Hoops Rumors Originals News & Rumors

Here’s a look back at the original analysis generated by the Hoops Rumors staff this past week..

• The Trade Rumors App is getting glowing reviews!  If you haven’t already, download it today to keep up with the latest from Hoops Rumors, MLBTradeRumors, and Pro Football Rumors.
• More than half the teams in the league took part in a whirlwind NBA trade deadline and Chuck Myron recapped all the deals.
• Eddie Scarito asked you to pick the winners in each deal.
• The trade deadline was intense, but we gave you all the reading material you needed to be prepared.  The Trade Candidate series profiled many of the players who were rumored to be on the move.
• Chris Crouse asked you if the Rockets will advance to the second round.
• Chuck ran down the expiring trade exceptions.
• If you missed Chuck’s chat, check out the transcript here.

More than half the teams in the league took part in a whirlwind NBA trade deadline Thursday. A dozen trades involving 39 players and 17 teams took place. Eight teams made multiple trades, while Sixers GM Sam Hinkie and Suns GM Ryan McDonough were busiest, each pulling off three swaps. It brings to a close one of the busiest seasons for trades in memory, with 25 deals going down between the beginning of the regular season and the deadline.

The Heat’s trade for Goran Dragic, a three-team affair with the Suns and Pelicans, involved perhaps the most significant player who changed hands, though it has plenty of competition for that distinction. Detroit’s acquisition of Reggie Jackson and the three-team swap that saw Brandon Knight head to the Suns and Michael Carter-Williams go to the Bucks were landmark deals, too. Sentimentality, if nothing else, makes Minnesota’s trade for Kevin Garnett, who began his NBA career with the Timberwolves 20 years ago, another particularly noteworthy move.

Here’s a look at each trade that took place on deadline day:

Heat-Pelicans-Suns

• The Heat get Goran Dragic and Zoran Dragic.
• The Pelicans get Norris Cole, Shawne Williams, Justin Hamilton and $369K cash (from Miami).
• The Suns get John Salmons, Danny Granger, Miami’s 2017 first-round pick (top seven protected), Miami’s unprotected 2021 first-round pick, and $2.2MM cash (from Miami). Salmons was waived as part of the deal.

Pistons-Thunder-Jazz

• The Pistons get Reggie Jackson.
• The Thunder get Enes Kanter, Steve Novak, D.J. Augustin, Kyle Singler and Detroit’s 2019 second-round pick.
• The Jazz get Kendrick Perkins, Grant Jerrett, the rights to Tibor Pleiss, Oklahoma City’s 2017 first-round pick (top-14 protected) and Detroit’s 2017 second-round pick.

Suns-Bucks-Sixers

• The Suns get Brandon Knight and Kendall Marshall. Marshall was waived as part of the deal.
• The Bucks get Michael Carter-Williams, Tyler Ennis and Miles Plumlee.
• The Sixers get the Lakers’ 2015 first-round pick (top-five protected).

Timberwolves-Nets

• The Timberwolves get Kevin Garnett.
• The Nets get Thaddeus Young.

Trail Blazers-Nuggets

• The Trail Blazers get Arron Afflalo and Alonzo Gee.
• The Nuggets get Will Barton, Victor Claver, Thomas Robinson, and a 2016 first-round pick (top-14 protected).

Celtics-Suns

• The Celtics get Isaiah Thomas.
• The Suns get Marcus Thornton and Cleveland’s 2016 first-round pick (top-10 protected).

Rockets-Sixers

• The Rockets get K.J. McDaniels.
• The Sixers get Isaiah Canaan and the less favorable of Minnesota’s and Denver’s 2015 second-round picks.

Sixers-Nuggets

• The Sixers get JaVale McGee, the rights to Chu Chu Maduabum and Oklahoma City’s 2015 first-round pick (top-18 protected).
• The Nuggets get Cenk Akyol.

Pistons-Celtics

• The Pistons get Tayshaun Prince.
• The Celtics get Gigi Datome and Jonas Jerebko.

Wizards-Kings

• The Wizards get Ramon Sessions.
• The Kings get Andre Miller and $839K cash.

Rockets-Knicks

• The Rockets get Pablo Prigioni.
• The Knicks get Alexey Shved, Houston’s 2017 second-round pick and Houston’s 2019 second-round pick.

Pelicans-Thunder

• The Pelicans get Ish Smith, the rights to Latavious Williams, Philadelphia’s 2015 second-round pick (top-55 protected) and $801K cash. Smith was subsequently waived.
• The Thunder get the less favorable of Sacramento’s 2016 second-round pick (top-55 protected) and New Orleans’ 2016 second-round pick.

It’s only a matter of hours until today’s 2pm Central trade deadline, and Hoops Rumors has you covered. We have several resources to help you prepare for the action that’s about to unfold and enjoy the deadline to its fullest:

• Our Trade Candidate Series goes in depth on more than a dozen players who have decent chances of changing teams today.
• Trade exceptions allow transactions that otherwise wouldn’t work to take place, and they can be powerful tools for the teams that possess them. Check out our complete list here and the exceptions expiring at the deadline here.
• Our round-by-round look at traded draft picks provides a glimpse of who owes valuable draft assets to whom and when those debts will come due.
• Nearly half the league is either paying the luxury tax or within $5MM of the tax threshold. See the teams courting the tax, many of which figure to be especially wary of finances today.
• Draft-and-stash prospects commonly end up in trades. See a complete list of all the draft rights held players and their whereabouts, courtesy of Mark Porcaro.
• Catch up with a list of trades that have taken place so far this season.
• Find out how teams have fared after making major trades in the past with Eddie Scarito’s Trade Retrospective Series, which examines landmark swaps with in-depth historical analysis.
• Our team-specific and transactions-only feeds help you customize the trade deadline news so you get only the information that’s relevant to you.
• The free Trade Rumors app is also highly customizable and now lets you set up notifications to keep you in the loop no matter where you go.

The trade deadline is less than 48 hours away, but Hoops Rumors has been preparing for months. Part of that effort has entailed in-depth looks at several players who’ve emerged as likely trade candidates. One of them, Jeff Green, already wound up in a deal. The rest of them aren’t players who necessarily will be traded by the deadline, but each of them has been the subject of trade rumors, and if their teams aren’t shopping them, they’ve at least been open to the idea of sending them out.

Our Trade Candidate pieces explore why a trade might happen, the likelihood of a deal going down, and potential suitors, along with other relevant details. Last season, we profiled guys who were moved by the deadline, such as Danny Granger, Evan Turner and Andre Miller, along with others who were eventually dealt over the summer, including Arron Afflalo, Thaddeus Young, and Omer Asik.

These pieces lend perspective to the stream of rumors and reports flying around this week, and they give you a fuller scope of the market as Thursday’s 2pm Central time deadline draws ever closer. A complete list of the players we’ve examined is below, in alphabetical order, with a link to each profile on the names.

• Arron Afflalo
• Andrea Bargnani
• Jose Calderon
• Michael Carter-Williams
• Wilson Chandler
• Norris Cole
• Goran Dragic
• Jeff Green (Traded)
• Reggie Jackson
• Brook Lopez
• Nik Stauskas
• Lance Stephenson
• Deron Williams
• Thaddeus Young

Thursday’s 2pm Central trade deadline is the final chance teams will have to make trades this season, and for some clubs, the opportunity cost is even larger. The Pacers have been sitting on a trade exception worth nearly $4.282MM since last year’s Danny Granger trade, but unless they use it before Thursday’s trade deadline, the exception vanishes. It’s unlikely they’ll use the majority of it, since they’re relatively close to the tax threshold, a line the team has long vowed not to cross, but they’ll lose the chance to expend even a portion of it unless they act this week. Indiana is one of seven teams with trade exceptions that expire with the trade deadline.

Four of those seven have trade exceptions worth in excess of $1MM, including the Nuggets, who have two exceptions valued at about $1.659MM and $1.169MM, respectively. Neither is the sort of powerful weapon that the Celtics have in their $12.9MM-plus Rajon Rondo exception, but they’re assets nonetheless. A trade exception allows a team to take in one or more players who make up to the value of the exception plus $100K. That means that two more of the seven teams with expiring trade exceptions can take back players with salaries of more than $1MM, since the Clippers and Kings have exceptions worth more than $900K. That leaves only the Wizards, who only have $16K left on the Eric Maynor trade exception they created last year, meaning their exception is effectively useless.

The trade deadline also compromises the value of disabled player exceptions, which five teams around the NBA possess. Those clubs will only be able to use those exceptions for a signing or to claim a player off waivers once Thursday passes. They won’t even be able to do that after March 10th, when disabled player exceptions fully expire.

Borrowing from our complete list of outstanding trade exceptions, here are the exceptions that will lapse at this week’s trade deadline:

Denver Nuggets

Amount: $1,659,080
Obtained: Andre Miller (Wizards)

Amount: $1,169,880
Obtained: Jordan Hamilton (Rockets)

Golden State Warriors

Amount: $1,210,080
Obtained: MarShon Brooks (Lakers)

Amount: $788,872
Obtained: Kent Bazemore (Lakers)

Indiana Pacers

Amount: $4,281,921
Obtained: Danny Granger (Sixers)

Los Angeles Clippers

Amount: $947,907
Obtained: Byron Mullens (Sixers)

Amount: $884,293
Obtained: Antawn Jamison (Hawks)

Sacramento Kings

Amount: $973,809
Obtained: Marcus Thornton (Nets)
Initial amount: $2,424,687
Used: Scotty Hopson ($1,450,878)

San Antonio Spurs

Amount: $1,463,000
Obtained: Nando De Colo (Raptors)

Washington Wizards

Amount: $16,000
Obtained: Eric Maynor (Sixers)
Initial amount: $2,016,000
Used: DeJuan Blair ($2,000,000)

Here’s a look at the original analysis generated by the Hoops Rumors staff this week..

• Chuck Myron looked at the teams with tax concerns at the trade deadline.
• Mark Porcaro rolled out the 2014/15 International Transactions Log.
• Chuck examined Deron Williams, whose stock has fallen in recent years, as a trade candidate.
• If the Wolves can get a return for Thaddeus Young that rivals what they gave up for him, they should jump on it, opines Chris Crouse.
• Arthur Hill sees Lance Stephenson as someone who could benefit from a change of scenery.
• Eddie Scarito fielded your questions in this week’s mailbag.
• Eddie gave us the latest edition of the Hoops Rumors Prospect Power Rankings.
• Eddie looked at Nik Stauskas as a trade candidate.
• Your favorite team might not be near No. 1 in the standings, but they’re in the thick of it for the No. 1 pick.  Keep track of the race to the bottom with our Reverse Standings.
• If you missed out on this week’s chat, read up on the transcript here.