NEWSLETTER
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?
The NBA trade deadline madness is off to a hot start, as ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski has reported that the Kyrie Irving trade to the Dallas Mavericks isn’t yet official. While all signs still point toward Irving heading to Dallas, the Brooklyn Nets are reportedly seeing if they can get a third team involved.
More specifically, Woj reported that “many conversations” are going on with the Toronto Raptors.
All right, so this is VERY interesting. The Raptors have been one of the most talked about teams in the NBA for the past couple of weeks. As they sit at 25-30 and 12th in the Eastern Conference, many believe that they could look to trade several of their starters, with Gary Trent Jr., Fren VanVleet, and OG Anunoby dominating much of the rumor mill.
Exactly what kind of deal the Nets and Mavs are hoping to get done with the Raptors here is hard to say. Perhaps the hope is that Brooklyn can combine some of their new assets (Dorian Finney-Smith, Spencer Dinwiddie, a future first-rounder, and two future second-rounders) with pre-existing assets to pull away a point guard replacement in VanVleet. Anunoby would also be quite the addition to a team that already has some solid defensive versatility, but my guess is his price tag is too high for the Nets to reach.
Regardless of the exact deal, we’ve already discussed what Toronto’s decision to sell could do for the Bulls. I’ll drop a chunk from that post below, and you can read the full thing here.
For example … If Masai Uijiri and the Raptors make their intentions known before Arturas Karnisovas does, it could make it a lot more difficult for the Bulls to get what they want for their players. Some of those teams with big assets to spend could send them to Canada instead of Chicago. Not to mention, even if they do wait to see if both the Bulls and Raptors are selling, the Bulls now have to deal with Toronto indirectly impacting prices.
Understanding the possible impact is understanding supply and demand. The Bulls have a chance to be the rare team with All-Star-caliber talent to trade mid-season. If the Raptors join the club, they supply of those players goes up and the demand goes down.
All indications have been that the Bulls will choose to stand pat this deadline, but there has been at least some reason to believe that a “holy sh*t” offer could force them to move at least one of their current core pieces. The chance of that offer coming through, however, could go down significantly if the Raptors become the sexy deadline trade partner.
