5 NBA Teams That Will Dominate the Trade Landscape During 2015 Offseason
The NBA offseason is now upon us, and that means trade season is in full swing.
With the 2015 NBA draft looming, general managers are feverishly working the phones, attempting to find someone they can swindle before 60 young players enter into the ranks of the Association. They're floating draft picks and roster members who might no longer fit in with their future plans, and very few players are truly untouchable.
But some teams are inevitably going to be more active than others.
Some of these five squads will be heavily involved in the trading landscape because they're brimming over with movable assets. They have extra draft picks and plenty of players with appealing contracts at their disposal, and they'll be sure to tempt their trading partners with them. Others are trying to move into a new era for their franchise, and one is just desperate to find some way to upgrade the roster.
What does every member of the trade-market quintet have in common? Well, if you click on a trade rumor this offseason in an attempt to figure out the details, one of them is probably going to be involved.
Boston Celtics
1 of 5
They don't call him "Trader Dan" for nothing.
General manager Danny Ainge seems to love nothing more than engaging in the wheeling and dealing of the NBA offseason. His first move after ascending to the top of the Boston Celtics front office back in 2003 saw him deal Darius Songaila to the Sacramento Kings for two second-round picks that would eventually become Brandon Hunter and Orien Greene, and he hasn't looked back since.
In fact, he's managed to take part in at least one swap during nearly every offseason of his tenure. Prior to this summer, Ainge has been in charge for 10 of them, and he's managed to get the C's involved in 22 offseason trades—an average of 2.2 per year. The only exceptions came in 2008, 2009 and 2010, which just so happened to be the summers following the most successful seasons of his time in charge.
That's not a coincidence. Ainge simply doesn't hesitate to pick up the phone and call opposing GMs when his team needs to improve, and that's a situation it finds itself in right now.
Sure, the Celtics managed to make the playoffs, but they were swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers on the heels of a 40-win season. This is a malleable roster filled with pieces that don't necessarily fit together, and there are plenty of holes that need to be filled.
Ainge simply has a lot to work with. He presumably knows that he needs to add some more shooting to the Beantown arsenal, but he also has a wealth of trading chips, primarily stemming from the overload of picks Boston has at its disposal.
In the first round of the 2015 NBA draft, the Celtics will be selecting at both No. 16 and No. 28; in the second, No. 33 and No. 45. And if that's not enough, he could be picking up as many as three additional first-round picks for next year's draft, thanks to previous trades with the Brooklyn Nets, Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves.
There's no way Ainge is going to use all of those slots. Trades are coming, and per Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix, the franchise is already looking to move up into the top 10 on June 25: "One GM said the Celtics 'are one of the few teams thinking big.' How big? Two executives who have spoken to Boston's front office say no one is untouchable on the roster."
Surprised? You shouldn't be.
Again, this is Trader Dan we're talking about.
Cleveland Cavaliers
2 of 5
Yes, it's all about Brendan Haywood.
As Brian Windhorst explained for ESPN.com, "Days after the end of the Finals, the Cleveland Cavaliers are working on upgrading their roster by shopping the potentially valuable contract of Brendan Haywood, and—in some cases—offering it along with the 24th overall pick in Thursday's draft, sources told ESPN.com."
The 35-year-old center is owed slightly more than $10 million during the 2015-16 campaign...except that's not entirely true. If he's waived on or before the first day of August, per Over the Cap, his contract will be removed from the books entirely; if he's still on the roster, it will become guaranteed in full.
And that means the Cavs have a big trade chip to play around with, one who can be sent off to a team trying to save money or a squad that's going to make a second trade and use Haywood as bait again. When he's packaged along with the No. 24 pick, Cleveland may even be able to get its hands on a veteran contributor who can shore up one of the obvious weaknesses—a backup point guard or a wing-stopper.
"As for the Cavs, [Jamal] Crawford's appeal is simple," Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes posits while proposing the Los Angeles Clippers guard as a trade target. "He creates shots all by himself, and he can handle the ball as a lead guard. Outside of [LeBron] James, [Kyrie] Irving and maybe [J.R.] Smith (who may leave via free agency anyway), the Cavaliers don't have players who can do those things."
If the 2014-15 season proved anything for this title-starved organization, it was that the championship window is firmly open. The Cavaliers shouldn't be interested in hanging onto the No. 24 pick, drafting an inexperienced player who will take a while to learn the ropes and then delay their best shot at the Larry O'Brien Trophy. LeBron James isn't getting any younger.
Dealing Haywood and the first-round pick lets GM David Griffin get creative, and you can be sure he'll be working the phones as often as possible.
Denver Nuggets
3 of 5
Thanks to Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post, we know that Danilo Gallinari and Jusuf Nurkic are now viewed as the rebuilding Denver Nuggets' two centerpieces. And, yes, that means that both Ty Lawson and Kenneth Faried could be firmly on the trade block:
"After requiring nearly two years to recover from a knee surgery that Danilo Gallinari believes was initially botched, the 26-year-old forward finally regained his form late last season and appears now to be a centerpiece in the Nuggets' rebuilding efforts, as is center Jusuf Nurkic, recently named one of the league's 10 best rookies.
While [Denver president Josh] Kroenke steadfastly refuses to offer specific names when talking about plans to aggressively retool the roster prior to opening night of the next NBA season, it's realistic to expect point guard Ty Lawson or forward Kenneth Faried or both to be part of trade discussions prior to the June 25 draft.
"
At this point, figuring out the specifics is just about impossible.
Wilson Chandler has been widely viewed as a trade chip for a long time now, but he's still on the roster. Though Lawson and Faried have been in the Mile High City for the entirety of their professional careers, their futures are very much in doubt after the former's infamous Instagram post and the latter's failure to live up to year one of his new contract.
CBS Sports' Ken Berger reported on a rumor that involves Lawson going to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for the No. 6 pick. And that's not the only potential deal involving the two organizations that seems to keep swapping coaches and executives.
ESPN.com's Marc Stein revealed that the Nuggets could be going after DeMarcus Cousins and attempting to reunite him with his old head coach and the new Denver man in charge—Mike Malone.
That's not all. Arash Markazi, also reporting for ESPN.com, explained that the Nuggets and Los Angeles Clippers could be working on a deal that would swap Jamal Crawford and C.J. Wilcox for Wilson Chandler.
And to top it off, Nuggets GM Tim Connelly has explicitly stated that his team is going to be active and aggressive.
"We want to be aggressive," he told the Denver Post's Christopher Dempsey. "We're looking at any and all scenarios, and we've already proactively made a lot of those calls. We'll see what we can do to make it interesting and hopefully give Coach the best team possible."
Good luck parsing through the myriad rumors encircling this franchise.
Los Angeles Clippers
4 of 5
Do the Los Angeles Clippers have many assets to work with? Not exactly, as they're already playing with a threadbare roster that had its lack of depth exposed during the playoff series against the Houston Rockets. Additionally, Doc Rivers has literally zero draft picks to work with.
It won't matter.
LAC has already made one trade, sending Spencer Hawes and Matt Barnes off to the Charlotte Hornets for Lance Stephenson. And all of a sudden, that means another move could be coming.
Not only is there no guarantee, but Stephenson also remains with the Clippers for the entirety of the offseason—he could be shipped off for two players who make sense on the roster and don't run the risk of causing chemistry issues in the locker room—but Jamal Crawford is now expendable.
The aging combo guard was an extremely valuable player for the Clippers in 2014-15, but that was due less to his own merits and more because he was the only player other than Chris Paul who could consistently create his own looks off the bounce. Now, Stephenson can capably put the ball on the floor, and that makes a Crawford trade easier to swallow.
After all, Los Angeles no longer needs to put up with his defense, which was in contention for whatever the unofficial anti-Defensive Player of the Year award would be called. According to defensive box plus/minus, only eight players throughout the league were worse on the point-preventing end.
Already, Crawford has been involved in one rumor. ESPN.com's Arash Markazi reported that he and C.J. Wilcox were being offered up to the Denver Nuggets for Wilson Chandler, who would give LAC another defensive presence and much-needed depth on the wings.
But Rivers surely won't only float Crawford. Every non-essential member of the organization will likely be bandied about at some point, simply because desperate attempts at trades may well serve as the only way the Clippers can improve a roster that came up short in 2015.
Sacramento Kings
5 of 5
Apparently, no one has any idea what's actually happening with the Sacramento Kings.
Plenty of rumors claim that some of their players are on the block. In fact, as a rival executive told CBS Sports' Ken Berger, "They have everyone on the table. Everyone."
But we want details, and there are lots of them.
The DeMarcus Cousins rumors have already progressed to the point that Berger reports, "Cousins' agent, Dan Fegan, would like to steer his client to the Lakers, who can offer Julius Randle and this year's No. 2 pick—though rival teams doubt the Kings would send Cousins to a division rival."
Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski confirms that new head coach George Karl doesn't have much interest in keeping Cousins, but he also reveals that the franchise is more likely to ship out Rudy Gay. According to ESPN.com's Chris Broussard, a swap between the Kings and Denver Nuggets, one that involves Gay, Ty Lawson and Kenneth Faried, could be in the works.
That's already a lot, and there's so much more.
After the rumors involving Karl's displeasure with Cousins' presence on the Sacramento roster, snakes got involved. The big man tweeted out three emojis—a snake bookended by grass—and it fits in with a certain trend.
"The weirdest part in all this is that Cousins is just the latest in a long line of players on Karl-coached rosters to tweet something about snakes, grass and treachery," Dan Carson explains for Bleacher Report while showing other examples of the similar messages from Ty Lawson, Andre Iguodala, Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith—all ex-Karl tutees.
If you needed a sign that we're firmly embroiled in the offseason rumor mill, there you have it.
To top it off, Vlade Divac is now involved after stepping into a bigger role to fill the vacancy left by Pete D'Alessandro, who's the latest—but maybe not the last—man to make the journey between Sacramento and Denver.
"Just spoke with a very irritated Vlade Divac," Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee recently tweeted. "Said he is not trading Cousins, and denies Karl pushing for any deal involving All-Star center."
Maybe Cousins isn't the player moved. But at this point, there's been so much smoke coming out of Sacramento that there has to be a fire somewhere. It would be nothing less than befuddling if the Kings went through the entire offseason without engaging in at least one set of trade talks that actually comes to fruition.
All stats, unless otherwise indicated, come from Basketball-Reference.com.
Adam Fromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @fromal09
