Kleeman's Jumphook: Why There Won't Be Any Big NBA Deadline Deals

Poor Amar'e Stoudemire. He's been rumored to go more places this season than the Rolling Stones on a world tour. He wants to be "the man" in Phoenix but has reason to wonder if his days in the desert are numbered--or so bloggers with too much time on their hands say.

Will he go to New York? How about Toronto? Or Dallas? I hear Oklahoma City could use a power forward. What's that? Phoenix needs a backup for Steve Nash? Earl Watson for Amare Stoudemire. That deal makes perfect sense!

Then, there is the All-Star on a putrid team, Chris Bosh, whose departure from Toronto seems as certain as death and taxes. Will he go to Dallas, Miami or New York? Bryan Colangelo could send him to the Bahamas next week for some exotic birds and an expiring contract. Hey, at the least when the birds build their nests, they defend them.

Bosh and Stoudemire are extraordinary talents with flaws more blinding than a 300-feet-tall neon sign outside a Vegas casino. Inquiring fans want to know: will either All-Star change squads before the Feb. 19 trade deadline?

No, no, no and no!

Are the Phoenix Suns displeased with Amare Stoudemire's self-centered attitude? Likely. Are they tired of watching him play like an idiot at the end of most big games? Sure.

Has Steve Kerr figured out yet that Stoudemire, and his buddy Steve Nash, are the primary reasons the defenseless Suns can't win anything in the playoffs? I hope so.

Does Bryan Colangelo now look at the anemic Raptors squad he has built and realize Chris Bosh is the center of its listlessness? He should.

Have either Colangelos taken calls from other GMs about their All-Star big guys? Bet on it.

None of this means, however, that either will be wearing another uniform in the next few weeks. The calls will continue, the frustrations will mount and so will the rampant rumors regarding their futures.

But, until someone in the front office is quoted by Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic or the beat reporters at the Toronto Sun, I believe none of it.

Rumors spread like wildfires because bloggers get off to cheap fun. Trade proposals always draw attention and readers, even if most of the response comes from reasonable people who see through the asininity.

If you're expecting a trade deadline anything close to the one last year that saw Jason Kidd, Pau Gasol, Shaquille O'Neal, Devin Harris, Shawn Marion and Ben Wallace, among others, switch uniforms, prepare for grave disappointment.

Mark these words: Bosh and Stoudemire will each be wearing Raptors and Suns jerseys at the end of the season. Jason Kidd will not be playing against Dirk Nowitzki anytime soon. Nash will start at point guard for the vapid Suns in March, David Lee is too valuable in the Knicks system to produce at a similar level anywhere else and no one would take on Tracy McGrady's obese, cancerous contract unless you lobotomized them.

If any of these popular trade talk names move elsewhere this season, I will parade around downtown Houston for 10 minutes wearing matching pink panties and a bra. Don't count on ever witnessing this cross-dressing humiliation. I believe with confidence that nothing roster-changing will happen by Feb. 19.

I decided to dedicate some bandwith to the logical reasons why Earl Watson, Joe Smith, maybe Brad Miller and Luther Head will be the glitziest names on the market this month.

Why do teams make trades?

There are three principal reasons.

1) To dump salary or take on an expiring contract that will lighten the payroll in the coming year. The Houston Rockets sent Steve Francis and his luxury-tax threatening salary to the Memphis Grizzlies to free up the money to resign Dikembe Mutombo. GM Daryl Morey is also expected to shop Luther Head for cash or a future first round draft pick in the next few weeks.

The Portland Trail Blazers lost $18 million in spending cash when the Memphis Grizzlies signed Darius Miles and played him in two more games. The team was already on the hook for the money but were hoping to keep him from playing, so it wouldn't count against their salary cap.

As the messianic 2010 summer approaches, expect a lot of these kinds of deals. You don't trade or acquire Amare Stoudemire to dump salary. He's the kind of player you dump salary to get. Make sense?

2) To improve the team. Those front office folks who are not gutless cheapskates make deals they believe will improve squad chemistry or performance.

3) To rebuild. The New Jersey Nets signaled full steam ahead on the rebuilding front by unloading Richard Jefferson and Jason Kidd's expensive deals. Kiki Vandeweghe and Rod Thorn seem content to build around budding star Devin Harris.

Do any of the deals proposed accomplish any of these three goals?

The biggest problem with every trade rumor whiffed this year is that none of them significantly improve either team involved.

If Pat O' Riley sends Shawn Marion to Toronto for Jermaine O'Neal, will that addition get the Heat out of the first round? Will that simple swap get the Magic, Cavaliers and Celtics quaking in their boots?

Riley has coveted O'Neal because his team lacks a starting center. Most of the supporting cast members around Dwyane Wade play out of position and a solid big man would fix that. The Raptors' idea of defense is sitting in a hammock while the other team racks up dunks, layups and wide open threes. Colangelo thinks Marion could help on the defensive end.

Marion fits into Eric Spoelstra's offense about as well as a Public Enemy concert at a nursing home and the O'Neal and Chris Bosh pairing has not been the second coming of David Robinson and Tim Duncan.

Still, Marion has done an admirable job defending Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and other superstars on a Miami team that ranks top 10 in every defensive category. Michael Beasley is too imature to guard Kobe for 40 minutes and Mario Chalmers makes too many mistakes to have another rookie as his best defensive help.

O'Neal is one of the softest, all-talk players in the NBA. His defense lacks effort and the former All-Star has shown nothing that should lead anybody to call him a go-to scorer. Is the injury-prone O'Neal that much of an upgrade over Joel Anthony and Udonis Haslem at the center position?

As for Colangelo's Raptors, can one declining, 31-year-old player in Marion change the defensive culture of a team overstocked with downy soft chumps who despise contact? His athleticism has noticably deteriorated and his days as "The Matrix" are over.

Both of these players can still be good and valuable, but not to a level that this trade makes sense.

You could name 10 teams that need to make a trade, with the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz as the top picks. Neither seems primed for a championship run and both could use some roster shuffling.

What trade can either team make in the next three weeks that will catapult them above the Lakers or Spurs? If Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak is willing to deal Kobe Bryant for Gerald Green...

Green is a young player with upside, right?

My biggest problem will the incessant trade brouhaha is this: none of the teams in need of roster shake-ups are close enough to the trophy that they can afford to improve individual areas.

That's what most of the deals speculated on blogs would do. Mavs GM Donnie Nelson can manufacture a deal that would bolster his team's offensive rebounding stats or its assists per game total but there isn't a player available that will give Dirk Nowitzki consistent, big-game grit or Josh Howard a clue.

The Mavericks foundation is faulty. So is Utah's, Detroit's, Phoenix's and Toronto's. Changing out spare parts will not fix the flawed cores on which those teams are built.

The Celtics still boast championship moxie, so a trade for a low cost, veteran point guard or shooter makes sense for them. Danny Ainge will be among the GMs calling Sam Presti in Oklahoma City about Joe Smith and Earl Watson.

The Cavaliers, Magic and Lakers will inquire about those players, too. Wiley veterans come in handy on championship contenders, not playoff teams whose best case scenario is a second-round whipping.

How about Tracy McGrady for... Somebody has to want him first

Wouldn't it be nice if every team could trade its garbage for value?

I am sure there are Grizzlies fans who would love to trade Marko Jaric and Mike Conley for Dwyane Wade. Obvious problem: someone in Miami also has to want to make that deal.

Fans too often plug in names to ESPN's trade machine and take the results at face value. Just because a deal works financially doesn't mean it has any chance of happening. Houston fans have clamored for most of this year for Daryl Morey to move McGrady for somebody with a spine.

Michael Redd, Joe Johnson and Richard Hamilton are some of the popular names. While any of these three would certainly be an upgrade over the "its on me," always injured T-Mac, I have a sneaking suspicion John Hammond, Joe Dumars and Rick Sund are in no rush to help out the Rockets.

McGrady has shown flashes of the T-Mac who barreled through defenses to score 30 a night, but he has also played like a quitter and a mental midget in many games. He has spent most of the season playing like the opposite of a champion.

What kind of message would it send if Morey called up Sund about Johnson, dangling a player expected to be an integral piece of a title contender? Morey could make the phone call if he wanted, but Sund would laugh him off the line.

McGrady will make $21 million this season and next before his contract expires in 2010.

If a supposed championship contender wants to dump an All-Star caliber talent with so much of the season left to play, the red flags should be obvious: back away!

It is easy to be duped by the talents of the McGradys and Iversons, but every deal involving them further says they do not belong on a team that wants to win anything.

If only teams could swap garabage for value...

Closing argument

I'll publish more of my thoughts on this later in the week. Chew on this for now and leave your comments below.