How NBA's Biggest Disappointments Should Handle 2024 Trade Deadline
The lead-up to the 2024 NBA trade deadline is a time for self-reflection.
Most teams are, believe it or not, approaching a crossroads. The decision to "buy or sell?!" is more than just a binary proposition. You're essentially deciding the direction of your team.
Are you good enough to buy? And if so, how aggressively? If you determine you're not good enough to join the throng of buyers, do you stand pat? Do you lightly sell, sitting relatively still until you recalibrate over the summer in advance of next year? Or do you more indiscriminately gauge the market of your own players, steering instead into a soft reset or hard rebuild that has major implications beyond just this season and next?
This process is cut and dried (and largely asset-dependent) for many organizations. For other teams, though, it is a higher-stakes existential issue.
These squads in question are currently charting directions starkly off course from preseason expectations and aims. The trade deadline, for them, must boil down to a display of acceptance or resistance.
Which of these paths should the league's most disappointing teams be traveling down entering the Feb. 8 deadline? That's what we're here to figure out.
Atlanta Hawks
1 of 5
The Trade-Deadline Approach: Nobody should be considered untouchable.
Dejounte Murray is dominating trade rumors more than ever now that OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam are both off the board. And the Atlanta Hawks, for their part, have indicated Trae Young and Jalen Johnson are the only players they won't move, per The Athletic's John Hollinger.
That's not good enough.
Atlanta is closer to 12th place than eighth in the Eastern Conference standings. It doesn't have the luxury of claiming untouchables.
Limiting the scope of the Hawks' trade-deadline activity does absolutely nothing. Moving, say, Murray, Bogdan Bogdanović and De'Andre Hunter accomplishes what, exactly? Getting Atlanta back to net-neutral in the first-round pick department?
Cool. Great. Grand. That doesn't position the Hawks to "rebuild' around Young and Johnson. It makes them the Brooklyn Nets.
Aiming higher entails putting everything and everyone on the table. This includes Young, a 25-year-old All-NBA star at least two summers away from free agency (early termination option for 2026-27) who should net the kind of haul that both restocks the asset cupboard and prevents Atlanta from "winning" itself into additional mediocrity.
Owing two firsts (2025 and 2027) and a swap (2026) to San Antonio no doubt complicates matters. But selling off some players and not others won't make the Hawks any better. There can be no middle ground for a team this, well, middling.
Material difference can be achieved only through going nuclear. Whether that has to include a fire sale is debatable. It could feature a blockbuster buy. Everything, including Young's trade status, should depend on the market. It cannot rest on some misplaced belief that this team only needs to futz and fiddle.
Detroit Pistons
2 of 5
The Trade-Deadline Approach: Asset accumulation over cap-space hoarding.
Nobody of sound, impartial logic predicted the Detroit Pistons would brush shoulders with the NBA's best this season. They also didn't expect this group to flirt with, er, um, well, a 75-loss pace.
Detroit has responded to its aimless doldrums-dwelling by positioning itself for north of $70 million in cap space, depending on how it handles in-house free agents and Bojan Bogdanović's partially guaranteed 2024-25 salary ($2 million).
Congratulations to general manager Troy Weaver—provided he keeps his job long enough to spend that money. The Pistons are now free to back up the Brinks truck for (*checks notes* *rubs eyes* *checks notes again*)...Tobias Harris or Miles Bridges or Malik Monk or Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (player option) or—well, you get the point.
Angling for immediate and meaningful talent upgrades is fine. But preserving cap flexibility to peruse an unimpressive free-agent class misses the mark for a team so very far away from baseline competence.
Using that space to go veteran-name hunting on the trade market this summer is perhaps more enticing. But it takes expendable assets other than cap flexibility to make moves worth a damn.
The Pistons have scant few of those. None of their core prospects are dispensable, even if head coach Monty Williams often treats them as such. Nor does Detroit have any extra first-round picks. On the contrary, when you factor in their protected-until-kingdom-come obligation to New York, the Pistons are actually down a first-rounder.
Dangling future draft selections will get Detroit into some pretty fancy-schmancy discussions. That's not a good thing. The Pistons' future is much too unsettled for Weaver and friends to hock their own firsts. And anyone they bag without surrendering impactful value won't move the needle nearly enough to reinvent their fortunes.
This does not mean the Pistons have-to-have-to-have-to ship out the likes of Bogdanović, Alec Burks, Monte Morris, etc. for whatever they can get. But they also shouldn't be in cap-preservation mode. They need more bites at the draft (or prospect) apple than chances to overpay for free agents or trade targets who don't fit their timeline.
Golden State Warriors
3 of 5
The Trade Deadline Approach: Look ahead to next season.
Punting on this year when Stephen Curry turns 36 in March is by no means appetizing. It's also now the lone course of action that makes sense for the Golden State Warriors.
Attempting to salvage this season with a big-time trade is a fool's errand. That's not merely because both OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam already have new teams. It's because the Warriors are more than a player away from resurrecting their title window.
Neither Anunoby nor Siakam would have vaulted Golden State into the Western Conference's inner circle. The same still goes for Zach LaVine and Dejounte Murray. Mikal Bridges or Lauri Markkanen could amble their way onto the trade market and then the Warriors' roster, and this Dubs core still wouldn't be saved.
Golden State's trajectory is in disarray. It is old and deep and flawed. The front office, led by Mike Dunleavy Jr. and Kirk Lacob, must use the deadline and the rest of this season to determine how it can potentially wedge the title window back open in 2025.
Does that entail turning Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody into draft equity? Or holding onto them for a presumably frothier offseason-trade market? Should the Dubs be looking to move off the next three years of Andrew Wiggins' contract for, er, anything? Or retaining him in hopes he recaptures, at minimum, his defensive pep from the 2022 title run?
Should Golden State try getting something, anything, for Chris Paul's expiring contract (non-guaranteed in 2024-25)? Attempt to roll that salary slot into another player who can be a mainstay of their long-term program or yield better trade value over the next year?
Are one or both of Draymond Green and Klay Thompson capable of contributing to the next not-crappy version of the Warriors? If not, is the time to move Green now or over the summer? Does it make sense to shop Klay as an expiring contract or let him walk in free agency? Should Steve Kerr remain head coach beyond this year?
The answers to these questions can vary—and might be ridiculously awkward. There is no blueprint for how the Warriors must handle the search for clarity. The one certainty: Future draft equity can no longer be peddled in prospective negotiations. Neither Golden State nor the current trade landscape is good enough to forfeit those assets.
Los Angeles Lakers
4 of 5
The Trade Deadline Approach: Act with the urgency of a team built around age-39 LeBron James that ranks in the bottom 10 of points scored per possession.
Please don't pretend the Los Angeles Lakers are somehow a sleeping giant masquerading as a disappointment. Anthony Davis and LeBron have already spent more time on the court together this season than all of last year, and the team is still closer to outside play-in territory than a top-six seed. Los Angeles belongs here.
Pretty much every Lakers trade-deadline discussion invariably comes back to the opportunity cost of doing something significant. Let's tackle the most common questions-as-stances in turn.
Can they really afford to give up their 2029 or 2030 first-round pick? Yes, they can. They have LeBron. Who is 39.
Shouldn't they wait until the summer, when they will be able to deal more total firsts? No, they shouldn't. They have LeBron. Who is 39.
But what about just holding onto their future firsts altogether, since LeBron won't play forever? This is a no-go. As a rule of thumb, when you have age-39 LeBron, you're not able to think about life after age-39 LeBron.
OK, fine. Does it actually make sense to include Austin Reaves in possible packages? Yes, it does. They have LeBron. Who is 39.
But who's going to co-headline the franchise with Anthony Davis in the post-LeBron era? Not the 67th- to 137th-best player in the NBA, that's for sure. Also: The Lakers have LeBron. Who is 39. This question is irrelevant.
To be sure, the Lakers shouldn't haphazardly do something just to do something. But if they have the chance to add a player like Dejounte Murray or Zach LaVine or a marquee-name-yet-to-be-rumored-who-seriously-beefs-up-the-offense, they're obligated to pounce on it.
Memphis Grizzlies
5 of 5
The Trade Deadline Approach: A near-universally open mind, with a slant toward optimizing this year's draft pick.
For what it's worth, the Memphis Grizzlies are not totally here by their own hand. Whether the Marcus Smart trade would have panned out as intended is debatable. It's also unknowable.
Injuries have consigned the Grizzlies to a gap year. Ja Morant won't play again this season and missed the first 25 games while on suspension for conduct detrimental to the league. Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke aren't expected to suit up this year. Smart has appeared in just 20 games and won't be back anytime soon. Desmond Bane is on the shelf through at least the All-Star break. Luke Kennard has missed extensive time.
And the list, somehow, goes on.
Instructing the Grizzlies to do much of anything at the deadline rings hollow as a result. Buying accomplishes nothing in the interim beyond torpedoing their draft-lottery odds. Selling doesn't help them field a better product in 2024-25 and would mandate moving certain players on the lower end of their market value (Smart, Kennard, Clarke, Adams).
Standing pat might be the way to go. The losses will roll in, the Grizzlies' pick will increase in standing, and they can look to flip it for immediate, maybe monumental help over the offseason.
Still, the Grizzlies have some odds and ends to tackle.
If they're not going to re-sign Xavier Tillman as their core balloons in cost, they should try exchanging him for draft equity. If they don't want to pay Kennard beyond this year (team option), they should gauge his market value. If they're not convinced Smart augments the nucleus as intended, they should see if they can recoup anywhere near the value they forked over to get him (two firsts, at minimum).
On the flip side, if a consequential upgrade on the wing or in the front-line spot beside Jaren Jackson Jr. is both available and gettable, the Grizzlies shouldn't hesitate to zig instead of zag.
Monitoring the market for closing-unit members (or top-six rotation guys) who fit the program beyond this year should be in play—even if the opportunity cost runs counter to Memphis' present place in the standings.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, Stathead or Cleaning the Glass. Salary information via Spotrac. Draft-pick obligations via RealGM.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
