NBA Daily: Lots Of NBA Trade Activity

With the NBA Draft less than nine days away, things in the NBA are starting to heat up as NBA teams zero in on trade scenarios and the players they will ultimately have a real shot at drafting.

There is a very important disclaimer/concept worth re-stating.

Rumors, like the ones we’ll dig into in a moment, typically come from agents and other teams. It is pretty rare that a team will tip its own hand to the media at this point in the calendar.

Other teams and agents get information based on either a team trying to involve them in a trade, or in the case of an agent, explaining their plan in order to get a player in for a workout, especially if that player may not fit the current roster.

As a result, you should always take rumors and speculation for what they are – evolving and developing concepts and situations. Until deals and transactions become final, some of these things are just as likely not to happen as happen, as teams evaluate what they want to do. At this point in the process, there are a lot of fluid things that play off the domino effect of the draft and the looming free agency window.

With all of that in mind, let’s dig into a few things:

The Anthony Davis Situation

The New Orleans Pelicans have started to field calls and offers on forward Anthony Davis. The prevailing thought from teams who have tried to engage in a deal is that the Pelicans would like closure as soon as it’s practical, with most believing closure will come around the draft.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that the asking price for Davis appears to be some combination of a current All-Star player, a young player with All-Star potential and several draft picks.

While that appears to be the desired return, there are not many in NBA circles that believe Pelicans president David Griffin will get all of his wish list.

League sources say that more than half of the league has logged interest in obtaining Davis for themselves, and while the teams most commonly linked to Davis – New York, Brooklyn, the LA Clippers and Lakers – appear to still be in the hunt, there are a lot of conversations taking place.

The expectation is that the Pelicans will move quickly to find closure to the situation and that could make the next week fairly interesting, especially as teams try to land Davis as a means to lure in another marquee player in free agency.

Davis has one more fully guaranteed year worth $27 million and a player option for 2020-2021 worth $28.7 million left on his deal.

The Kyrie Irving Situation

It has been well chronicled that Kyrie Irving’s love affair with Boston may have run its course and that he may not only look at signing with a new team, but he may also open the process up to several teams with the prevailing belief being that the Brooklyn Nets may be his desired landing spot.

Sources close to the situation say that the Celtics are not operating like they have Irving coming back, but they are fully prepared to offer him a full max deal and let him turn that deal away.

The Celtics do have somewhat of an advantage in that Irving is their own player, and they are allowed to have conversations with him about his future. They cannot offer a new deal or new deal terms directly, but they can gauge his view on deals and trades they might do, with an understanding of how Irving would react or if a specific deal would change his thinking.

For example, before giving away the farm for say Anthony Davis, they can ask Irving if that would sway his thinking. Irving clearly doesn’t have to engage on that, but unlike other teams, the Celtics can at least ask before making a huge gamble type deal.

The Celtics are operating on a lot of fronts and seem to be lining up options.

Some of those options include deals that would bolster a roster built around Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, players who seem to be the centerpiece of any Davis trade discussion.

The Houston Rockets have been looking for ways to shake up their roster, and sources have said the Celtics have expressed considerable interest in big man Clint Capela, likely as a fall back if they do not land or aggressive pursue Davis.

The Rockets have been trying to get first-round level prospects in for workouts, baiting agents with the idea that can and likely will trade for a pick in the top 20.

The Celtics currently are sitting on three first-round picks: the 14th, 20th and 22nd.

League sources have doubted that Boston will keep all three of those picks, so it will be interesting to see what Boston ultimately does with those selections.

The common characterization of the Celtics from other teams is that they are working all of the angles and, given how much they could do, that’s no small order.

The Sixers Situation

Like the Celtics, the 76ers have a lot of options on the table. There is a sense that the 76ers will make full max contract offers to both of their pending free agents, Tobias Harris and Jimmy Butler. Both are unrestricted free agents so they can pick any team they like, but the belief is if both are offered the full max, they would re-sign.

Time will tell if that’s how it will play out, but the 76ers seem to be making sure teams, and ultimately their players, know they are serious about keeping the core together.

The 76ers are also one of the teams holding a huge portion of the draft in their control (for now) with one first rounder (the 24th pick) and four second-rounders – the 33rd, 34th, 42nd and 54th picks.

The 76ers second-rounders have some interesting trade value as they do not carry a cap hold until those players are signed, making the ones in the 30’s a little more valuable in a flat draft than picks in the mid-twenties that carry cap implications.

With the 76ers expected to be way into the tax next season, it will be interesting to see how the 76ers use all those picks and if some combination of them can yield another veteran piece as teams try to clear cap space.

Picks On The Move

At this point in the calendar, most teams have met with or worked out the players they have serious interest in. The next part is gauging if the picks they hold will return more or better fitting value in trade than the players they can draft with them.

There are a few picks said to be obtainable, and are the ones worth watching:

The New York Knicks just had Duke forward RJ Barrett in yesterday, and while he is openly campaigning to be a Knick, there is a sense that New York would look at trade down scenarios in order to open more cap space. The third overall pick in this draft carries a $6.46 million cap hit, so that’s not an inconsequential number. The Knicks are one of the teams believed to be in the Anthony Davis discussion, and the number three is a centerpiece to a Knicks based deal.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been pegged as the team in the top five to most likely make a pick-based trade. There is a belief that the Atlanta Hawks are trying to move up and that the Cavaliers could be the team that makes the deal.

Like the Cavaliers, the Phoenix Suns seem more open to trading their pick than keeping it. There was an odd workout with Coby White in Minnesota last week that lead many to wonder if the Suns and Minnesota were cooking up a swap. The Suns are said to covet a veteran guard and, through Minnesota, they might be able to get one.

The Atlanta Hawks pulled off a very early deal last week, and that actually won’t be consummated until the new cap year kicks in this July. That deal now gives the Hawks control of the 8th, 10th, 17th, 35th, 41st and 44th picks. The Hawks are believed to working on a couple of fronts, the biggest being moving up into the top five, while the other is putting themselves into the Anthony Davis discussions to extract value out of their excess picks and cap flexibility. The Hawks seem way more likely to deal picks than use them.

As for additional picks in the first round, there is a sense that Minnesota, Orlando, Charlotte, Miami and Boston are all open to trading their picks for the right veteran return, meaning most of the picks in the 5 to 16 range could be in play on draft day.

While there are a lot of things in motion, there is a growing sense that this year’s draft transaction window could be one of the busier ones we’ve seen this decade, which will make for interesting rumors and conversation leading up to draft next Thursday.

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