NBA Daily: Welcome To Trade Season

Trade season may conventionally be considered February’s territory in the NBA, but its start actually arrives Sunday. Of course, while trades could have come to life at any point in the last couple of months, as much as a third of the league has been off-limits to be moved.

Come Sunday, players who signed new contracts this past offseason can factor into negotiations.

So, unofficially, let D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle join Kevin Love in trade ponderings. The Cleveland Cavaliers forward has long been the cornerstone of the rumor mill — soon, he will have company.

While Love has become a mainstay in imagined trades, Russell and Randle will provide new ground to cover, though far from unexpected being each of their summer signings was met with immediate trade musings.

Love signing a four-year deal worth $120 million never fit with the Cavaliers’ innate youth movement. At the end of the deal, he will be 34. For these first few months, that has simply been a known reality, but now it becomes a distinct possibility. At some point, Cleveland will understandably want to find a frontcourt piece on a timeline more compatible with rookie guard Darius Garland and second-year guard Collin Sexton.

Russell’s arrival in the Bay Area always stood out as a redundancy once Klay Thompson gets healthy, while a market already existed for him in free agency — specifically via the Minnesota Timberwolves’ chase. That market was prevalent enough, the Golden State Warriors felt the need to quickly insist Russell was not a piece to flip no matter how worrisome having a fourth max contract player might be given the state of their bench.

And Randle’s three-year contract in New York was a bit of an anomaly during an offseason in which the Knicks otherwise signed a multitude of veterans to only one-year deals. In other words, he was the only new piece with long-term trade potential, while Bobby Portis, Marcus Morris and Taj Gibson would serve as nothing more than expiring contract rentals in a deal.

New York’s plan may have been to build around Randle, but this season’s first two months have made that less and less likely. Even after head coach David Fizdale’s firing, and maybe more so, the Knicks’ tailspin warrants a seller’s attitude. By no means are they alone in that regard — note the Cavaliers. The same can be said of the Chicago Bulls, where forward Thaddeus Young and guard Tomas Satoransky fit these same qualifications as Russell and Randle.

The layers of possibilities opened on Dec. 15 go further and further.

If the Orlando Magic do want to make a move for a backcourt scorer, perhaps the San Antonio Spurs’ DeMar DeRozan, then being able to include Terrence Ross and/or Al-Farouq Aminu could help along a deal. On the Spurs’ side of things, Rudy Gay, DeMarre Carroll and Trey Lyles will be trade eligible by the end of the weekend.

The majority of both the Sacramento Kings’ and the Dallas Mavericks’ rotations fit these parameters, one hoping to join the other in playoff contention. Teams trending the opposite way in the standings might try to pilfer those rotations for pieces and a draft pick in exchange for, as examples, the Atlanta Hawks’ Jabari Parker or the Charlotte Hornets’ Terry Rozier, both now tradeable.

Nearly any conversation comes back to Sunday’s opening limit. The Boston Celtics may be a strong frontcourt presence away from genuine contention. Their biggest name in the post, Enes Kanter, could not be moved until this weekend. Maybe flipping him with a pick could net the needed threat, — or maybe it would yield a defensive post piece, the opposite of Kanter.

To further this entire premise and pick a name not available just yet, Oklahoma City’s Nerlens Noel fits the thought. If the Celtics insisted the post piece have an offensive repertoire, they could do worse than the Memphis Grizzlies’ Jonas Valanciunas.

Four Houston Rockets’ wings were off the market until now, though Austin Rivers essentially remains untradeable given the nature of his contract. As Eric Pincus explained regarding the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, some inherent no-trade clauses do exist.

Otherwise, every name mentioned thus far was exempt from honest discussion until now, aside from Love’s permanent role as trade talk fodder. If trade season both peaks and concludes in February, it logically needs a starting point. With or without Rivers and Caldwell-Pope, that starting point is Sunday when Kevin Love will not be alone in the conversation anymore.