It’s trade deadline week with the big day itself going this Thursday and the cutoff at 3:00 p.m. ET.
So buckle up for a wild, rumour-filled week where a good 90 per cent (or more) of things happening are just nonsense but are still fun to think about anyway.
As for the way the trade deadline may impact teams, there’s no doubt a contender adding a key role player or a specialist to shore up a weakness or add to their strength can be big, but the likelihood that a league-altering move, like the one that saw James Harden head to the Brooklyn Nets near the beginning of the season is slim.
The biggest names who are rumoured to be on the move are the Houston Rockets’ Victor Oladipo, the Toronto Raptors’ Norman Powell and — maybe — Kyle Lowry. Whether or not they actually get traded is another story altogether, though.
Here’s a look at how we view the league heading into the big week of speculation and misinformation.
Chris Paul is still awesome
On Sunday, Phoenix Suns point guard Chis Paul became just the sixth player in NBA history to reach the 10,000-assist milestone in his team’s victory over the short-handed Los Angeles Lakers.
Paul has gotten meme’d a bunch and mocked over the years because he’s always fallen short and his intense attitude on the court can sometimes be misconstrued as bullying, but his greatness is undeniable. He’s 35 years old and still remains one of the best floor generals in the game, helping lead the Suns to their best season since Steve Nash was at the forefront of one the NBA’s all-time offences.
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Lakers could be in some trouble here
Over the weekend, LeBron James suffered a bad-looking injury and is out indefinitely with a right high ankle sprain.
It’s a disastrous scenario for the Lakers because fellow superstar Anthony Davis also remains out with a right calf strain on a timeline that won’t see him return until next week at the earliest with the possibility that he’ll miss more.
The Lakers are a team that relies on the overwhelming star power of James and Davis to carry them and things could get rough as it currently holds third place in the Western Conference and could be looking at a fall without its superstar duo in the lineup.
On a related note, the MVP campaign James was putting together looks like it could be in jeopardy now depending on how long he’s out. This would be James’ fifth MVP award if he’s able to win it, a feat that would put him on par with Bill Russell and Michael Jordan for regular-season MVP awards, and leave him just one behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s unprecedented six.
Clippers need to look in the mirror
Paul George was fined $35,000 for criticizing an official after his Los Angeles Clippers lost last week to the Dallas Mavericks.
His criticism may well be fair, depending on your perspective of the situation, but that George feels the need to complain about officiating while his team is the midst of a rough spell is a bad look.
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There’s been a lot of promise and expectation around these Clippers ever since George and Kawhi Leonard arrived last season, but the results haven’t been there.
At the moment, the Clippers are in fourth place in the West with the likes of Denver Nuggets and Portland Trail Blazers nipping at their heels, just 1.5 games back.
And, yes, it’s true the Clippers are dealing with injuries to Patrick Beverley and Serge Ibaka, but the Clippers’ two stars are healthy and playing and should be capable of weathering the kind of storm they find themselves in, but they aren’t.
So maybe George needs to start getting mad at himself instead of looking for others to blame for his team’s swoon?
Pro sports can be so cruel
On Sunday devastating news came out that Rookie of the Year frontrunner LaMelo Ball suffered a fractured wrist and could possibly miss the rest of the season.
A huge loss to the Charlotte Hornets’ season, who dropped down an entire tier because of the news, and, more importantly, just an awful situation for Ball who has been one of the best stories going this NBA season and a true bright spot in what has been a rather dim campaign.
Ball had turned the Hornets into League Pass darlings thanks to his killer combination of amazing court vision, ambidextrous passing and no-fear shot-making.
Here’s hoping the young man can recover from this setback just fine. He’s only 19 years old and has his whole career ahead of him.
Welcome to the basement, Raptors
Having lost their eighth straight and 10th in their last 11 contests with a loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday, the Raptors have earned their spot here at the bottom of the tier list.
The COVID-19 protocols the team was forced to undergo have completely derailed their season and there’s an expectation among much of the fanbase that they’ll look to sell at the deadline, dealing the expiring contracts of Powell and Lowry.
However, expectation and reality aren’t always the same, though. There’s still a distinct possibility the Raptors will just stand pat at the deadline because, as of now, they’re in position for a top-10 draft pick, still with the chance of moving up the standings into a play-in tournament spot.
Not to mention, even if the Raptors were to trade Powell and Lowry, would that make them so demonstrably worse they could move into the absolute bottom of the league and better guarantee themselves a top-four or top-five pick? With core talents like Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet and OG Anunoby, the answer to that question is likely not.
Plus, the package you get back from contenders who would be targeting Powell and Lowry probably won’t be the kind of impact move you’d like to see for those kinds of players.
These are tough factors the Raptors’ front office will have to weigh with the deadline creeping ever closer.
20 losses in a row
The Rockets have lost 20 games straight, just eight defeats shy of the NBA’s record set by the infamous “Trust the Process” Philadelphia 76ers.
This clip of Rockets head coach Stephen Silas sums it all up perfectly:
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