2016 NBA Draft

Prospect Profile: Denzel Valentine (Part 1)

March 7th, 2016 at 10:40am CST by Dana Gauruder

Mike Carter / USA Today Sports Images

OVERVIEW: Denzel Valentine has steadily built his legacy — and his draft profile — during his four seasons at Michigan State. The versatile swingman — listed at 6’5” by ESPN.com and 6’6” by DraftExpress — was a valuable role player for the Spartans during his first two seasons, then exploded onto the national landscape during last year’s NCAA Tournament as a junior. He led the Spartans to an unlikely run to the Final Four, then upped the ante this winter with a spectacular senior season. He’s on pace to become the first player since assists became an official NCAA stat in 1983/84 to average at least 19 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. His development is reminiscent of two recent Big Ten stars, former Spartan Draymond Green and Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky.

STRENGTHS: The attribute that becomes readily apparent when watching Valentine play is his uncanny knack to make the right read and find the open man. That makes him an outstanding initiator on pick-and-rolls, an extremely valuable skill in the NBA game. Valentine became the Spartans’ de facto point guard early in his senior season and he’s thrived in that role, with his assist average jumping from 4.3 last season to 7.5, while his turnovers have barely increased (2.6 to 2.4) despite having the ball in his hands so often. His creativity off the dribble opens up high-percentage shots for teammates as the defense collapses around him. His shooting stroke is also an asset. Valentine has a very compact stroke, as Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress points out, with deep range and multiple release points. He’s adept at shooting off screens, with his feet set, or off the dribble, Givony adds. Currently, he’s shooting 47.1% from the field while averaging 14.5 shots per game and an outstanding 45.4% on 3-point attempts. Valentine also does a superior job of getting into position for rebounds, averaging at least 6.0 per game in his last three college seasons.

WEAKNESSES: Valentine does not have a defined position as he heads to the next level. ESPN lists him as an undersized small forward. His size and outside shooting ability would suggest he’ll be a shooting guard in the pros, while his passing prowess and floor leadership could make him an oversized point guard. The biggest knock on Valentine, as Chad Ford of ESPN.com examines, is his lack of elite athleticism. Valentine’s defensive intensity has improved throughout his college days, but he could have issues covering players with better foot speed because of his lack of lateral quickness. If his NBA coach utilizes him as a point forward, he’ll be mismatched at the other end and vulnerable to postups by bigger, stronger players. Another concern, as Givony notes, is that Valentine may have trouble finishing in the lane because of his lack of explosiveness. He often relies on his body to create space in halfcourt situations and tends to shoot difficult floaters when the lane closes up and he doesn’t have an outlet.

(For Part 2 of our Denzel Valentine Prospect Profile, click here.)

Traded First-Round Pick Exchange Scenarios

March 7th, 2016 at 10:00am CST by Chuck Myron

The season ends five weeks from Wednesday, and we still only know with 100% certainty that one first-round pick is changing hands. That’s the Nets pick that’s going to the Celtics without any protection. Every other first-rounder has some sort of protection involved, though the past several weeks since we last looked at traded first-round pick exchange scenarios have lent near-certainty to several possible outcomes. Five have become either overwhelmingly likely or unlikely to happen, and it’s become likely that the Heat will send their pick to the Sixers, an outcome we pegged as too close to call last time around.

Still, less certainty exists than last time around that Houston will send its pick to Denver, thanks to the up-and-down performance of the Rockets that has them in danger of missing the playoffs. The stretch run will resolve that matter, while other scenarios among the seven we list in the toss-up category below won’t become certainties until the lottery is over. Here’s a look at the chances that every possibility comes to pass:

Nets to Celtics (unprotected) — 100% certain to happen
Wizards to Suns (top-9 protected) — Likely to happen: Washington is four and a half games better than Sacramento, which occupies the ninth position in the reverse standings. The team entering the lottery at No. 10 stands only about a 4% chance of vaulting into the top nine, so the Wizards would have to lose that lead to have a realistic chance to keep their pick. They’re only a game and a half out of the playoffs, so any tanking is still probably a ways off.
Cavaliers to Suns (top-10 protected) — Overwhelmingly likely to happen: The Cavs would have to miss the playoffs to even have a chance of keeping their pick, so we can safely assume this one is headed to Phoenix.
Mavericks to Celtics (top-7 protected) — Likely to happen: The overtime loss Dallas suffered to the Nuggets on Sunday underscored the fact that the Mavs are no lock for the playoffs, but the fate of their pick is much more certain. The Mavs, up three in the loss column on ninth-place Utah, would still need a major lucky break in the lottery to end up keeping the pick if they miss the playoffs.
Heat to Warriors (Golden State gets Miami’s pick if it falls outside the top 10 and comes after Golden State’s pick and Oklahoma City’s pick) — Overwhelmingly unlikely to happen (flipped from unlikely to happen last time): A complicated set of scenarios surround this exchange, but essentially, the Heat would have to finish with a better record than the Warriors as well as the Thunder for this to happen. That’s out of the questions unless the Heat win all but one of their remaining games and the Warriors lose all but one of theirs. So, we can safely count out this scenario, and really, we could have called this one overwhelmingly unlikely some time ago.
Heat to Sixers (Philadelphia gets Miami’s pick if it falls outside the top 10 and comes before either Golden State’s pick or Oklahoma City’s pick) — Likely to happen (flipped from toss-up last time): This would-be swap is a corollary to the long-shot Heat/Warriors possibility described above. Since we can assume that scenario won’t happen, Philadelphia is in strong position to wind up with Miami’s pick. The Heat would have to miss the playoffs to have a shot at keeping it, but they’re up five games on the Bulls and Pistons, who are tied for the last playoff spot. They’re no certainty for the playoffs, but they’d still need to fall behind a few more teams or get lucky in the lottery to hold on to the pick.
Thunder to Warriors (Golden State gets Oklahoma City’s pick if it falls outside the top 15 and comes after Miami’s pick and Golden State’s pick) — Overwhelmingly unlikely to happen (flipped from unlikely to happen last time): This is another one related to the Heat/Warriors exchange above. The Thunder would have to catch the Warriors for this one to happen, and Golden State has a 13-game lead on Oklahoma City. The Warriors’ loss Sunday to the Lakers would have to be the harbinger of an epic collapse for this scenario to play out.
Thunder to Sixers (Philadelphia gets Miami’s pick if it falls outside the top 15 and comes before either Golden State’s pick or Oklahoma City’s pick) — Overwhelmingly likely to happen (flipped from likely to happen last time): Assuming the Thunder don’t send their pick to the Warriors, they’re almost certainly sending the pick to Philly. Oklahoma City, at 28-12, would have to miss the playoffs — or make the playoffs with the worst record among postseason teams — to keep the pick. The Thunder have a 12-game lead on the Rockets, currently the team with the worst record among those in the playoffs if they started today.
Warriors to Sixers (Philadelphia gets Golden State’s pick if it comes before either Miami’s pick or Oklahoma City’s pick, as long as Miami’s pick falls outside the top 10 and Oklahoma City’s pick falls outside the top 15) — Overwhelmingly unlikely to happen (flipped from unlikely to happen last time): The final of this string of five possible outcomes depends on whether the Thunder or the Heat can catch the Warriors, and as we noted above, Golden State is up 13 games on Oklahoma City, the closer of the two.
Rockets to Nuggets (top-14 protected) — Toss-up (flipped from likely to happen last time): This pick comes down to whether or not Houston makes the playoffs. Houston had a lead of four and a half games over ninth place the last time we did this exercise, and with the talent of the Rockets, that seemed safe. The current margin of one and a half games and the team’s continued inconsistency leave the fate of this pick uncertain.
Lakers to Sixers (top-3 protected) — Toss-up: The Lakers had the best of both worlds Sunday, when they beat the Warriors and the Suns also won to preserve L.A.’s margin of four and a half games for the second worst record in the league. Still, the Lakers know from last year, when they vaulted from the fourth position in the lottery to No. 2, that the fate of their pick largely comes down to ping-pong balls. The team with the second worst record entering the lottery has roughly a 43% chance of dropping out of the top three.
Grizzlies to Nuggets (Denver gets the Memphis pick if it falls anywhere from No. 6 to No. 14) — Unlikely to happen: The Grizzlies keep this pick if they make the playoffs, and while Sunday’s loss to the Suns is an inauspicious sign, Memphis is still seven and a half games up on ninth-place Utah. That should be enough of a cushion, even with Marc Gasol out for the season.
Timberwolves to Celtics (top-12 protected) — Overwhelmingly unlikely to happen (flipped from unlikely to happen last time): The mathematical chances that the lottery would drop the team that finishes with the 12th worst record into the 13th or 14th pick are only about 4%, and even lower for the team that finishes 10th or 11th worst. Thus, Minnesota would realistically have to climb out of the bottom 12 in the standings for Boston to have a shot at this pick, and the Wolves are 10 and a half games worse than 13th-place Washington.
Knicks to Nuggets (Denver gets the better pick of its own and New York’s) —Toss-up: The Knicks have but a half-game lead on the Nuggets, so this one is anyone’s guess.
Knicks to Raptors (Toronto gets New York’s pick if it comes after Denver’s pick) —Toss-up: The Raptors will end up with whichever pick the Nuggets don’t take in the pick swap described immediately above, so with precious little separation between New York and Denver, this one is just as hard to call.
Nuggets to Raptors (Toronto gets the Denver’s pick if it comes after New York’s pick) — Toss-up: See the explanation for the last two picks.
Trail Blazers to Nuggets (top-14 protected) — Toss-up: Denver gets this pick if Portland makes the playoffs. Three games separate the seventh-place Blazers from ninth-place Utah, but only two in the loss column, so it’ll be a close call.
Kings to Bulls (top-10 protected) — Toss-up: Sacramento is in a virtual tie with Milwaukee for the ninth and 10th places in the reverse standings, with only two games of separation between them and 11th-place Orlando. Throw in the roughly 9% chance the 10th-place team has of getting passed in the lottery, and this one’s far from decided.
Kings to Sixers (Philadelphia gets the better of Sacramento’s pick and its own if Sacramento’s pick falls inside the top 10) — Unlikely to happen: The Sixers are 18 games behind the Kings, but the capriciousness of the lottery helps keep this one from going into the overwhelmingly unlikely to happen category. Sacramento is only two games better than New Orleans, which occupies sixth place in the reverse standings. So the Kings could easily enter the lottery at slot No. 6 and have about a 21.5% chance of netting a top-three pick. The Sixers, assuming they hang on to their lead of four and a half games for the worst record, are poised to enter the lottery with a 35.7% chance of dropping out of the top three. So this exchange is still in limbo.
Sixers to Kings (Sacramento gets the inferior of its own pick and Philadelphia’s pick if its own pick falls inside the top 10) — Unlikely to happen: See the scenario immediately above.

And-Ones: Perkins, Butler, Labissiere, Vesely

March 3rd, 2016 at 2:02pm CST by Chuck Myron

Players on the Cavaliers were furious when the team let Kendrick Perkins leave in free agency this summer and instead signed Sasha Kaun, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group and the Cleveland Plain Dealer said in an appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show” (video link; transcription via Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk). They valued Perkins for his emotional leadership and the role of enforcer that he played, even though he doesn’t offer much else on the court at this point in his career, as Haynes detailed. Perkins is averaging 11.3 minutes per game in 15 appearances for the Pelicans on a one-year deal this season. See more from around the NBA:

The offer the Celtics reportedly made to the Bulls for Jimmy Butler left much to be desired from Chicago’s end, and the talks didn’t advance from there, as K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune hears (Twitter links).
Former No. 1 draft prospect Skal Labissiere has continued to plummet in rankings, coming in only 19th in the latest mock draft from Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress, notes Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv. However, the University of Kentucky big man returned to the starting lineup Tuesday after a late-December benching and tallied 11 points and eight rebounds, numbers well above his averages of 6.4 points and 3.0 boards per game.
Jan Vesely recently drew an offer from an NBA team for the equivalent of between $7.7MM and $8.8MM, according to an official from his Turkish team, Fenerbahce Ulker, notes Eurohoops.net. The official indicated that Fenerbahce wants to keep the former NBA sixth overall pick, and Vesely has no intention of leaving for an NBA team in the near future, tweets international journalist David Pick. Few NBA teams have the capacity to hand out contracts of that amount this late in the season, so I’d speculate that it was meant as an offer for the summer, when teams have much more to spend.

And-Ones: Oden, Sampson, Lee

March 1st, 2016 at 10:28pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Mavs power forward David Lee struggled to get into shape this season following the Warriors‘ NBA title run of last season and turned some heads when he said that he finally committed himself to getting fit when he fell out of the Celtics‘ rotation in preparation for joining another team, Chris Forsberg of ESPN.com writes. Despite the negative implications of Lee’s remarks, Boston coach Brad Stevens isn’t upset with his former player, Forsberg notes. “I don’t know if that is semantics or how he meant to say it,” Stevens said. “I think the biggest thing that he was probably saying there was that, when you’re not playing, you have to find other ways to stay ready. And maybe I’m wrong. But I think that he certainly took [to his] diet, he worked out hard — he worked out hard enough that if he would have played, he would have been gassed in the games. Sometimes you can’t do that if you’re going to be playing 15 minutes per night. He was going two or three times hard per day during that stretch. So, no, I wasn’t frustrated by it. In fact it set a pretty good example for the other guys that weren’t playing.”

Stevens also acknowledged the difficult spot Lee was placed in with him not being in the team’s regular rotation, Forberg writes. “That was hard. That was really hard. And it was harder on [Lee] than anybody else, but we talked about it a lot,” Stevens said. “We didn’t have hardly any injuries with our bigs and we had a lot of bigs that, especially at the end of games, were going to be relatively the same position. And so it put a lot of guys on the bench. And it was different guys at different times. To his credit, when we eventually settled on playing others, he handled it really well. Kudos to him. I’m happy he’s doing well.”

Here’s more from around the league:

Former NBA top pick Greg Oden was released by the Jiangsu Dragons of the Chinese Basketball Association recently, but he appreciates the opportunity that the club gave him, Joshua Bateman of USA Today writes. “It was a great opportunity for me to come and just play basketball, which I haven’t been able to do for awhile,” Oden said. “They got me playing. For me, that’s all I can say. I’ve had a lot of years where I actually just couldn’t play and this year I’m actually able to be out there on the court and play 25 minutes when I never thought I would see over 20 minutes in a game. And I’m playing three games a week. For me, that’s just something I didn’t even think I would ever be able to do.”
Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) has released his latest mock draft and his current top three players are Ben Simmons of LSU, Duke’s Brandon Ingram and Croatian big man Dragan Bender.
JaKarr Sampson‘s contract with the Nuggets doesn’t contain any guaranteed salary beyond this season, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reveals (Twitter link), resolving earlier reports that conflicted. It’s a two-year pact for the minimum salary.
Joe Johnson gave back exactly $3MM in his buyout from the Nets, reports Pincus relays (Twitter link).
Kris Humphries agreed to forfeit precisely $1MM as part of his buyout with the Suns, Pincus also notes (Twitter links)

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

And-Ones: Lue, Anderson, Burks, Luwawu

February 15th, 2016 at 2:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

Five NBA head coaches have been fired since the start of the season, and a sixth, George Karl, nearly was. That’s left a skittish environment in coaching circles, as Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post examines.

“I think maybe the owners are running out of patience,” said Tyronn Lue, who took over the Cavs from the fired David Blatt. “I’m not sure. Just talking to the guys, it’s good to get a long-term deal, because you never know what’s going to happen in this league. In our situation alone, we’re number one in the East and we got to the NBA finals last year, and then something like this unfortunately happens. I think you just have to continue to see improvement every year. A lot of times, I know ownership, they get anxious, and they probably think they’re better than what they really are. So that tends to play a part in it.

Lue reportedly signed a three-year deal when he took the head coaching job in Cleveland, though GM David Griffin denied it. See more from around the NBA with the trade deadline precisely 72 hours away:

Ryan Anderson is anxious to explore free agency this summer, so he’d only be a rental for any team that might acquire him at the trade deadline, a source told Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). Conflicting reports paint a confusing picture of the likelihood that Anderson will end up in a trade, though more of them indicate that he’s not the likeliest trade candidate on the Pelicans than the other way around.
Alec Burks is progressing well in his recovery from a fractured left fibula and the general expectation is that the Jazz shooting guard will return to action in March, tweets Jody Genessy of The Deseret News. That’s nonetheless slightly behind the eight-week timetable reported in late December.
Draft prospect Timothe Luwawu of the Serbian club Mega Leks is an all-around swingman with a rapidly emerging 3-point game, strong passing and intriguing defensive skill who must improve his ball-handling and willingness to finish inside and overcome his occasional mental lapses on the floor, observes Jonathan Givony of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports. Luwawu is Givony’s 15th-rated prospect for this year.

Kareem Canty To Enter Draft

February 12th, 2016 at 8:38am CST by Chuck Myron

Auburn junior point guard Kareem Canty has decided to enter this year’s NBA draft and leave the school, as he revealed on Twitter and Instagram (hat tip to Wesley Sinor of AL.com). He faces long odds to make it in the league despite his status as Auburn’s leading scorer and assist-maker so far. Neither Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress nor Chad Ford of ESPN.com have him within their rankings.

The school suspended Canty on Saturday, citing conduct detrimental to the team. He engaged in a verbal altercation with a member of the coaching staff two days before the suspension, according to Jay G. Tate of AuburnSports.com, a Rivals.com site. Canty had been slumping, knocking down just 5 of 34 3-pointers in his last four games, as Tate notes. That’s otherwise been one of his strengths, as he’s a 36.1% 3-point shooter on the season. He’s dished out 5.3 assists per game but turns it over 3.0 times each outing, and he averages less than a steal per game.

The 6’1″ Canty turns 23 in April, so his age also figures to work against him. He sat out last season after transferring from Marshall, where he put up similar numbers in 2013/14 but shot only 30.4% on 3-pointers.

Canty, like all early entrants this year, will have a chance to get a better read on his stock and attend the NBA combine, if invited, before encountering the last day to withdraw and retain his college eligibility, thanks to a rules change. However, he’d be in less of a position to benefit from pulling out if he’s indeed parting ways with Auburn.

And-Ones: Isaac, Cordinier, Free Agents

February 11th, 2016 at 10:29pm CST by Eddie Scarito

High school phenom Jonathan Isaac, who is ranked among the top 10 prospects in the nation, intends to explore the idea of declaring for the 2016 NBA draft directly from prep school, Pete Thamel of SI.com writes. Isaac told Thamel that he could look to take advantage of a new rule that allows prospects to enter the NBA draft and return to college if they aren’t satisfied with their projected draft position., Thamel adds. The new rule allows Isaac to participate in the NBA draft combine, hold an NBA workout and pull out of the draft without compromising his amateur standing at Florida State where he’s signed to play next season, the SI scribe notes.

Here’s more from around the league:

French shooting guard prospect Isaia Cordinier appears to be a strong candidate to be a first round pick if he enters this year’s NBA Draft, opines Jonathan Givony of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports. The 19-year-old is likely to declare for the draft, though he will retain the right to withdraw his name if he doesn’t feel good about his prospects, Givony adds. The flexibility of his situation will certainly help his stock because an NBA team can opt to pick Cordinier and “stash” him in Europe for another year or two, which could be a major selling point for a franchise that has multiple draft picks and limited roster spots to utilize for 2016/17, the Vertical scribe concludes. Cordinier is currently projected as the No. 25 overall pick this June, according to DraftExpress.
The rookies whose performances have been the most pleasantly surprising this season for their respective teams are the Pacers‘ Myles Turner, Nikola Jokic of the Nuggets and Sixers point guard T.J. McConnell, ESPN.com’s Chad Ford and Kevin Pelton opine in their look at the league’s first-year players (Insider subscription required).
The free agent class for the summer of 2017 will be loaded with superstar point guards, including Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul and Kyle Lowry, Tommy Beer of Basketball Insiders notes in his free agent primer.
Florida State freshman shooting guard Malik Beasley has worked his way onto NBA teams’ radars and is currently projected to be a mid to late first-rounder if he enters this year’s NBA Draft, Mike Schmitz of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports writes in his look at the prospect. Despite his strong play this season, Beasley is still likely a year away from being able to contribute in the NBA as a rotation player, though his potential will probably influence an NBA club to take a gamble on him this June, Schmitz concludes.

And-Ones: Celtics, Sixers, Bender, Free Agency

February 5th, 2016 at 4:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

The unprotected first-rounder that the Nets owe the Celtics for this year’s draft is available for the right price, Boston president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said Thursday in an appearance on the “Dale & Holley with Thornton” show on WEEI radio. That price is high, Ainge cautioned. Sean Deveney of The Sporting News wrote earlier this week that the pick was “definitely not available,” but while that might not technically be true, it sounds like that’s effectively the case for all but the most enticing offers.

“It would have to be, certainly, a very good player. And also it probably wouldn’t be someone in their 30s,” Ainge said to the radio hosts. “That would have to be a good young player, because again, even if we had a 5% or a 10% or a 15% chance at one of the top picks in the draft, that’s worth keeping.”

The Nets pick is No. 3 in the lottery order for now, as our Reverse Standings show, so if that position holds, it would give the Celtics a 17.8% chance at the No. 1 pick and about 50-50 odds of picking somewhere in the top three. See more from around the NBA:

Brett Brown understands the Sixers front office has the task of improving the team for the future, and the roster he has isn’t exactly a coach’s dream, but he would prefer that Philadelphia stands pat at the trade deadline, as he told Tom Moore of Calkins Media. “All coaches beg for consistency,” Brown said. “You feel like your teaching message, your purpose, your points of emphasis have a chance to resonate and be delivered and improved upon better with time.”
Versatility and an underrated toughness are some of the qualities that make Dragan Bender easily the top overseas prospect for the 2016 draft, but as the draft’s youngest prospect, his frame isn’t close to being ready to handle the NBA, according to Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress and The Vertical on Yahoo Sports. Still, he’ll almost certainly enter the draft this year, Givony hears, and his vast potential has him No. 3 in Givony’s prospect rankings.
The ability to match competing bids in the summer, an understanding of the player’s contract demands from the extension window, and low rookie scale salaries are reasons why soon-to-be restricted free agents are intriguing trade candidates, SB Nation’s Tom Ziller posits, offering a few names as particularly interesting cases.

And-Ones: Morris, Dunleavy, Korkmaz, Labor

February 4th, 2016 at 1:49pm CST by Chuck Myron

Markieff Morris said he “never had a problem” with former Suns coach Jeff Hornacek, observes Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. The incident in which he threw a towel that connected with Hornacek after the pair exchanged words during a game in December, prompting a two-game suspension for the power forward, was “misperceived,” Morris said. With trade rumors continuing to surround the Suns, see more from around the NBA:

Mike Dunleavy is poised to make his season debut Saturday and play his first game since signing a three-year, $14.4MM deal to remain with the Bulls in the offseason, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports. A setback he suffered in November cost him several additional weeks as he fought to return from offseason back surgery. Nikola Mirotic is still targeting a return after the All-Star break in spite of an unexpected second procedure that came in the wake of his recent appendectomy, according to fellow Vertical scribe Shams Charania (Twitter link).
Euroleague shooting guard and 2016 draft prospect Furkan Korkmaz has a dead-eye stroke from behind the 3-point line and plenty of hops, but he has a long way to go on defense, as Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress and the Vertical on Yahoo Sports examines. Givony ranks him 12th among the players expected to be in this year’s draft.
Using the lockout as a means to force the players union to make concessions is the true legacy of former commissioner David Stern, SB Nation’s Paul Flannery asserts amid a piece with fellow SB Nation scribe Tom Ziller analyzing the first two years of Adam Silver as Stern’s successor. It’s difficult to envision the union making concessions in 2017 without the threat of a lockout, Ziller writes.

Team-By-Team First-Round Pick Trade Restrictions

January 27th, 2016 at 12:13pm CST by Chuck Myron

First-round picks are valuable currency on the trade market. They allow teams to make significant talent upgrades for the near term, to clear salary obligations, and sometimes, especially when packaged together, to land a superstar. The picks are valuable in and of themselves, especially given their increased relative cost-effectiveness amid a rising salary cap, and they can also be crucial bargaining chips as executives talk swap this time of year.

Alas, for the Grizzlies, Mavericks and Heat, trading one of their first-round picks isn’t an option. That’s because all three have traded other picks that make it impossible for them to deal a first-rounder that falls within the stipulations of the Ted Stepien rule and other pick-trading regulations.

The Stepien rule is a fairly well-known measure that keeps team from trading consecutive future first-round picks. It doesn’t apply to previously traded first-rounders, so the Pelicans, who traded their first-round pick last year, can trade their 2016 first-rounder. The Stepien rule doesn’t cover trades that happen immediately after the draft, either, so teams barred from trading their 2016 first-rounders now can do so in June. That won’t help much at the February 18th trade deadline, however.

The other key stipulation at play holds that teams can’t trade picks for more than seven drafts in the future. That means picks in the 2022 draft are the latest currently up for grabs, and no team can trade a 2023 pick until after this year’s draft.

Thus, the Heat, who’ve traded their 2016, 2018 and 2021 first-round picks, have no way to trade any other first-rounder. Dealing away their 2017, 2019, 2020 or 2022 pick would entail two traded future first-rounders in a row and run afoul of the Stepien rule. Those four are the only picks the team has left in the next seven years, so in this regard, the Heat are stuck.

So too are the Mavericks, but for a different reason. Their 2016 first-rounder is the only one they owe. That begs the question of why Dallas can’t trade their picks for 2018 through 2022. The answer is that the protection attached to the 2016 pick the Mavs owe the Celtics makes it possible that the pick won’t convey until 2021. The next pick the Mavs could trade in that case would be for 2023, one year too late. Even though the pick could convey any year between 2016 and 2021, the mere chance that it might happen in one of those years prohibits the Mavericks from trading any of their picks in those drafts.

Had the latest possible transfer of that pick been 2020, the situation would be much different. Dallas could simply trade its 2022 first-rounder in that case, or the Mavs could trade a 2018 first-rounder with the condition that it can’t change hands until two years after they actually deliver the pick they owe Boston.

That’s why you see two years on the list for some teams below, with one of them representing the earliest year those teams can trade a pick and the other the earliest those teams can promise that the pick will convey.

All 30 teams are accounted for below, with a brief line of information describing what they can and can’t do with their future first-round picks.

Bucks

Can trade any of their first-round picks.

Bulls

Can trade any of their first-round picks, plus an extra one from Sacramento.

Cavaliers

Earliest first-round pick they can trade is for 2018, and they can’t promise a first-rounder until 2021.

Celtics

Can trade any of their first-round picks, plus extras from Brooklyn (2), Dallas, Memphis and Minnesota. (Can also trade swap rights with Brooklyn’s 2017 pick).

Clippers

Earliest first-round pick they can trade is for 2019, and they can’t promise a first-rounder until 2021.

Grizzlies

Can’t trade a first-round pick.

Hawks

Can trade any of their first-round picks, plus an extra one from Minnesota.

Heat

Can’t trade a first-round pick.

Hornets

Can trade any of their first-round picks.

Jazz

Can trade any of their first-round picks, plus extra ones from Golden State and Oklahoma City.

Kings

Earliest first-round pick they can trade is for 2020, and they can’t promise a first-rounder until 2021.

Knicks

Earliest first-round pick they can trade is for 2018.

Lakers

Earliest first-round pick they can trade is for 2020, and they can’t promise a first-rounder until 2021.

Magic

Can trade any of their first-round picks, plus an extra one from the Lakers.

Mavericks

Can’t trade a first-round pick.

Nets

Earliest first-round pick they can trade is for 2020.

Nuggets

Can trade any of their first-round picks, plus extras from Houston, Memphis and Portland. (Can also trade swap rights with New York’s 2016 pick).

Pacers

Can trade any of their first-round picks.

Pelicans

Can trade any of their first-round picks.

Pistons

Can trade any of their first-round picks.

Rockets

Earliest first-round pick they can trade is for 2018.

Raptors

Can trade any of their first-round picks, plus extra ones from the Clippers and either New York or Denver.

Sixers

Can trade any of their first-round picks, plus extras from the Lakers, Miami, Oklahoma City, and Sacramento. (Can also trade swap rights with Golden State’s 2016 pick and Sacramento’s 2016 and 2017 picks.

Spurs

Can trade any of their first-round picks.

Suns

Can trade any of their first-round picks, plus extra ones from Miami (2) and Cleveland.

Timberwolves

Earliest first-round pick they can trade is for 2020, and they can’t promise a first-rounder until 2022.

Thunder

Earliest first-round pick they can trade is for 2020, and they can’t promise a first-rounder until 2022.

Trail Blazers

Earliest first-round pick they can trade is for 2018, and they can’t promise a first-rounder until 2019.

Warriors

Earliest first-round pick they can trade is for 2019.

Wizards

Can trade any of their first-round picks.

The RealGM future traded pick database was used in the creation of this post.

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