To look at the NBA’s current landscape is to stare out at an ocean — expansive, ever-changing and unpredictable.
There are no dynastic title favourites, no set-in-stone playoff positions and very few teams who have outright punted on the season at this point.
With a little under a month to go before the Feb. 6 trade deadline, that particular alchemy has the league poised for potential shake-ups as teams decide who they’re trying to be moving forward.
Here are the latest rumblings and reports from around the Association.
Pistons expected to pursue VanVleet in free agency
After news broke that Blake Griffin underwent season-ending knee surgery, the potential for the Detroit Pistons to opt for turning their team-building gaze towards the future as opposed to a push for the playoffs has grown ever-more likely.
The trade deadline hasn’t even come and gone yet, but looking ahead to the off-season, one player who is reportedly on the Pistons’ radar is pending unrestricted free agent Fred VanVleet, according to The Atheltic‘s James Edwards III.
That should come as little surprise to anyone who’s kept at least one eye on VanVleet’s performance from the tail-end of last summer’s playoffs to now. He’s in the midst of a career-year, averaging 18 points and seven assists in a mammoth 36.3 minutes per night, and factors into four of the Toronto Raptors’ top five lineups in terms of points differential for groups that have spent at least 75 possessions on the court together.
Point guards who perform at that level, have shown they can execute on the NBA’s biggest stage and who haven’t hit 26 years old yet are a rare commodity. Of course, the Pistons will do their due diligence — Derrick Rose, despite looking healthy and showing flashes of his former self to the tune of 17.5 points and 5.8 assists in 25 minutes per game is 31 years old and not the point guard of the future — as will any other team with cap space this summer.
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But the Raptors are in prime position to keep VanVleet regardless of other teams’ plans. Toronto holds his full Bird Rights, meaning they can exceed the salary cap to re-sign him. Doing so, though, would put a dent in the Raptors’ long-term flexibility and their expected pursuit of Giannis Antetokounmpo should he become a free agent in the summer of 2021.
As for Detroit, any aspiration for the financial flexibility to make a move for VanVleet largely hinges on the fate of Andre Drummond, who holds a cap-strapping $28.7-million player option for next year — a massive sum given the team’s commitment to Griffin, who is in the third year of a five-year, $171-million deal.
Even if the Pistons were to find a trading partner for Drummond, though, there’s still no guarantee their pursuit of VanVleet would be fruitful. As recently as this past October, VanVleet was vocal about what Toronto meant to him.
“I’ve been here. This is the team that gave me my chance, I think we understand that. I’m not gonna speak too much on free agency this year just ’cause it’s a business and I have to do what’s best for me and my family,” VanVleet said during an appearance on Tim and Sid in October.
“But, I mean, I’ve been on record about how I feel about this place. This organization knows how I feel about this place. So in a perfect world, we know what would happen.”
Confidence growing that Pistons will find deal for Drummond before deadline
Whether it’s as foreshadowing of their rumoured pursuit of VanVleet, or a move to salvage some value from Drummond’s expiring contract if the Pistons are under the impression he will walk in free agency, the smoke surrounding a Drummond deal is intensifying.
According to Marc Stein of the New York Times, a source familiar with Detroit’s attempts to trade Drummond expressed confidence a deal would materialize before the Feb. 6 trade deadline.
Drummond’s name has been linked to several teams, including the Dallas Mavericks, Atlanta Hawks and the Raptors.
At first, second and third glance, that’s a strange list. Drummond is very good at what Drummond does. He’s immensely durable, playing in at least 78 games each of the last six seasons. He’s averaging 17.5 points and 16 rebounds per game, and he holds opponents to the eighth-lowest field goal percentage within six feet of the basket.
But both the Mavericks and Raptors have players — Serge Ibaka for Toronto and Kristaps Porzingis for Dallas — who rank better on that field-goal percentage list than Drummond.
And while a Luka Doncic-Drummond or Kyle Lowry-Drummond pick-and-roll is vaguely intriguing, is it worth moving on from Ibaka or Marc Gasol if you’re Toronto? Would either of those franchises talk themselves into thinking that they’re one $28-million elite rebounder away from the Finals?
The Hawks make more sense, marginally . They’re an abysmal rebounding team, ranking dead-last in the league in defensive rebounding percentage and that is one of Drummond’s best on-court gifts. Additionally, giving Trae Young a capable pick-and-roll partner could unlock another level of his game.
With what’s currently been reported, though, Atlanta is still a strange suitor. Apart from owner-induced desperation, there’s little incentive for a team still in the midst of a long-term rebuilding process to trade future assets for a limited big man who may wind up being a one-year rental.
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Kings and Lakers engaged in Kuzma trade talks
The Sacramento Kings are among the teams attempting to engineer a trade with the Los Angeles Lakers centred around Kyle Kuzma, The New York Times’ Mark Stein reported on Monday, with the Kings being aware that any deal would have to include Bogdan Bogdanovic as a starting point.
Further reports have indicated, though, that this doesn’t mean the Kings are actively pursuing a Bogdanovic-for-Kuzma trade. Sam Amick of The Athletic added context, saying that the Kings aren’t likely to be interested in a one-for-one trade featuring throw-in contracts to make the salaries work, and that Sacramento is comfortable with Bogdanovic’s pending restricted free agency this summer.
From the Lakers’ standpoint, adding Bogdanovic — who holds a 21.8 per cent assist rate, good enough for the 95th percentile among wing players and is shooting 38 per cent from three — would provide a secondary pick-and-roll ball handler and capable floor-spacer to share the court with Anthony Davis and LeBron James.
For the Kings, though, the rationale for pursuing Kuzma is less clear-cut. Bogdanovic reportedly isn’t thrilled by the prospect of coming off Sacramento’s bench long-term, according to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, and is poised to be a restricted free agent next summer. But if the Kings are confident they can retain him when the time comes, as Amick reported, then there’s little sense moving him for a fine but objectively worse player in Kuzma.
Sixers searching for perimeter answers
The Philadelphia 76ers have reportedly expressed interest in Robert Covington, Malik Beasley, E’Twaun Moore, Davis Bertans, Glenn Robinson III and Andre Iguodala according to Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer.
Philadelphia having an interest in adding shooters shouldn’t be a surprise given that their two franchise cornerstones are Joel Embiid, an average shooter, and Ben Simmons, a never-shooter.
But the 76ers don’t have much in the way of assets other than their own draft picks to pull off a trade. Outside of Matisse Thybulle — a dynamic rookie defender who, according to O’Connor, the 76ers would be reluctant to part with — there aren’t many roster players that could pry loose one of the more meaningful names on Philadelphia’s wish list without being part of a much larger trade.
Embiid is out indefinitely with a torn ligament in his left hand, and while the 76ers will likely survive his absence — offensively, they are consistently better with only one of Embiid or Simmons on the floor anyway — it’s at least conceivable that losing him in the lead-up to deadline day could tip the scales from patience to pulling the trigger on a deal to bolster Philadelphia’s place in the Eastern Conference hierarchy.
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