The NBA Trade Deadline Just Got WEIRD…

The NBA Trade Deadline Just Got WEIRD…

The 2024 NBA trade deadline is one of the weirdest ones that I can honestly remember over the last decade or so when I’ve been really locked into what’s happening at the trade deadline especially for Content like this feels like a very very strange January to February in the NBA right now hold on

Hold on hold on can we just talk for a second while editing this I just realized I said I’ve been covering the trade deadline for a decade that one that’s not true I haven’t been doing YouTube for a decade too that made me sound like I was about 50 years old like

I’ve been covering the tra deadline since like the ‘ 80s or something anyway carry on with your day now there’s a lot of different reasons for this but let’s just go through some of the deals really quickly so we talked the other day about the James Harden trade how well that is

Worked out for the Clippers and that’s kind of like our biggest star move so far other than if you want to count Pascal SE yakum over the top of that one and it’s a trade that has worked out wonderfully but it’s one that happened way before the deadline so it doesn’t

Really have anything to do with the actual trade deadline itself and then we have the OG and Obi trade which again has worked out wonderfully for the team that made the biggest move in this case being the New York Knicks and that is a deal that we don’t really see a ton of

Typically on a year-to-year basis we’re seeing you know stars getting moved or role player 3 andd guys getting moved but the in between the elite Defender that can also shoot create score a little bit for you those kinds of guys don’t get moved very often and I think

Is an indicator of where we are right now at this particular trade deadline and then of course we have the SE yakum trade as well with the uh you know the the thread between OG and cakam being not only former Raptors but also impending free agents and I think that’s

One thing that is kind of driving some of the rumors that we’re seeing some of the moves that we’ve seen and also just kind of this weird feeling around the deadline and that is the 2024 free agency class as well as the draft class because seakan ogj and and OB are two of

The biggest guys in the free agency class however both New York and Indiana obviously feel confident that they’re going to be able to retain those guys in free agency which is why they made the move in the first place and apart from those two guys it’s not a very very

Strong free agency class typically over the last handful of years maybe not so much in the last year or two but prior to that free agency has seen a ton of different Stars Chang teams I mean you go back to 2019 half the all NBA guys of

That season Chang teams in the offseason that’s not the kind of free agency class that we have this year and so I think there are more teams one that are willing to make impending free agent trade moves because they feel like there’s nobody else that is really going

To be able to take these guys away cuz teams weren’t really planning on a big free agency class cuz they knew in advance it wasn’t going to be a good one so there’s less competition especially if you’re the resigning team and also if there isn’t a big upgrade available in

Free agency and maybe there will be in 2025 why don’t you go ahead and make what is the equivalent of your free agency move now if you’re the Knicks or the Pacers and the generally speaking lack of at least top tier talent in that class I think is definitely

Incentivizing some of these teams in this case Indiana New York to make those kinds of moves and also at the same time kind of weirdly deterring other teams from making moves around the fringes if they feel like maybe things won’t go well New York and Indiana they still

Have a chance to get those guys but I think that’s the primary reason that one we haven’t maybe seen as many trades or as many rumors and also why those two teams in particular made those moves one of the other thingses we’ve seen so far at the deadline is teams being a little

Bit more willing to make moves earlier on in the year than we normally would now of course the Harden thing was a special circumstance but that was an extremely early like Star trade in terms of within the season also the ogj and anobi and Pascal seak typically you know

The week of the deadline is really when we start to see some pieces moving but those teams made Moves much earlier and I think part of that is teams are maybe becoming more and more aware of where they are within the standings maybe a little bit earlier on and really trying

To make sure that they’re not putting themselves in the direct middle and trying to go in One Direction or another and I think in the case of both of these teams in the East Indiana and New York that made these big moves they feel like there’s an opportunity for them

Potentially at the top of the Eastern Conference whereas in the west maybe it’s going to be a little bit more difficult to truly break through the East feels like they have a couple of really good teams but maybe not a ton of depth outside of those you know top

Three or so teams and then really the last piece of this just feeling like like a weird deadline is apart from SE yakum OG and Harden it doesn’t feel like there’s a ton of big names out there and available we become very accustomed to over the last couple of Seasons having a

Ton of you know big-time stars or at least All-Star caliber guys available at the trade deadline and it doesn’t seem like there’s as many rumors around that this year which gives it a little bit of a different feel and a different vibe now there’s a couple of different

Reasons for that one a lot of those guys have been already been traded over the last couple of seasons and so obviously I mean we see teams or players I should say making multiple trade requests multiple seasons in a row I mean that does happen just look at James Harden

But like Kyrie got moved last year KD got moved last year we thought that maybe Donovan Mitchell was going to be a guy that was going to get moved that hasn’t happened doesn’t seem like it will the Trey young thing has been weird but it doesn’t seem like there’s

Actually going to be anybody that’s going to pull the trigger on that and so when that isn’t the case then you have the deadline kind of being about dejonte Murray Zack LaVine guys that are very good but not quite on the level of some of the players that we typically see

Available which generally speaking leads to a quieter deadline and then the other part of that as well and one of the things that makes a player like LaVine particularly difficult to move is some of the new rules that we now have in place with the second apron which I’m

Not going to go into and explain in in you know in super in-depth in this video here but basically it means that if you are going to spend big on players for right now over the next couple of Seasons you can kind of pick two guys

And then the rest of the roster they’re not going to be minimum salary players but it’s difficult at this point when you look into what the future of the league is going to be to have three or four you know 35 Plus million doll guys it’s just very very difficult with the

Way some of the new rules are going to kick in in terms of being restrictive to help build your team and if you’re looking at someone like Zack LaVine being added to your roster I think that’s one of the main reasons that one it’s hard for him to get moved and two

If you’re not getting a true All-Star all-nba guy I think teams are a little bit more hesitant to make moves at this particular deadline and is a reason why LaVine might not get moved and de jonay Murray also might not get moved because he’s got a new big extension coming up

As well and then the other other other reason that we don’t see a lot of star trades so far at least this is still pre- deadline this recording is is that the contending teams have kind of made their moves and don’t really have a ton of assets like if Cleveland wanted to

Trade Donovan Mitchell tomorrow their options are not better than what they traded away for Don of Mitchell seasons ago Milwaukee made their move by trading for Damen Lillard they have no assets the Lakers are extremely Limited in their assets because of some moves they made last year and in years prior Miami

Is a little bit limited as well in terms of their draft pick same thing with Philadelphia these teams Boston’s the same way they made the Drew holiday move these teams that typically would be in the market for a big addition don’t really have the assets which again is I

Think how you end up with OG and anobi and New York and IND and Indiana getting Pascal seaka because those were teams that had assets that felt like they still had some room to improve and were able to to make it work whether it be salary wise or otherwise and so all

Those things in combination bring together a deadline that definitely feels strange if you feel like maybe there’s not as much stuff going on not as much rumors it it’s not in your head it’s definitely a thing this year and I think there’s a ton of different reasons for that we’ve talked about throughout

The video but having said all that there if there’s one thing that I have learned in however many years I’ve been making YouTube videos about the NBA it is to never underestimate the trade deadline and the offseason ability to one surprise us and two kind of not

Necessarily Force but I guess force is the right word Force some of these teams to start making some decisions like when you have an actual deadline you have to make something happen by all of a sudden stuff can get crazy pretty pretty quickly so I’m not necessarily saying

That all these reasons are going to mean that we’re not going to have any other big deals at the deadline as we get closer that’s definitely still a possibility do not underestimate the NBA’s ability to surprise us this is the best content league in the world for a reason like there’s always something

Crazy that can happen on a day-to-day basis but right now it definitely feels like a quieter deadline and especially in comparison to some of the deadlines we’ve had over the last couple of Seasons a very very weird one

The 2024 NBA Trade Deadline Just Got WEIRD…

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