smith the contract some team will be dumb enough to offer him?

- Will Jeff Teague get a surprising offer from Atlanta or anyone else?

Notable Free Agents: Josh Smith (Unrestricted), Jeff Teague (Restricted), Ivan Johnson (Unrestricted), Devin Harris (Unrestricted), Kyle Korver (Unrestricted), and Zaza Pachulia (Unrestricted)

2013 Draft Picks Held: Own 1st Rounder, Houston’s 1st Rounder, Own 2nd Rounder, Houston’s 2nd Rounder

The Lay of the Land: Despite having Al Horford and Louis Williams on the books long-term, Atlanta may have the potential for the most major turnover in the entire league. Even though Dwight Howard did not look like himself this year and we have to have some trepidation that the new normal for him will be lower than it was before his back injury, he would be a franchise-changing addition. Assuming he ends up elsewhere, the Hawks have tough decisions with both Josh Smith and Jeff Teague. Each has talent and can be a nice player on a good team but could also be offered far too much to make them worth keeping. Since Horford is a good player on a fair contract, Atlanta can be patient if the market gets too crazy on their free agents.

Atlanta did a nice job playing the RFA market to get Josh Smith on his current deal, but it feels unlikely that they will be able to repeat that success with Teague. Utah in particular could end up with cap space and a glaring need at the position that Jeff can use to leverage a nice offer. On Smoove, we just have to find out if any team is dumb enough to offer him the money he wants.

Brooklyn Nets

The Big Questions:

- Can they find a taker for Kris Humphries’ soon to be expiring contract?

- Will Andray Blatche take a pay cut to stay in Brooklyn?

- Will CJ Watson pick up his player option?

Notable Free Agents: Andray Blatche (Unrestricted) and CJ Watson (Player Option)

2013 Draft Picks Held: Own 1st Rounder (own 2nd Rounder traded to Minnesota)

The Lay of the Land: With the huge amount of money the Nets spent last offseaosn to build their team, this one will be one built on smaller moves that could still have a major effect on the team’s ceiling. Even though Kris Humphries is overpaid and plays a non-pivotal position, we could see a team take him to shed a longer-term deal because of the quality free agent class in 2014 or the huge luxury tax consequences of the repeater tax. Assuming Prokorov is willing to foot the huge bill, adding another starter to this team would be a gigantic boon for their potential to be a factor in the East for years to come.

On the depth side, both CJ Watson and Andray Blatche played last season on minimum salaries and have a chance to get paid more elsewhere. While the team has Tyshawn Taylor as a potential Watson replacement, no one stands out as a good fit to get Blatche’s role should he head for greener pastures. His statements seem to indicate a willingness to stick it out with Brooklyn, but we will have to see if that turns out to be the case when the money is on the table.

Houston Rockets

The Big Questions:

- Can they get another max talent to join the team?

- If not, do they keep their cap space for 2014 or improve the team now?

- Even without getting a better talent at the position, would the team move Jeremy Lin for a reasonable offer?

Notable Free Agents: Francisco Garcia (Team Option)

2013 Draft Picks Held: Phoenix’s 2nd Rounder (Own 1st and 2nd Rounders held by Atlanta)

The Lay of the Land: Houston has 15 players under contract for next season and still has plenty of cap space to make a major impact. Furthermore, each and every player they have signed presently has a contract that makes them more of an asset than a liability. That kind of flexibility means Daryl Morey could make some unbalanced trades in terms of salary, talent or both. Unfortunately, the five dimes for a dollar trades are some of the hardest to make in the entire league because the exchange rate for elite talent is often much higher than that.

On top of everything else, the Rockets' front office can elect to roll over their money to next summer by either standing largely pat or by using their space to pick up assets from teams looking to get under the cap or tax for next year. With so many resources and an insane amount of flexibility, now should be the time for Houston to move up a few notches in the Western Conference pecking order.

Los Angeles Lakers

The Big Questions:

- Will Dwight Howard re-sign?

- Will Metta World Peace take a pay cut to stay on the team?

- Can they retain Earl Clark?

Notable Free Agents: Dwight Howard (Unrestricted), Earl Clark (Unrestricted), Devin Ebanks (Unrestricted), Metta World Peace (Player Option), and Darius Morris (Unrestricted)

2013 Draft Picks Held: Own 2nd Rounder (own 1st Rounder held by Cleveland)

The Lay of the Land: Dwight Howard and the uncertainty that constantly surrounds him like Pigpen on Peanuts has another chance to choose his home for the next few seasons. While the Lakers are the best option financially and promotionally, the age and inflexibility of the Lake Show could make him consider other options or even the maddening possibility of a one-year deal to become part of the 2014 free agent class. Without any insight into his decision-making process, I know better than to speculate on what Dwight will do.

Contrary to what some members of the media have written or said recently, all amnesty decisions for the 2013 offseason must be made in the first week after the end of the July moratorium. That means the Lakers' brass will not have enough time to know about Kobe Bryant’s status for next season with any meaningful clarity.

With that in mind, the only other reasonable option for the amnesty provision is Metta World Peace. While that makes sense because of the luxury tax burden on top of his salary, I could see the Lakers telling World Peace that picking up his player option means the end of his time with the Lakers due to the potential amnesty and indicating that the only way he sticks with the team would be to take a pay cut but a longer deal. I have no idea if he would take that or roll the dice on the amnesty waiver process (where a return to Houston would be a possibility) so that stands out as another unanswerable question. 

Los Angeles Clippers

The Big Questions:

- Will Chris Paul stay with the Clippers?

- Is there any chance we see CP3 take a one-year deal?

- Will Chauncey Billups return for another run with the team?

Notable Free Agents: Chris Paul (Unrestricted), Chauncey Billups (Unrestricted), Lamar Odom (Unrestricted), Matt Barnes (Unrestricted), Ronny Turiaf (Unrestricted), and Ryan Hollins (Unrestricted)

2013 Draft Picks Held: Own 1st Rounder (own 2nd Rounder held by Detroit)

The Lay of the Land: No single decision affects the future of a franchise more than Chris Paul’s. As the best player to ever play for the organization and a key recruiter of their potent depth, losing Paul would decimate the team until Donald Sterling sells. After Paul makes his choice, the team will have a chance to figure out what they want to do with Eric Bledsoe. He could be a key piece on a deep run next season, but the Clippers will not have the financial flexibility to retain both Bledsoe and Paul. The trade market would contain many suitors though I am sure they will try to use the fact that the team cannot retain both as leverage to lower the asking price.

Beyond those two, the Clippers actually have most of their key players locked up for next season. The only main cogs of A Tribe Called Bench up in the air are Matt Barnes, Lamar Odom and Chauncey Billups. Each would be nice to retain but also are replaceable as long as CP3 stays in town. I fully expect Lamar Odom to re-sign considering the rough go he had the last time he left Los Angeles.

Denver Nuggets

The Big Questions:

- What does Andre Iguodala want long-term? Will he opt out?

- Will Denver retain Corey Brewer or fill his niche with one of their young players?

- Do the Nuggets want to combine any assets to build a smaller, stronger core?

Notable Free Agents: Andre Iguodala (Player Option), Corey Brewer (Unrestricted), and Timofey Mozgov (Unrestricted)

2013 Draft Picks Held: Own 1st Rounder (own 2nd Rounder held by Phoenix)

The Lay of the Land: After the devastating series loss to Golden State, there will be plenty of pressure for the Nuggets to make bigger structural moves if possible. Thanks to the contracts inked with JaVale McGee and Ty Lawson in 2012, Denver does not have a ton of long-term cap space even if Andre Iguodala opts out and heads elsewhere. Iguodala still stands as a key piece since his perimeter defense can really help this team while they do not always need big offensive nights from him in order to win. Thankfully for the Nuggets, McGee, Lawson, Koufos, Gallinari, Chandler, Miller, Fournier and Faried are all signed for at least two more seasons so they will be a deep and potent team for years to come. However, that depth could also be used to try and add a higher level player who can make Denver a more dangerous team in crunch time and the playoffs. Since that likely would come in a trade, we will have to wait and see what the market would be for players like Wilson Chandler and Evan Fournier.

MILWAUKEE – Before the music started booming inside the locker room, Chris Paul and Caron Butler spoke privately, soaked in the meaning of this 111-85 thrashing of the Bucks on Saturday night and gathered teammates together to gauge their focus. These two veterans reminded them about the highs and lows the season will bring and the importance of maintaining the team’s camaraderie.

This historic nine-game winning streak won’t last forever, Paul preached, and once it does end, that shouldn’t signal any finger pointing. For all the drama surrounding the Lakers, the Los Angeles Clippers have been an under-the-radar success so far. They’re focused, prepared each night and exhibit the confidence that comes with last season’s playoff experience – a 17-6 record to show for it all.

Paul still understands how quickly a situation can change in the NBA, a ferocious surge capable of becoming a downward spiral. He knows the dangers that can arise with success, especially the room for complacency.

In a lot of ways, the Clippers haven’t even revealed their true identity. They will always go as far as Paul can lead them, but the depth of their roster has yet to take form. Chauncey Billups and Grant Hill elevated their training another notch on Sunday – Hill participating in more running drills as Billups slowly ramped up his activity – but no one around the Clippers wants to put a timetable on either player’s return.

Over the blasted music, over the Clippers’ record-setting ninth straight win, Vinny Del Negro talked about reasons they still have much more development left: Rebounding, maintaining focus, sharpening the defense.

So, are the Clippers an unfinished product, a team still searching for its identity?

“Oh yeah. No doubt,” Del Negro said in private outside his coach’s office. “We’ve got a long way to go.

“We have to continually build. With seven new players this year, we have a lot of growing to do. Hopefully [when] we get Chauncey and Grant back, we’ll be even deeper and stronger.”

Ask the Bucks, and the Clippers already looked strong enough on Saturday. Dunk after dunk, their self-proclaimed Lob City is a mesmerizing sight; whether it is a Blake Griffin reverse flush or a DeAndre Jordan one-handed slam in transition. Both Clippers big men played well under 30 minutes, yet still combined for 33 points, 22 rebounds – and eight dunks.

Nevertheless, the Clippers’ offense won’t be able to rely on this up-and-down, highlight-filled pace when the game slows down and teams try to bait them into half-court sets in the postseason. The Clippers appear to know this dunk fest of a style won’t fly if they want to advance past the second round, and it’s clear in the work Griffin continues to put forth on his jump shot and the growth Jordan has had on his low-post moves.

Paul will always be the man to direct the offense in the halfcourt, but with him there usually won’t be the explosion past someone. As Scott Skiles described Paul, he has a body thickness that opponents seemingly bounce off. Then there is Paul’s basketball genius and patience to the game that comes naturally.

He’ll need help, though, and that’s where the continued growths of Griffin and Jordan come in, along with the arrivals of Jamal Crawford and soon Billups and Hill. Matt Barnes has also injected the Clippers with tireless energy, dropping 21 points on just running the floor and spot-up shooting Saturday. For his part, Griffin has been shooting more jumpers than ever, attempting almost nine of his 14 field-goal attempts per game from outside. His ability to knock down mid-range jumpers is so critical to the Clippers’ spacing, so important in fully taking advantage of pick-and-roll sets with Paul.

“Blake works on it, he’s getting better and his shot release point is much better,” Del Negro told RealGM. “He’s getting more comfortable with it, so it opens up a lot of things for him because he’s so effective off the dribble.”

From Paul to Butler, Billups to Hill, Del Negro has substantial voices in the locker room. He’s the ultimate players coach, placing faith in his stars’ abilities to keep the focus from swerving.

“I don’t see [a let up] happening with the leadership that we have,” Del Negro said. “We’ve got good balance in the locker room.”

As Paul said later, “We do understand that at some point we will lose [the streak]. But as long as we don’t start pointing the finger, we’ll be OK. … It’s tough, because you forget how it feels to lose.”

Already, the Clippers have accomplished a streak that the franchise hasn’t had since the 1970s. Six out of nine victories on this run have come against losing teams, and with four more on the schedule before Dec. 25, the Clippers can very easily enter their Christmas Day game at home versus the Denver Nuggets on a 13-game tear.

Yet here were two veterans, Chris Paul and Caron Butler, going over the possibility of how swiftly this can all go the other direction. Nine consecutive wins, and the Clippers cemented themselves atop team history on Saturday. They’ve been left under the radar at times in the packed Western Conference, and around the team, they probably like it that way. At least until this unfulfilled product comes together as whole.

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Over the past few years, there has been a growing sentiment that defense at the point guard position is of inconsequential importance in the game today.

Proponents of this view point to the plethora of explosive point guards in the NBA today that are bigger, more athletic, and more scoring oriented than those of the past. However, the fact that many modern day point guards can score with ease does not mean that defending the position is no longer important. Talented scorers should highlight the importance of defending rather than diminishing it. Rather than conceding 15-20 points a game, opposing coaches make them work for it, hoping to use various defenders and schemes to force tough shots, and ultimately low conversion rates.

A more popular view is that having a great shot blocking help defender such as Dwight Howard negates the detriment of having a poor defender at the point guard position. This assumption is founded on a very specific situation: the opposing point guard blows by the defensive player, and the center on the defensive end rotates to help and effectively prevent the point guard from scoring.

Although athleticism and timely help defense may be able to prevent the attacking point guard from scoring, getting beat off of the dribble at the top of the key will ultimately result in a 2 on 1 advantage for the team on offense, often leading to a basket.

A perfect example of this is the Los Angeles Clippers. Sure, whenever Chris Paul drives past his defender, opposing post players are able to rotate over to defend him and “negate” the fact that their point guard had just gotten beat. As such, Paul might not score, but that defensive slide from one of the post players to stop Paul leaves a single post player to deal with both Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, enabling the many highlight dunks in Lob City.

More importantly, if the defenders choose to stick with Griffin and Jordan, then they concede an easy lay-in for Paul. The significance of this is that no matter how the defensive post players choose to play the situation, they are in a compromising defensive situation; one that they would be in less frequently if their point guard could contain the opposing one with limited help.

In addition, defending a point guard does not begin and end with beeline drives to the basket from the top of the key initiating basic defensive rotations. Point guards can attack in numerous ways, the most popular method being through the pick and roll or one of its variations.

A recent game between the Utah Jazz and the struggling Los Angeles Lakers served as an example highlighting the vulnerability of a team that has weak point guard play on the defensive end. In the last few minutes of the 4th quarter, the Jazz held a fair lead on the Lakers. Despite an efficient offensive effort from Kobe Bryant, his team failed to close the gap because they couldn’t stop a very simple but effective Utah attack.

Each Jazz possession would begin with Mo Williams choosing a side of the court then calling for a screen. Williams would attack the pick aggressively, forcing Howard to guard Williams while Duhon recovered. Despite Howard’s best attempts, this brief moment was more than enough for Williams to hit either Al Jefferson or Paul Millsap for a low difficulty jumper or lay in. If Bryant or World Peace chose to help instead, Williams hit Hayward or Foye for an open look.

In short, poor defense at the point guard position forced the Lakers into compromising defensive situations where the goal was no longer preventing a good look for the Jazz, but delaying it. What this situation reveals is that no matter how athletic and talented of a help defender a team has, it is not enough to overcome a numerical disadvantage in terms of defensive to offensive player ratios.

It seems that people often forget what the first word is in the phrase “help defense.” Yes, having a great defensive help defender in the post such as Dwight Howard is helpful, but help is not the same as prevent. Once a point guard gets beat, the team is at a numerical disadvantage, rotating to take away the immediate threat of a basket at the cost of conceding a later one. Once a team’s defense is compromised, a basket for the opposing team is likely.

As such, having a point guard that can at the least stay in front of his man and make it tough on defense is at the very least valuable in that it allows his team to play five-on-five defense, with one defender primarily responsible for only one offensive player. Is point guard defense the most important aspect on the defensive end of the game? Maybe, maybe not? However, is point guard defense irrelevant? Far from it. Just ask the Lakers.