NBA Trade Rumors: Why Top-Rumored Targets Are Being Shopped on the Market

When the Internet is blazing with trade rumors, you might sometimes be inclined to ask the question: If a player is so great, why is his team trading him away?

It's a good and fair question, and there can be different reasons. 

First and foremost, a team might be looking to trade a pending free agent who has no intention of sticking around with his present team. Such is the case with players like Chris Paul and Dwight Howard, even though they are franchise players and their current teams have been built around them.

If you want to know why a team might trade a player in order to get something in return before the player is lost to free agency, look at what happened to the Cleveland Cavaliers after they lost LeBron James to free agency. Their 42-game drop in win total was one of the worst turnarounds in NBA history. 

In such cases, teams are looking to replace their franchise players and add young players to build around. There are a number of trade scenarios circulating around both Paul and Howard; if you're looking at what is realistic and what isn't, don't look at this year—look two or three years down the line. 

The problem is that players that leave teams generally leave them for a reason—particularly with small-market teams. Such teams will have trouble attracting free agents to come play for them, so they need young players under contract for several years. 

Players with contracts near their expiration dates or those on the wrong side of their careers don't give the trading team much incentive. If you're the GM of one of those teams, you're looking for long-term—not short-term—help. 

Another reason teams might be looking to trade players is that, while the players they have are high-caliber players, they don't complement each other well enough. An example of this is Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis for the Golden State Warriors. While both are star-caliber players in their own right, they are somewhat redundant. The Warriors are looking to trade Ellis because he is the lesser of the two players.

A third reason teams might be looking to trade players is that they want to trade from a position of strength to fulfill a need. For example, the Chicago Bulls have two strong young defensive centers in Joakim Noah and Omer Asik. They may be willing to trade the coveted Asik to fill the need they have at shooting guard. 

This is particularly relevant for teams are considered to be "a piece" away, as the Bulls are right now. However, in such cases, a trade is probably a last-ditch effort. Teams that are close to the top generally tend to be attractive to free agents. That's why teams like the Heat and Bulls aren't big in the trade market but are getting huge buzz in the free-agency market. 

Finally, a player might be traded either because of a large number of expiring contracts or because of a coaching or "identity" change. Two examples of this are the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics. 

The Warriors, with the aforementioned Ellis, have changed coaches, going from an offensively-minded coach to a defensively-minded coach in Mark Jackson. Monta Ellis is a pure scorer, but has not been noted for his defensive efforts in the past. Ergo, he's not quite the same fit on the team as he used to be. 

Rajon Rondo has been terrific as a quarterback for a Celtics team stocked with scorers, but with those scorers winding down their careers and nearing retirement, Rondo becomes a square peg in a round hole. Rondo is not the type of point guard who can create offense for himself, with the exception of getting to the rim. 

The Celtics are going to need more of a scoring point guard in the future, so they are shopping Rondo to more compete teams that are in need of a facilitator. 

In short, don't think that a player on the block means there is something wrong with him. There are plenty of reasons that a team might want to trade a player that have nothing to do with his playing ability.