Sunday 22 December 2019 18:49, UK
As of December 15, 120 NBA players became eligible to be traded. Within that number lie some realistic candidates to be moved. Mark Deeks considers three such players.
It would be pretty harsh if, immediately after signing with a team, they were able to trade you. For that reason, there exists a rule in the NBA whereby teams are not able to trade players that they sign as free agents until either December 15 or three months after the signing date, whichever comes later.
For this reason, the period following the beginning of the season and this mid-December deadline tends to have little player movement. Having assembled their rosters over the summer, teams want to see if what they have built has merit, and even if they wanted to make sweeping changes, this rule makes it more difficult to do so early.
The modern-day NBA features more player movement than ever. A combination of shorter contracts, bigger and the destigmatisation of free agency movement for even the game's very best, catalysed by LeBron James in 2010, now sees almost half the league become free agents every year.
That said, it has been particularly quiet so far this season.
At the time of writing, the last trade made in the NBA was the deal that saw Russell Westbrook go to the Houston Rockets and Chris Paul move to the Oklahoma City Thunder. It was a big deal, certainly, but it took place all the way back on July 16. In the five months hence, zilch.
And while this is always a quieter period, it is never normally this quiet. Between July 16 and December 15 last season, for example, 42 players were traded. Even moving that start date to the opening night of the season to account for all offseason moves still sees that number run as high as 12, one of whom was All-Star Jimmy Butler.
The year before, although there were only two trades between opening night and late January, one of them was the deal that sent Eric Bledsoe to the Milwaukee Bucks, a move that turned out to be key to Milwaukee's ascension to competitiveness.
In 2016-17, in the same time frame, the Oklahoma City Thunder picked up Jerami Grant. Et cetera, et cetera. There is always something. Except this year.
The passing of the December 15 deadline, however, frees up a lot of possibilities. 120 players are now eligible to be dealt who were not prior, and within that number lie some realistic candidates to be moved, including the following three players.
It still feels weird to say this, but the Warriors are bad. Very bad, actually. They are in last place in the Western Conference that they have dominated for the previous five seasons, on a 6-24 record that ties for the worst in the entire NBA with the Atlanta Hawks.
Injuries are of course at the crux of this. Klay Thompson has missed the entire season, Steph Curry has missed almost all of it, Kevin Durant left, and all the veteran bench players either moved on or retired. These are not the Warriors of old.
However, precisely because it is due to injuries, this could be a very quick reload for them. Curry and Thompson will return, close enough to their primes to be the fearsome Splash Brothers duo, and the team has committed long-term to Draymond Green. The core of the title team, then, still remains. It would, however, benefit them to stay near the bottom this season and pick high in the draft just this once.
With this in mind, Russell could be on the move. Although the Warriors have long needed guards other than Curry who can move defenses around with the dribble and create their own offense in the pick-and-roll, and although he was an All-Star last season and still a young player with lots of credible potential, Russell realistically was acquired in a sign-and-trade from the Brooklyn Nets for Durant because he was the best available returning talent, not the best available fit.
Given that fit does not really matter when you are this far adrift, and that talent in these situations is ironically something of a burden, Russell could be moved to aid the inadvertent tank.
In no way were Golden State intending to bottom out this year. But they have done, and, in rightly foregoing many future assets in order to build the best immediate-term team possible over the last few seasons, the cupboard is a little bare.
Trading Russell so as to replenish it and prevent him from accidentally winning them any games could, therefore, be on the cards.
The Lakers are finally amongst the league's very best teams again, but they have done so without Cousins. Having torn his ACL back in August, his third significant injury in three years, he has yet to play for them and may not do so all season.
There exists, the team says, an outside chance that he is able to return in the latter stages. But even if he does, Cousins does not provide anything the team especially needs. Dwight Howard, signed after Cousins's injury as a back-up plan, has been very effective in the role that Cousins was going to fill - playing the center spot so that Anthony Davis does not always have to, rebounding the ball, providing interior defense and not needing many touches offensively (which is a refreshing thing to say about Dwight).
With this in mind, Cousins becomes excess, and a team competing for a title need not carry excess around. Cousins is on a one-year, $3.5m contract this year, itself a potentially useful trade chip. They have no concerns and are able to spend as much as their assets allow; they could also do with the roster spot.
No team will trade for Cousins as a player, of course, yet some kind of small two-for-one deal taking on future salary while opening a roster spot and getting some healthy veteran depth who can contribute immediately could, therefore, be on the cards.
Alternatively, the Lakers could get Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to agree to decline his no-trade clause and target JJ Redick from the New Orleans Pelicans, another player now eligible to be dealt. Either way, considering they are genuinely title-competitive, this is the time for the Lakers to buy.
Way back in 2011, the Denver Nuggets paid $65m over five years to re-sign their free-agent center, Nene. It is still a lot of money in the NBA today, but back then, it was a huge amount. And yet, only three months later and at the first possible opportunity, they traded him to the Washington Wizards for JaVale McGee.
Buyer's remorse? Nope. This was asset consolidation. After all, they could only trade Nene if they had him under contract. The $65m was the cost of doing so, and in essence, the move became an extended sign-and-trade.
There is a good chance that the Grizzlies are doing or could do the same with Jonas Valanciunas. Having re-signed the Lithuanian to a three-year, $45m deal over the summer, they now have the productive double-double machine tied to a reasonably fair market contract. Valanciunas has averaged 14.0 points and 9.9 rebounds in only 25.0 minutes per game on the season, and even flashed a three-point stroke.
It is true that the league as a whole is moving away from players of his style, but rebounds are still important and interior finishing still useful, and Valanciunas is unmistakably productive.
What the Grizzlies also have, though, is Jaren Jackson Jr. He, along with Ja Morant, is the future of the team, and yet he also figures to be better at the center spot, the one Valanciunas is currently blocking. Jackson has talents in many areas of the court on both offensive and defense, but he is not the speedster required of a modern-day four-man. He is a mismatch for centers such as Valanciunas, but not one with the advantage at power forward.
With the excellent Brandon Clarke also in the fold at power forward, the Grizzlies could benefit from putting these core young talents at their rightful positions as early as possible, encouraging a higher-paced offensive game and getting them into their preferred positions defensively.
The team will have known this when they re-signed Valanciunas, and yet did so anyway - the three-year contract they gave him should not be synonymous with a three-year commitment.
