Buying or Selling Early 2022-23 NBA Trade Rumors and Buzz
The 2022-23 NBA season is here, with some early trade rumors and overall buzz already beginning to pop up.
Between Draymond Green's future in Golden State, what the Los Angeles Lakers plan to do following an 0-2 start and diagnosing Kyrie Irving's unusual reason why the Brooklyn Nets are better, it can be difficult to decipher what to actually believe.
After an exciting start to a fresh NBA season, it's time to buy or sell the latest news.
Lakers Could Sign Moe Harkless
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After dropping their first three games of the season while shooting an NBA-worst 21.2 percent from three, the Lakers are already looking to the free-agent market for help.
"There were also some fresh rumbles this week that the Lakers have given some internal consideration to the merits of free-agent swingman Moe Harkless, who is only a career 32.0 [percent] shooter from deep but theoretically helps address a lack of reliable wings that is almost as glaring as the Lakers' shooting deficiencies," Marc Stein of The Stein Line wrote.
Harkless began the offseason with the Sacramento Kings and has since been traded three times (to the Atlanta Hawks, Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets) before finally being waived by Houston.
The 29-year-old averaged just 4.6 points, 2.4 rebounds and 0.5 assists and shot 30.7 percent from three for the Kings last season, starting 24 of his 47 games overall. Harkless has good size at 6'7" and 220 pounds and has registered positive swing ratings (plus-3.4 and plus-1.2) the past 73 games with Sacramento.
While signing a player like Harkless isn't going to hurt anything, the Lakers shouldn't expect him to make any sort of real impact, either.
As a lifetime 32.0 percent shooter from three, he doesn't solve the shooting woes that Los Angeles will inevitably have with players like Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis playing big minutes.
The Lakers will long be searching for answers this season. Harkless isn't one of them.
Buy or Sell: Buy the Lakers' interest in Harkless as a warm-bodied wing; sell him making any real difference for L.A.
Warriors Won't Trade Draymond Green This Season
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Draymond Green's future in Golden State was in question even before the punch heard seen round the world, as the 32-year-old can become an unrestricted free agent this summer if he turns down a $27.6 million player option.
The concern of him leaving for nothing in return or fear of future altercations with teammates could force the Warriors to look into trading the 11-year-veteran, who has spent his entire career in Golden State.
Still, ESPN's Zach Lowe states that the allure of a fifth title together should keep Green with the organization.
"Everything I've heard is they are not trading Draymond," Lowe said on The Lowe Post podcast. "That's just not going to happen. They're trying to win the championship and will try to ride it out unless something drastic happens like the team just falls apart or they're terrible. Draymond is going to be on the team all season."
Green is unquestionably still a big part of the Warriors' success, yet no one on the team outside of Stephen Curry should be considered untouchable. Although Green remains the best defender and passer on Golden State, his history of poor decisions (technical fouls in the 2016 playoffs, rift with Kevin Durant before Durant's free agency, punching Jordan Poole) has hurt the team's championship chances and chemistry plenty of times as well.
Keeping Green is the right move for now as the team tries to move past his most recent incident. It shouldn't mean, however, that general manager Bob Myers should turn away phone calls inquiring about the four-time All-Star all the way to the deadline.
Buy or Sell: Sell the Warriors definitely keeping Green. Golden State should be open to trade conversations given his uncertain free-agency status and recent altercation.
Adam Silver Considering Sending Tanking NBA Teams to G League
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While the NBA has made strides to combat tanking in recent years by adding a play-in tournament and flattening lottery odds to land the No. 1 pick, there could still be plenty of teams trying to lose down the stretch to acquire 7'4" French phenom Victor Wembanyama.
It's something that NBA commissioner Adam Silver has had "hundreds" of meetings about, according to ESPN's Baxter Holmes, as Silver addressed the topic when talking to employees of the Phoenix Suns.
As Holmes writes: "Speaking of a concept in European soccer, Silver told employees that the league has thought about relegation as a potential solution to ensure the worst-performing teams are incentivized to compete. ... In such a scenario, Silver told employees, relegation would essentially mean demoting the worst one or two teams to the G League while promoting the best team or two from the G League to the NBA."
This is possibly the most ridiculous punishment idea the NBA could come up with, one even Silver backtracked on, stating: "It would so disrupt our business model. And even if you took two teams up from the G League, they wouldn't be equipped to compete in the NBA."
Imagine promoting teams like the Rio Grande Valley Vipers or Raptors 905, who finished with the top records in their conferences last year, and having them play against Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors. Even the worst NBA teams would destroy G League competition as well.
The good news for Silver and the anti-tankers out there is there are far more teams actually competing than even a few years ago. In the 2019-20 season, a whopping 17 of the 30 NBA teams finished with a losing record. Last season, this number fell to just 12.
Wanting competitive basketball is one thing, but swapping NBA and G League teams is certainly not the way to do it.
Silver needs to recognize that this is likely just a one-year dip with a prospect like Wembanyama available and not resort to punishing teams using extraordinary measures.
Buy or Sell: Sell Silver actually relegating NBA teams to the G League as tanking punishment.
Kyrie Irving Says Nets "Got Better" After Kevin Durant's Trade Request
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There are plenty of reasons to believe the Nets will be better this season after finishing 44-38 a year ago.
No more vaccine mandate should improve Kyrie Irving's availability. Having a healthy Ben Simmons and Joe Harris should do wonders for the team's defense, passing and three-point shooting. Picking up veterans Royce O'Neale and T.J. Warren via trade and free agency makes this a deeper roster as well.
According to Irving, however, it's Durant's request to leave Brooklyn this past summer that's made the Nets better.
Huh?
"When Kev made that request, I feel like we got better," Irving told The Athletic and Stadium's Shams Charania. "Afterwards. Not initially, but now where we are now, I feel like we can honestly say we got better, with the principles that are needed for success. Without going through some test in the summertime or during the season, we wouldn't be able to be as close and bonded as we are now."
Irving previously stated that the Nets needed the "humbling experience" of getting swept in the first round of the 2022 playoffs by the Boston Celtics.
This seems like an odd set of hurdles to clear to have success as a team.
Instead, it reads more like Irving trying to put a positive spin on a pair of embarrassing experiences for Brooklyn, as the uneasiness of Durant wanting out (and later asking for both head coach Steve Nash and general manager Sean Marks to be fired) has to still be hanging over the organization.
Irving's own future with the Nets is a complete mystery as well, given he had to settle for a player option this past summer after no long-term deal was offered, meaning a trip to unrestricted free agency in 2023.
The Nets are hypothetically better this season for a number of reasons. Durant's trade request isn't one of them
Buy or Sell: Buy Brooklyn being better; sell it having anything to do with Durant asking out.
Lakers Will Wait Until Thanksgiving to Pursue Trades
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While no one should be panicking just yet following an 0-3 start, what if the Lakers' woes continue for the first 10 or 15 games of the season?
According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, Los Angeles is fine waiting even longer than that to make any roster-altering trades.
"I'm told to expect Rob Pelinka and the Lakers to wait until post-Thanksgiving, 20 games into the season and see what teams may start pivoting, who don't start off well, who decide that they may start to look to unload players and perhaps get involved in the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes," Wojnarowski said.
This essentially means that Pelinka has a good read on what he can get in return for Russell Westbrook's expiring contract and his future first-round picks and isn't happy with the results.
Waiting deeper into the season could cause some current playoff hopefuls to join the tankathon should they get off to bad starts. These squads could include the Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings, Charlotte Hornets and Washington Wizards.
Players like Bradley Beal and Damian Lillard aren't even eligible to be traded until December or January after signing new contracts or extensions this past offseason. Los Angeles would have to throw everything it had (unprotected 2027 and 2029 first-round picks, multiple second-round picks, Max Christie, Austin Reaves, etc.), and even that likely wouldn't be enough.
The ideal time to trade Westbrook isn't after Thanksgiving. It was two months ago, after LeBron James signed a two-year, $97.1 million extension that guaranteed he'd be in Los Angeles for at least the next two seasons. After James committed to the Lakers, they should have committed to him by trading Westbrook and future picks for win-now help, giving new head coach Darvin Ham a full training camp and preseason with a roster that had a real chance at competing for a title.
Instead, Westbrook remains the elephant in the room, and any deal now means having to fit new pieces in on the fly as the season goes along when teams have little practice time between games.
Pelinka has done an awful job of putting the right players around James for four-plus years now. Waiting another month (or more) to fix his mistakes sounds about right.
Buy or Sell: Buy the Lakers continuing to wait to trade Westbrook; sell this being the right thing to do.
