The NBA trade deadline is 10 days away and you know what that means: 10 days of rumors, speculation, mock moves and amateur salary matching.
It’s silly season around the league and players like Aaron Gordon and old friend LaMarcus Aldridge already have been linked to speculation involving the Portland Trail Blazers. But if 14 years covering the NBA and the Blazers has taught me anything, it’s that these early rumors rarely pan out.
Neil Olshey, the Blazers’ President of Basketball Operations, prefers to operate in the shadows, without planting leaks or tipping his hand. If he has a move or two in mind — and surely he does — he prefers not to foreshadow it.
Of course, some swear that where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and there was some heat connected with the Blazers today.
According to The Athletic, the Orlando Magic have been “open to listening to calls on Gordon,” and the Blazers and Minnesota Timberwolves are “among the teams showing interest.” In the same report, The Athletic suggests that the Blazers, Miami Heat and Boston Celtics would be “leading suitors” for Aldridge if he lands on the buyout market.
At the very least, it should be an interesting 10 days.
Here’s a look at what’s happening around the NBA:
• The Athletic also hs put together a trade “Big Board” that examines a handful of players who could be on the move, including Toronto’s Kyle Lowry:
“With free agency looming for Lowry this offseason, does he want to finish this season with Toronto or perhaps join another contender? His hometown of Philly is nice this time of year, as you may have heard …
“Typically, the players’ desires aren’t taken into account in trade talks. But after nine seasons in Toronto, one championship, seven playoff berths and six All-Star appearances, rival executives believe that Raptors president Masai Ujiri is, in fact, considering Lowry’s desires. And while there’s no clarity here, per se, Lowry recently used his Instagram account to refute claims that he was telling people he would be traded. Lowry later went on to address his situation on Wednesday.”
• Meanwhile, according to the Washington Post, the NBA’s play-in tournament could make this a quiet trade deadline:
“The play-in tournament was instituted during the bubble at Disney World to help drum up early buzz after a four-month layoff. It was expanded this season to discourage tanking and to inject excitement into the stretch run of a condensed schedule that has seen games played in mostly empty buildings. …
“Now comes the test: Will this lowering of the bar succeed in encouraging losing teams to prioritize a playoff chase at the March 25 trade deadline? Entering Monday, six teams were outside the play-in picture but still within striking distance: the Toronto Raptors, Washington Wizards, Cleveland Cavaliers, New Orleans Pelicans, Oklahoma City Thunder and Sacramento Kings.”
• Bleacher Report, which has been churning out fake trade rumors for months, offers up a round of buy or sell for the latest speculation.
• In what was a monumental day for the league — and another positive step in the fight against COVID-19 — members of the New Orleans Pelicans, including some players, received their first dose of the vaccine on Sunday. ESPN has the details:
“Dozens of eligible members of the New Orleans Pelicans organization, including multiple players, received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine Saturday, the team announced.
The Pelicans received their vaccines through a partnership with a local hospital and in consultation with team doctors and officials. On Tuesday, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards expanded eligibility for the COVID-19 vaccine, allowing anyone 16 or older with a health condition that may result in a higher risk of disease to get the vaccine.”
• Speaking of COVID-19 … the pandemic has virtually killed practices in the NBA, writes the Los Angeles Times:
“Say the word “practice” to an NBA player, coach or executive in 2021 and you’ll either get a chuckle or an Allen Iverson impression. If leaguewide trends had not already devalued the thing that makes one perfect, the NBA’s pandemic schedule has almost eliminated it.”
• The Blazers are failing to meet coach Terry Stotts’ defensive challenge so far, according to The Athletic:
“When the Trail Blazers reconvened from the All-Star break on March 10, the first thing they did was have a film session. It was there that coach Terry Stotts stood before his players and issued a challenge.
“‘From this point forward,’ Stotts recalled telling his team, ‘we need to be in the top half’ of the NBA’s defensive rating.
“It was a daunting directive. The Blazers at the time ranked 28th out of 30 teams in defensive rating, a ranking that was no doubt affected by the injuries to center Jusuf Nurkic, forward Zach Collins and guard CJ McCollum. (Nurkic had the best defensive rating on the team and McCollum was third at the time of their injuries. Collins, another noted defender, has not played this season).”
(As an aside, it’s not the first time Stotts has issued a midseason defensive challenge to one of his teams, and this reminds me of something he did in January 2016, which sparked the Blazers to that memorable late-season run to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs.)
• Si.com breaks down Chris Webber’s case for the Hall of Fame:
“Webber was named a finalist for the Hall last week, alongside former NBA stars Paul Pierce, Chris Bosh, Tim Hardaway, Michael Cooper and Ben Wallace. But Webber has been a finalist before. He’s been eligible since 2013. And still, he waits.
“It’s thoroughly confounding to anyone who watched Webber play — and more so to those who competed against him over his 15-year NBA career, especially during Webber’s prime with the Kings.”
• Grin and Barrett: Do the Knicks have a star in the making or something else? The Ringer takes a look at RJ Barrett:
“But comparison is the thief of joy, and Barrett’s position in the league deserves consideration on its own merits. Fresh off a career-high 32 points in New York’s win over Oklahoma City on Saturday, he’s on pace to be just the sixth NBA player ever to average at least 18 points, six rebounds, and three assists per 36 minutes before his age-21 campaign; before this season, only LeBron James, Chris Webber, and Luka Doncic had done it. He has improved in virtually every facet of the game—finishing in the paint, knocking down jumpers and free throws, handling the ball, facilitating offense, defending on the perimeter—and earned a permanent-marker spot in Tom Thibodeau’s starting lineup, logging the second-most minutes on the Knicks behind only All-Star Julius Randle.
“And, for what it’s worth, Barrett’s not exactly devoid of sauce himself. He’s plenty capable of generating highlights with evil hesitation dribbles, slick Euro-steps, no-look feeds, and the occasional left-handed tomahawk. There’s an attractive package here, one that has made Barrett — still just 20, younger than 29 members of the current rookie class — the clear second-best player on a team whose rise to playoff contention has been one of this season’s most pleasant surprises. The big question, for Barrett and the Knicks alike, is whether the pretty wrapping paper holds something that can become truly special.”
• NBA stars are increasingly pouring money into startups as a way to invest and break down barriers for people of color, according to Business Insider:
“In the last two months alone, a broad range of startups have received investments from NBA all-stars like Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant, Nets shooting guard James Harden, and Washington Wizards point guard Russell Westbrook.
“These investments reflect the thriving business culture that has been cultivated in the league by Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and LeBron James, as well the hard work behind the scenes by people like Cline-Thomas and Rich Kleiman, Durant’s manager as well as the cofounder of their investment firm, Thirty Five Ventures, and their multimedia platform, Boardroom.
“‘[Athletes] make more money than they’ll be able to spend, most of them,’ Cline-Thomas told Insider. ‘There’s a responsibility for them to be educated in what’s going on around them. They obviously have a keen interest in this and learning something new, but it’s the education to the broader public – I think that there’s just so much we can do in having that microphone.’”
• The NBA had a triple-double bonanza over the weekend, when, for the first time in league history, five players recorded a triple-double on the same day, according to NBA.com.
• Kawhi Leonard called the LA Clippers’ inconsistency ‘very concerning’ after the team was routed by the New Orleans Pelicans, according to ESPN:
“The Clippers never led and trailed by 33 points before falling 135-115 to the up-and-down Pelicans in New Orleans. While the Clippers were without Patrick Beverley (knee) and lost a second starter in Serge Ibaka for the second half due to lower back tightness, Leonard has not liked what he has seen.
“The Clippers, a team expected to contend for a championship, have lost five of their past seven games. After starting the season 21-8, the Clippers are just 4-7 since.
“‘It’s very concerning,’ Leonard said when asked what his level of concern is at over the slippage. ‘[If] we want to have a chance at anything, you gotta be consistent. You know, that’s what the great teams do, they’re consistent. They have their nights when, you know, the energy’s not there. But it’s all about consistency, from teams to players to coaches. That’s what makes a team great, players great, coaches great. A consistency of being, wanting to win, and doing pretty much the same habits of winning.’”
— Joe Freeman | jfreeman@oregonian.com | 503-294-5183 | @BlazerFreeman | Subscribe to The Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.