Taking a closer look at five teams that will likely be active players in the trade market at some point this season
With the massive glut of new contracts inked this historical offseason (nearly 40% of players!) nearly every franchise has some shiny new toys they’re looking forward to playing with. Sorry, Charlotte.
Personally, I can’t remember the last time I was this excited to see the opening day of the NBA – not because of a specific match up, but because so many teams will be sporting never before seen line-ups that fans up to this point have only fantasized about.
LeBron James paired with a better finisher than even him, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard forming like Voltron with Pit Bev to give us the perimeter defense from Hell, or the two highest usage players in league history trying to sort out how to stagger/play off one another in Houston with Russell Westbrook and James Harden.
We haven’t even made it out East, where you may have heard that Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving have linked up in Brooklyn (albeit delayed a year for Durant), the Sixers essentially switched out Butler/Redick for Horford/Richardson, and the Celtics are still quietly stacked. Oh, and by the way, don’t write off Golden State, Indiana, Utah, Milwaukee, Denver, Portland, Dallas, New Orleans(!), San Antonio, Miami, or Oklahoma City.
Not all of those teams have championship aspirations quite yet, but all of them (and more) stand to make this the most competitive the NBA has been on a nightly basis in decades. And what I mean by this is I believe, because of the talent redistribution and the fashion in which the draft shook out, we are going to see fewer blowouts than ever before. The first month of this NBA will truly be fascinating, every night, and maybe longer than that.
All of that out of the way, I couldn’t tell you the actual date of opening night of the top of my head. It’s still July! Is the schedule even announced? The season just ended, and I’ve been trying to, ya know, read and stuff. You know what date I do know, though? December 15th – the day all of those shiny new contracts can once again be considered trade fodder.
Oh, oh, you thought your team was safe? Sorry pal, this sh** never stops! Without further ado, here are a few of the teams with their eyes on that date, and what they might be looking to do.