NBA Free Agency: Trades, Trades, & More Trades

The common consensus among most fans is that the NBA off-season has been a million times more entertaining than this year’s playoffs.  Now if you are an avid Warriors fan or Cavaliers fan,  you may strongly disagree.  There has been a flurry of change in the NBA since the final buzzer sounded, and almost every team has gotten in on the action.  It’s like back in middle school when you convinced yourself that you were A-Okay having a dreary locker that only had textbooks in it.  Then you saw a kid with a locker shelf, a kid with a massive picture frame in there, a kid with their name spelled in flashy glitter letter.  Everything changes then, because you can be left out can you?

Given the projected total domination of the Golden State Warriors in the next couple of year by basically everyone, teams have had to decide whether they want to try and build their own super team to lock horns with the Warriors, or if they want to be content with merely adding fun players and putting on a good show for the fans.  That said, since the trade deadline you may need to visually look at a list.  If you are anything like me you’ve lost track of the shuffling here are the major player shifts that have occurred in the last 2-3 weeks.

One of the biggest moves that had everyone buzzing was that of Paul George, who was originally with the Indiana Pacers.  George has expressed to his closest friends and fellow athletes that he had an intense desire to play for his hometown team, the Los Angeles Lakers.  Coming off of Kobe’s retirement, the Lakers are somewhat rebuilding and trying to find their way with new administration calling the shots.  Although they did make moves to clear cap space for George (and other big fish), the Lakers reportedly did not have enough to offer the Pacers to trade for George this season.

All Lakers fans continue to hold their breath that George doesnt fall in love with the city of OKC and can still come to the west coast.  I think Paul George will be effective in relieving some of the pressure off of Russell Westbrook, maybe even getting them deeper in the playoffs.  Ultimately however, I dont see them getting any further than first round.

The Sacramento Kings and the Philadelphia 76ers are on this trade list more than a few times because they’ve made a ton of moves between the draft and the trade deadline.  Sacramento is working on not being the forgotten California team and there is no way that they don’t make a splash with Buddy Hield, Vince Carter, and the rookie De’Aaron Fox all on the same court.That’s bound to be a fun team to watch.  Philly’s process seems to be paying off after years and years of draft picks that seemed to be going nowhere.  They need Joel Embiid to stay healthy, but after adding a steady and experienced shooter in JJ Reddick to play alongside some of the rookies, they should be in safe hands.

Many smaller franchises made moves to get bigger players, but even the top dogs got in on the action.  The Golden State Warriors picked up Nick Young, while the San Antonio Spurs are hoping they can rehab Rudy Gay and get him back to full effectiveness.  There may be a few more moves in the coming weeks, but with the start of the summer league we can all take a breather and go over the rosters of our favorite teams.