Is Early Activity Foreshadowing Epic NBA Trade Deadline?
You'd be right to wonder if the NBA's in-season trade market has been more active than usual in 2014-15. Truth be told, it has.
Per The Associated Press' Brian Mahoney, via Yahoo Sports: "There have been 22 trades involving 40 players since opening night, according to STATS. That's well above the 10 deals involving 22 players before February last year, and the most in either category it could find in any season following research that dated back to 1995-96."
That tally includes the five players involved in the trade that brought Rajon Rondo to the Dallas Mavericks, the six players ensnared in the three-team deal that landed Dion Waiters with the Oklahoma City Thunder and J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the five players (and three teams) it took to move Jeff Green from the Boston Celtics to the Memphis Grizzlies.
''If you're trying to make a change and you need some help, the earlier the better obviously,'' Brooklyn Nets coach Lionel Hollins told the AP.
Early Birds and Worms
Indeed, getting a big deal done in December or January beats waiting until February to do so. Teams that wait until the 11th hour to add talent run the risk of being fleeced by the market's sellers, who feed off the desperation of their purported partners.
Moreover, holding out until the Feb. 19 deadline leaves buyers with little time to integrate new arrivals into the locker room and get them up to speed with what the club does on the court.
''That's one of the things that's nice about not getting the deal done at like the trade deadline, where you only have six weeks left and you just throw him out there,'' Memphis coach Dave Joerger, whose team added Green a week ago, told the AP. ''We've got some time and try to build something.''
Time is always of the essence in the NBA but especially for those teams that have been most active in adding talent thus far. The Mavs are trying to maximize Dirk Nowitzki's twilight. The Cavs have similar designs for the tail end of LeBron James' prime. The Thunder want to win a title, in part, to quell Kevin Durant's concerns ahead of his foray into free agency in 2016. The Grizzlies may never have a better opportunity than the one before them, with Marc Gasol hitting the market this summer.
Those teams have poached most of the top available talent from the league's lower rungs. The Celtics, Knicks and Sixers have all but emptied their stores of helpful veterans, save for the ineffective Jose Calderon and the hobbled (and highly compensated) Carmelo Anthony in New York.
It seems, then, as though the craziest flurries of the NBA's trade season have already come and gone. Those contenders most eager for upgrades have cashed their chips, raiding the coffers of the league's most suppliant suppliers in the process.
There are several other substandard squads whose records would suggest imminent fire sales, though none share the pseudo-nihilistic motives currently animating no less than 60 percent of the Atlantic Division alone. The Utah Jazz and Orlando Magic are still building themselves back up after trading away All-Stars and, in Utah's case, letting other high-caliber players walk away. The Detroit Pistons and Charlotte Hornets have flipped from sellers to buyers on the strength of surprising spurts. The Indiana Pacers, meanwhile, are fighting to stay afloat while awaiting Paul George's return to action next season.
Walking the Line
But while the bulk of the biggest transactions may have already been pushed through, that doesn't mean there won't be plenty more chatter and actual activity among front offices in the month to come.
For one, there's a fourth team in the Atlantic (i.e. Brooklyn) that's had its gears of change in motion since mid-December. The Nets have already shipped Andrei Kirilenko to the Philadelphia 76ers and have reportedly been dangling Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez for any team interested in assuming those players' onerous salaries.
Lopez, who was in the eye of a passing storm that might've brought Charlotte's Lance Stephenson to Brooklyn, is the most intriguing of the bunch, since he's the youngest (26), biggest (7'0") and cheapest ($15.719 million this season, with a $16.744 million player option for 2015-16) of the three.
Lopez also happens to be the most expendable. Amid the All-Star's ongoing injury issues, Mason Plumlee, Brooklyn's first-round pick in 2013, has emerged as much more than just a placeholder in the middle. Since becoming a starter in mid-December, Plumlee's averaged 15 points and nine rebounds while converting 65.2 percent of his shots—mostly alley-oops, putbacks and layups and dunks off pocket passes.
As good as Plumlee's been, it's clear so far that he and Lopez don't work so well together, as NBA.com's John Schuhmann wrote:
"The Nets want to give Plumlee the opportunity to blossom as their starting center going forward. He took over the job when Lopez suffered a back strain in early December and has kept it with Lopez healthy. They've started some games together, but haven't had much success. Brooklyn has been outscored by almost 14 points per 100 possessions with both Lopez and Plumlee on the floor.
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According to The Charlotte Observer's Rick Bonnell, the Nets are still trying to offload Lopez's contract, despite getting cold feet amid negotiations involving the Thunder and Hornets—as well they should. Brooklyn's playoff prospects are currently on thin ice, courtesy of eight losses in its last nine games. If this team is to secure a spot in the postseason, with Charlotte, Detroit and Indiana lurking, the Nets would do well to flip Lopez, a luxury now that Plumlee's coming of age, for pieces to fill other, more glaring holes.
Granted, that may not be the strongest driver behind the Nets' trade banter. According to Bloomberg's Scott Soshnick, owner Mikhail Prokhorov is looking to sell the franchise less than five years after purchasing a controlling share of the Nets. As is often the case with franchises soon to change hands, the Nets seem eager to lighten their financial obligations in order to streamline a future sale.
The Miami Heat are straddling a similar line—fading toward the lottery but determined to secure a franchise-record seventh straight playoff berth. Per Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski, the Heat had called on Lopez's availability and could get involved again if/when Brook-centric trade talks heat back up.
Hey, Big Spenders
There's no shortage of teams that could be seeking upgrades, large and small, before Feb. 19. The Toronto Raptors, just 13-12 since their 13-2 start, could use a boost. So, too, could the Chicago Bulls, whose defense has slipped considerably on account of Joakim Noah's knee problems. Even the Atlanta Hawks, who've been running away with the East since Thanksgiving, would do well to seek out another big man for their bench.
And that's just in the Eastern Conference, where the depth of competition—and, in turn, the escalation of the arms race—isn't nearly as fierce as it is in the West.
The Houston Rockets, with trade maven Daryl Morey operating as the general manager, haven't stopped poking around since acquiring Corey Brewer and Josh Smith. The Thunder and Suns have been active but still sport both the need and the capacity to keep dealing as they battle for the Western Conference's eighth and final playoff spot.
The Los Angeles Clippers are fresh out of ways to trade for meaningful players, and the Golden State Warriors may not want to fix what ain't broke, so to speak. But the Portland Trail Blazers need reinforcements on the wing, given Nicolas Batum's ongoing struggles. And who knows what the New Orleans Pelicans might do in their desperate attempt to put Anthony Davis in the playoffs?
Heck, the Sacramento Kings, who have no business making a serious push toward the playoffs at 16-24, may yet swing a significant trade, if their eager-to-please ownership decides to strike. According to CBS Sports' Ken Berger, rookie swingman Nik Stauskas could be the one sacrificed as part of Sacramento's pursuit of frontcourt help next to DeMarcus Cousins.
Buying What They're Selling
The extent to which these buyers are able to patch up their respective rosters will depend on how many more teams sort themselves onto the sellers' side.
The Los Angeles Lakers' record (12-29 coming into Monday) and place in the standings (14th in the West) point to a team that should be auctioning off what few attractive parts it has for whatever assets it can accrue. Kobe Bryant's battle with his battered body and the thoughts toward retirement that have ensued could conceivably heighten that reality for the Purple and Gold.
The Denver Nuggets could be shoved back into a seller's stance if their three-game skid, on the heels of a five-game winning streak, goes on for much longer. They've already dealt Timofey Mozgov, once their starting center, to Cleveland and have fielded enough calls on the likes of Wilson Chandler and Arron Afflalo to run up overages on the average phone bill, according to ESPN.com's Ramona Shelburne.
The next two-to-three weeks will be crucial in determining which teams start nailing down "For Sale" signs and which start circling like vultures. League-wide parity, greater comfort with the collective bargaining agreement and the impending deluge of national television money all appear to have played a part in greasing the skids for contracts and first-round picks to move more freely from franchise to franchise.
Like any market, though, the one on which NBA trades will (or won't) be executed in the month to come will ultimately be dictated by the tug of war between supply and demand. So long as there are teams with the wherewithal to improve and players available to help them get there, there will be no shortage of action to track, breathlessly and otherwise.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
