Let’s Talk Trades.

Sorry to keep you waiting on my next blog. I was away briefly, but now I’m here and we’re back in business, so let’s get back to it.

Let’s talk trades. The NBA offseason. This is the time when many players evaluate their options and may choose to move teams for a variety of reasons. Some players move for increased game time and some players move simply to go to a better team. However in most situations, the players involved in a trade may not actually want to move but are being used as assets to increase the value of a trade. There is quite a lot to cover when it comes to trades so let’s get right to it!

When tackling the topic of trades, the first aspect that must be mentioned is a team’s salary cap. The salary cap is a maximum limit set on the amount of spending each NBA team is allowed to spend on player wages. One could compare salary caps to transfer budgets in Football, or Soccer to our American counterparts. Although they are not the same, the idea of a finite amount of money the team can utilise stays true. This value varies each season depending on the amount of revenue made the previous season. The NBA has vastly been increasing in popularity and, in turn, viewership. This has resulted in an increase in the yearly salary caps which explains the vast increase in player wages being seen across the NBA. Notable increases in player contracts include Stephen Curry, Gordon Hayward, James Harden, Blake Griffin and Russell Westbrook.

Trading is the main way that teams acquire players that they need in the NBA. Other ways include the NBA draft and also acquiring players who are free agents. Free agents are players who are still willing and able to play basketball, however, they are are not attached to any team. There are two types of free agent. Restricted and unrestricted. Life is fairly simple for unrestricted free agents, they are able to sign with whichever team they choose, provided that team wants them of course. Restricted free agents operate under the same circumstances as unrestricted free agents. However, there is one fundamental difference between the two, the team that the restricted free agent plays for has the option to match any offers made by other teams in the NBA. This means that the player must re-sign for their current team for one more year after which, they then become an unrestricted free agent. This rule is called the “right of first refusal”.

As mentioned before trading is how players move teams, but a player simply cannot move from one team to another. They must be, in other words swapped, for a team’s assets which are agreed upon by both teams to be equal in value. The assets that players are traded for include cash, draft picks (future NBA players) and other players across the league. A trade can occur between a minimum of two teams, however, the maximum amount of teams a trade can happen between is theoretically every team in the NBA. This could only happen if every team could come to an agreement which is extremely, and I repeat extremely, unlikely.

Something else that must also be mentioned when it comes to trades, are that players must be in a physical condition where they are able to play. If not, the team receiving an injured player can ask for more than what they’re actually worth in return. This can be seen from the trade taking Kyrie Irving from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Celtics and Cleveland receiving Jae Crowder, Isaiah Thomas, Ante Zizic and an unprotected 2018 draft pick from the Celtics. A pick being unprotected means that if the Cavs do badly this season, then it’s like they’ll get a high draft pick, meaning a very good player from college. If they do amazingly well, which quite frankly is what is expected of them, then it’s anybody’s guess who they’ll get from the draft. Anyway, as mentioned before players need to be in a good physical condition, in this case Isaiah Thomas wasn’t. He is currently suffering from a hip injury which as kept him out of action since the summer. Originally, the Cavs would’ve had to settle for just Thomas, Crowder and a draft pick. Cleveland tried to pry away either Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown from the Celtics, but had to settle for Ante Zizic. An inexperienced player, but one who plays in a position the Cavaliers struggled with quite a bit last season.

So that’s trades. In the second part of this two blog series, I’ll be taking a look at the trades that happened during the offseason and see how that’s affected teams across the NBA with the first matchups of the new season already in the books. Part two, coming soon.