Red Light, Green Light: Evaluating NBA Trade Rumors Approaching All-Star Weekend
The NBA's Feb. 18 trade deadline is fast approaching, and the rumor mill is exploding accordingly.
With most of the league's general managers at a standstill, waiting to make their next move, this hearsay is all we have. And some of the latest chatter is hot—so hot we need to pass judgement on it right now.
These juicy tidbits aren't guaranteed to reach fruition, nor are they even necessarily realistic. But that's all part of trade-deadline fever: singling out the loudest whispers and deciding whether they make sense.
Clippers Ready to Move on from Blake Griffin?
Blake Griffin hasn't played since Dec. 25 and won't be returning to the Los Angeles Clippers any time soon. He is recovering from a fractured right hand that he suffered during an altercation with the team's assistant equipment manager and will serve a four-game suspension for that incident once he's healthy.
But the Clippers are surviving—thriving, really—without their 26-year-old power forward, which has given way to a constantly churning rumor mill.
Sources told Mitch Lawrence of Sporting News that the Denver Nuggets have tried coaxing Griffin out of Los Angeles. The same goes for the Orlando Magic, according to Basketball Insiders' Steve Kyler.
Ken Berger of CBS Sports pumped the brakes on all Griffin-related rumors, revealing that the Clippers "have informed teams they're not interested in trading" him.
Right now.
Both Berger and Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical are hearing the Clippers will eventually move off that stance. Here's Woj with his take:
"Even without Durant, this franchise will make hard decisions on its future if it doesn’t make a deep playoff run this spring. And league sources tell me that will start at looking hard on the market for deals involving Griffin. The moment of truth for the Clippers, it’s coming this spring. And it all begins and ends with Blake Griffin.
"
Entertaining offers over the summer, following a failure the Clippers haven't yet endured, is different from taking calls ahead of the trade deadline. But the mere notion of moving Griffin opens up coach and president Doc Rivers to inquiries, while the team's performance takes care of the rest.
The Clippers are 18-4 since Griffin last played and have posted the NBA's third-best net rating during that time, trailing only the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs:
There is definitely something to these numbers. The Clippers were better off defensively without Griffin before his injuries, so all they've really done is restructure the offense.
And success on that end of the floor is totally sustainable when Chris Paul is your point guard, you're running one-in, four-out lineups and DeAndre Jordan pick-and-rolls are being initiated to no end. Griffin, in many ways, holds back the Clippers despite his polished mid-range game, because he doesn't shoot threes during an era in which power forwards are supposed to jack triples.
Still, now is not the time to move Griffin. His value has never been lower. There's a chance he won't return to the floor until April after his hand is healed and he's served his suspension.
That makes Griffin something of an expiring contract. He has the option of exploring free agency after 2016-17, and teams aren't forking over superstar-worthy returns for someone who could amount to an injured rental.
It's best if the Clippers stand pat on the Griffin front and see if he can add to their newly minted model upon return. And if it doesn't work out, the status quo won't have changed much by the summer. Griffin will still be treated as a glorified expiring contract, but he'll be healthy, presumably with a few weeks of stellar play under his belt, affording the Clippers leverage they just don't have now.
Verdict: Red Light
Hawks Hitting Reset?
Surely, the Atlanta Hawks, winners of 60 games last season and currently vying for a top-four Eastern Conference playoff spot, wouldn't dream of blowing up their roster?
Except that's exactly what they're doing, according to ESPN.com's Kevin Arnovitz and Brian Windhorst:
"Sources with knowledge of the team's thinking say that Hawks management and ownership have conceded internally that unless Atlanta can recapture the magic of last season's run -- when it went 60-22 and claimed the East's top seed -- this season's team is a fringe contender.
"
Welcome to the new-age NBA, where championship hopefuls must come to terms with the sustained dominance of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Warriors, Oklahoma City Thunder and Spurs. The Hawks are not nearly good enough to keep pace with that group this season and deserve to be commended for mapping out potential redirects.
Atlanta, after all, is at the point where it must reinvest in its core. Kent Bazemore and Al Horford are slated for free agency this summer, while Dennis Schroder will be eligible for an extension.
That's all at the heart of their decision to, per Arnovitz and Windhorst, discuss parting ways with Horford, Kyle Korver and Jeff Teague. Horford's impending free-agent nuptials are particularly worrisome, as he previously acknowledged the off-court benefits of playing in a bigger market.
“Atlanta has the potential for a guy like myself to maximize [the business] part of it,” he told Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports. “But obviously there are other cities, bigger cities that are more appealing probably [business- and marketing-wise]. The impact would be bigger if that is what you are looking for.”
Shipping out Horford allows the Hawks to get younger and open up additional cap space ahead of the financial boons in each of the next two summers. Working on an expiring contract hurts his value, but he is still a patented superstar.
Just five other players are averaging at least 15 points, six rebounds, three assists and one block per game. Horford is also one of six names logging more than 20 minutes a night and posting box plus-minus scores higher than 1.5 on both ends of the hardwood. Each of the other five players is an All-Star:
The prospect of acquiring Horford's Bird rights and gaining the inside track on re-signing him in free agency, along with his continually understated dominance at the center position, will be attractive enough for one team to open up its stable of assets.
Think along these lines:
- Atlanta Hawks Receive: SG Avery Bradley, SG R.J. Hunter, PF David Lee, PF Jared Sullinger, 2016 first-round pick via Boston and 2016 first-round pick (top-seven protected) via Dallas
- Boston Celtics Receive: C Al Horford, SG/SF Kyle Korver and SG Thabo Sefolosha
This deal gives the Hawks the right combination of everything. They get two solid, cheaply priced rotation staples in Avery Bradley and Jared Sullinger, and with the inclusion of R.J. Hunter, they essentially grab three mid-end first-rounders—all before brokering a separate deal for Teague.
Breaking up the band is never easy, and the Hawks could be content to end this season with a top-five playoff seed. But if they're trying to build something better than a serial almost, hitting reset on their own terms is the way to go.
Verdict: Green Light
Raptors Pining for a Big-Time PF?
During a recent appearance on TSN 1050 in Toronto, Windhorst indicated the Toronto Raptors have their eyes on a few big-name power forwards. That much makes sense.
The actual names do not.
Kenneth Faried, Markieff Morris and Thaddeus Young have all, apparently, found their way on to Toronto general manager Masai Ujiri's radar. But each player conflicts with some aspect of the Raptors' immediate vision, as Zach Lowe previously touched upon for ESPN.com:
"It's hard to find a workable match among more realistic big men: Markieff Morris, Kenneth Faried, Ryan Anderson, Channing Frye, Terrence Jones, Donatas Motiejunas, Young and perhaps one or two others. Ujiri almost never trades first-round picks, and unless he thinks the Raps are really one nudge away from the Finals, he's not going to break that rule for a veteran on the decline (Frye), a malcontent (Morris) or an impending free agent about to make big money.
The Nuggets might demand more than just the Knicks' pick for Faried, an original Ujiri selection, league sources say. Faried might not be worth that much to the Raptors, anyway; he can't shoot, and he's not a major defensive upgrade over Luis Scola or Patrick Patterson.
"
Not one of Faried, Morris and Young is shooting even 30 percent from long range. Faried doesn't fire up threes, period.
Though the Raptors don't chuck a ton of treys, they rank third in three-point success rate, using the threat of surrounding strokes to open lanes for DeMar DeRozan, Cory Joseph and Kyle Lowry and, most importantly, create enough space for Jonas Valanciunas pick-and-rolls:
Running those sets becomes exponentially harder when you have to account for two or three bodies hovering somewhere inside the arc. The absence of spacing can be combated by above-average passing, but Morris is the only one of Toronto's purported targets who would be a playmaking upgrade.
So Morris, specifically, is worth a flyer. He doesn't earn north of $10 million annually like Faried and Young, and just last season, he was one of five players to average 17.5 points, seven rebounds and 2.5 assists per 36 minutes while swishing 50 triples.
But that makes the Raptors' interest a matter of price. If the Phoenix Suns are willing to finally auction off Morris at a steep discount, he can be an asset. If not, Toronto is much better off turning its attentions elsewhere—just not toward Brooklyn or Denver.
Verdict: Yellow Light
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com and are accurate leading into games on Feb. 10 unless otherwise cited. Salary information via Basketball Insiders.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @danfavale.
