The Tease Of The NBA Trade Deadline

The time leading up to the trade deadline is both frustrating and, historically, boring. Trade rumors start swirling and every insider and fan begins putting together packages to get certain players. Bad teams are going to get worse and good teams are supposed to get better. But how often does that happen, especially at the deadline?

Some fairly big names are being thrown out there in the trade rumors. Early on Chris Bosh’s name was linked to several teams, from Chicago to Los Angeles, but all of those fell through once the Raptors started winning games. Amar’e Stoudemire has been connected to, if not every team, close to it. And fairly recently Andre Iguodala’s has been thrown out there as well. Other players that could potentially be game changers (at least for this season) who have been linked in trade rumors are Kirk Hinrich, Brendan Haywood, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison (really the entire Wizards roster is being offered up it would seem), Tracy McGrady’s corpse, among other players.

The elephant in the room that rarely anyone ever wants to talk about though is, are any of these players actually going to get traded? Accompanying most of these rumors are rumblings that the teams that are selling are willing just to take back expiring deals and that the teams that are buying are willing to take on contracts for the sake of winning. But as the deadline approaches there starts to be reports such as “76ers want more for Iguodala than just expiring contracts” or “Celtics unwilling to take on more contracts” even though the latter needs to cut salary and the former needs younger legs. Every big trade rumor that people had been formulating over the last few months gets shot down because teams are really unwilling to budge.

This happens every season. People work themselves into a frenzy about the possibilities of this player going here or that player going there and then what ends up happening is Lee Nailon being traded for a conditional second round pick (much to the delight of fans everywhere). At the very best, an underperforming player like Baron Davis will be traded for peanuts (which won’t end up affecting a team for a few seasons to the point that everyone will forget that he was traded in the first place) or an over the hill player like Chris Webber will be traded and people will talk themselves into that player being able to shift some of the power in the league even though it’s clear that the player is done (there was talk of the 76ers really making a playoff run that season despite Webber clearly playing on one leg).

Usually if a major trade that truly shifts the NBA landscape is going to occur, it would’ve happened before now (like Gasol being traded a few seasons ago). Nothing ever actually happens on the deadline. The biggest trades on the deadline either don’t have the desired effect (the Danny Manning/Dominique Wilkins swap, Wilkins was done and Manning was gone in a year, the Hawks stayed in neutral) or don’t really effect the team until a year or two down the road (the after mentioned Baron Davis trade, Ray Allen/Gary Payton trade which propelled the Sonics to the WCSF the next year and essentially signified the end of Payton’s career, and Kevin Johnson and parts to Phoenix for Larry Nance and parts, both of whom would be instrumental to their respective teams making the Conference Finals). Everything else is just seasonal filler, albeit high entertaining filler once pundits try and explain why a 10th who was just traded is going to push a team to a memorable playoff run.

So why don’t these trades rumors come to fruition? The two biggest concerns (or possibly the only concerns) are monetary and talent. The teams that theoretically want to add another piece to what they feel could be a championship level club will talk about how money is no concern but when it comes time to pull the trigger they get squeamish about an extra $2 or $3 million. The teams that seem to be willing to give up talented players for salary concerns at first seem willing to give up those players for essentially extra cap space but back off when the time comes because they ultimately don’t want a gaping hole where a talented player used to be.

The biggest name in this trade probably won’t work for several reasons. The Suns have been trying to deal Stoudemire for a few seasons now. His name was thrown out there during the Garnett sweepstakes in the summer of ’07 and has been periodically brought up ever since. There are a few reasons for this, chief among them is Stoudemire just isn’t worth the money he’s being paid (and everyone knows it). He’s never quite regained the form he showed during the ’05 season (and the playoff that season when he was virtually unstoppable). So what we have here is a player who is an excellent offensive player, who can score in a variety of ways but isn’t good enough anymore to carry a team, which makes his defensive short comings (which are vast) that much more noticeable. Another problem is that no one really knows what Stoudemire is going to do at the end of the season. At the beginning of the season it was assumed that he was going to opt-out of his current contract and see what he could get in free agency. Then shades of Carlos Boozer began to show as his camp realized that he probably wasn’t going to get a max contract for all the after mentioned reasons. So any team that does trade for him, not only has to give up something to get him but they have to walk the tight rope of whether he’s going to be with them next season or not (although recent reports suggest that was just feint by Stoudemire’s people to get the 76ers to back off their trade).

This closely lays into the second best player who seems to be on the table at the moment. The best suitor at the moment for Stoudemire is the 76ers, who seem to be willing to part with Iguodala. At first the 76ers seemed to giving the impression that they were willing to give up Iguodala to shave some money off their cap, and then they switched to any team willing to take on Dalembert or Brand’s contracts. Now the 76ers are making it known that they are unwilling to give up Iguodala for just expiring contracts and want some talent in return (thus eliminating almost every team interested in Iggy). This makes the only likely suitor for Iguodala’s services the Suns, because they seem to be willing to give up Stoudemire and take back Dalembert’s contract. The one snag, and it seems to be a major one, is which player to include evening out the deal. The 76ers want Barbosa and the Suns want to give them Richardson. If nothing gets done between these two teams, assume that something was said during the discussions and both sides hung up in disgust.

The only other team that seems to factor into this trade deadline is Cleveland. They’ve made it known for quite some time that they want a stretch 4 (a forward who can shoot from distance). The two players that are on their radar are Troy Murphy and Antawn Jamison. I don’t really understand the hang up in getting Murphy, unless the Pacers think they can get anything more than a second round pick for him (which they can’t, Murphy’s not worth any tangible talent). Jamison’s a player the Cavaliers have coveted since last season (and if Abe Pollin had passed away a year earlier, they probably would’ve gotten Jamison). The snag here though is, the Cavaliers have nothing to offer the Wizards other than Ilgauskas’ expiring deal (or maybe Szczerbiak’s) and if the Wizards are in rebuilding mode then they’re going to be asking for more talent than J.J. Hickson (which the Cavaliers really don’t have). Until there’s some new information, neither of these deals looks like they’re going to happen.

Those are the teams that look the most primed to make a deal. Of course you always have Dallas just because Cuban always wants to make a deal like some spastic fantasy owner. But no one really wants Josh Howard, even if they can void his contract next season and they only have one tradeable asset in Beaubois (and Cuban has made it quite clear that Beaubois is not on the table). So, get ready for conditional second draft pick specials and cash consideration action excitement. Like always, the trade deadline is just a major tease.