The NBA trading deadline is Thursday at 3 p.m. and while there hasn’t been a lot of player movement just yet; there are a ton of rumors out there. It should be interesting to see who goes where or if it was just a bunch of talk.
The one official deal we have right now has DeMarcus Cousin and Omar Casspi going to the New Orleans Pelicans. While the Sacramento Kings will receive Tyreke Evans, Buddy Hield, Langston Galloway, a 2017 1st round pick and a 2017 2nd round pick.
Now it is being reported that the Los Angeles Lakers and the Houston Rockets have made a deal. The reports have Lou Williams going to the Rockets while the Lakers will receive Corey Brewer and a future draft pick.
Now the Lakers did make some big changes in the front office earlier in the week. Magic Johnson has taken over as President of basketball operations. Johnson’s first move was the fire General Manager Mitch Kupchak and Vice President of Public Relations John Black. Now Jim Buss will also leave his position as Executive Vice President of basketball operations. Since Buss is part owner of the team I’m not sure if this qualifies as him being fired, but wither way he won’t be making basketball decisions any more. Since Johnson pretty much cleared out the Lakers front office it looks as he’ll be in charge of any trades the team will make between and Thursday’s deadline.
Let’s take a look at some of the trade rumors out there. The Utah Jazz have talked top the Dallas Mavericks about guard Deron Williams. Williams is averaging 13.1 points per game and handing out 6.9 assists per game for the Mavericks this season. Williams was originally drafted by the Jazz in 2005 when he was the #3 pick.
The Indiana Pacers have spoken to the Philadelphia 76ers about Jahlil Okafor. The 76ers have quite a few front court players and there has been a lot of talks about them moving one of them. Since Joel Embiid has been the break out big man for Philadelphia you’d have to think that Okafor or Nerlens Noel would be traded.
The Boston Celtics have had talks with the Los Angeles Clippers about acquiring Blake Griffin. While this could be an interesting deal the Clippers are asking for quite a haul. The Clippers are looking for draft picks along with Jae Crowder and either Marcus Smart or Avery Bradley in return for Griffin. While Boston does have the draft picks to trade that would be a lot to give up for a player who’s contract expires at the end of the season.
The Brooklyn Nets are the worst team in the NBA and they don’t have the draft picks to rebuild the team with. They’ve made it known that they’re willing to trade there best player Brook Lopez. At first the Nets wanted two 1st round draft picks for Lopez, but they made it known this week that they would accept a 1st and a 2nd round pick in exchange for Lopez. Everyone is saying that the 2017 draft is one of the strongest draft in recent years and the more picks the Nets could get in it the better off they are.
Jimmy Butler’s name has come up multiple times in trade rumors, but now it seems as though the Bulls have decided to hold onto him. There are reports out there that the Chicago Bulls have made the entire roster available, but most of the stories I’ve heard have them looking to deal Nikola Mirotic. Taj Gibson’s name has also been mentioned in some trade talks; so maybe he’s the Chicago player traded.
Another deal that has come up had Derrick Rose reuniting with hos former head coach Tom Thibodeau as a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves. In return for Rose the New York Knicks would receive Rickey Rubio from the Timberwolves. Rubio’s name has been mentioned a few times in different trade rumors, but this is the first time Rose’s name has come up. Rose is also in the final year of his contract; so he’d come right off the books for any team that would deal for him.
While we’re on the Knicks. There hasn’t been a lot of Carmelo Anthony trade talk; so it appears as though he’ll be staying with New York at least through the end of this season. Once the Cleveland Cavaliers said they had no interest in dealing for Anthony there wasn’t really another good match up for the Knicks out there. Now if Rose is dealt they could send Anthony to the Clippers for Griffin, but that’s only if Anthony would accept that deal. Remember Anthony has a no trade clause in his contract.
I guess will have to wait until Thursday to see if any of these plyers have new teams or who else might get traded by the deadline. Sometimes it’s the smaller moves that can really help teams. There’s also the teams that are looking for some salary cap relief and might try to move some guys so they could be a player in free agency this coming off season.
Rob Manfred the commissioner of Major League Baseball held a press conference yesterday to discuss speeding up the pace of play in baseball. Now MLB was unable to make a lot of the changes they where talking about because they couldn’t come to an agreement with the players union on them, but they did make one change. The intentional walk rule is going from the traditional four pitch walk to a dugout signal. I’m not sure how much of a difference this will make, but by getting rid of the old fashioned intentional walk would eliminate about a minute of dead time per walk. Last season in MLB there where 932 intentional walks. So that means there was 1 intentional walk for every 2.6 games played. I’m not sure how big of an impact this rule change will have, but it’s looks to be the start of baseball making changes to try and make the games faster.
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