From draft to coaching hires, NBA offseason offers intrigue

CLEVELAND — The NBA offseason has arrived, which means the next four months of the draft, three summer leagues, free agency, coaching hires, trades, roster reworkings and possibly movement toward letting high school graduates jump directly into the league again.

It adds up to little downtime. A main storyline is yet another decision by LeBron James about where he’ll play next season as he resumes his quest for more championships.

Here are some non-James topics:

■ Kawhi Leonard:

He played in nine games for the Spurs because of a leg injury, the specifics of which are a closely guarded secret even by San Antonio’s notoriously tightlipped standards. He could get a supermax deal, he could get traded, he might still be hurt. But the Spurs — and the league — need answers, because he can change a lot of directions in a hurry.

■ Coaches:

The vacancies in Detroit and Toronto should be filled soon. The Pistons might be bestserved to hire Dwane Casey, who led the Raptors to the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. This is a crucial hire for the Raptors, a group that should be good enough to contend for the East title.

■ Draft:

Arizona center Deandre Ayton will likely go No. 1 to Phoenix, which makes sense on a lot of levels. The intrigue really starts there. Does Vlade Divac use the No. 2 overall pick and bring Luka Doncic, the young Slovenian who has been talked about as a can’t-miss NBA star for some time, to Sacramento? What does Atlanta do at No. 3? Inevitably, someone will move up on draft night and that probably means an established player (or players) will be on the move.

■ Gambling:

The Supreme Court ruling already has bets on games being placed in Delaware, and more states will be following suit soon. Expect the NBA to continue pushing for 1 percent of the action, which the league says is needed in part to cover what will be its new costs as far as protecting the integrity of the game and the players.

It’s also unclear if injury reports will have to be more specialized in a betting world. Wouldn’t bettors have liked knowing LeBron James had a badly injured — he says broken — hand in Games 2, 3 and 4 of the NBA Finals?