Imagine if the NBA Trade Deadline was Friday
Or please allow me, on this Newsletter Tuesday, to ever so briefly divert your attention to the NHL, whose trade deadline really is Friday
Opening Night in the NBA this season was Oct. 24.
In the NHL: Oct. 10.
This season's trade deadline in the NBA came and went on Feb. 8.
The NHL trade deadline is this Friday at 3 PM ET.
Maybe it's just me, but the conflicting trade calendars in the two leagues whose seasons otherwise overlap so closely always jumps off the page. Especially in March when the NHL's trade buzzer finally sounds.
I simply find it bizarre that the best hockey league in the world always starts its regular season well before the best basketball league in the world ... and then allows its trade season to go on for another month beyond the NBA's.
The NHL's regular season actually ends a few days after the NBA's — April 18 vs. our April 14 finale — but the later trade deadline means any player dealt on deadline day gets less than six weeks with their new team before the NHL playoffs begin.
See?
It's intriguing (and funky) on so many levels.
And that's why I was motivated to reach out to a few pals who follow the NHL much closer than I do — two with their own Substacks! — to see if they could help me make sense of the disparate approaches.
Let's turn to the hockey experts:
Mike Harrington The Buffalo News
"The NHL trade deadline is a different form of March Madness because of the standings. More teams can be fooled into thinking they're still in the playoff race because it's a points league and not a win/loss league like the NBA.
Loser points for everyone! We gotta stand pat because it's not over for us yet!
If you're 15-30 in the NBA, you're toast. If you're 15-18-12 in the NHL — still 15-30 to you and me — you're thinking: 'We just need a six-game winning streak to be in a playoff spot.'
NBA teams know much sooner when it's time to start planning for next season. NHL teams don't want to make that call until they absolutely have to. After all, they could go 0-0-82 and still be considered a .500 team!"
"The NHL trade deadline is essentially a month later than the NBA's. Why? I have heard theories on which one is ideal, but the best I can offer is the old reliable: 'It has always been that way.'
The NHL likes it to hit at about the 65-game mark and with roughly four to five weeks before the finish line. They do not have a robust buyout market like the NBA, so they push it back a little more to figure out the buyers and sellers involved in the stretch run.
I wish I had a much better explanation for you, but I think that is the best I can do: Because they always have done it that way.”
"I don't know why the trade deadline is later, but it serves to identify which teams are truly sellers and which are buyers.
As the 2011-12 and 2013-14 Los Angeles Kings and 2018-19 St. Louis Blues illustrated, anybody who gets into the NHL playoffs can go a long way. If the sellers and buyers are better defined, it makes it easier to make deals.
A lot of big deals this season have already been made prior to the deadline. Also: The later the deadline is the more you know about which players will be on Long Term Injured Reserve. Teams can make a move to get close to the salary cap and then welcome back a healed LTIR player for the playoffs and play over the cap. Tampa Bay, Chicago and Las Vegas have won Stanley Cups doing that.
The downside of the later trade deadline is that it extends the anxiety of those who are rumored to be on the block, but that's why some players have 'no-movement' clauses."
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Numbers Game
🏀 29
The NHL's trade deadline for the 2023-24 season finally arrives Friday and, because this is a Leap Year, officially falls 29 days later than the NBA's Feb. 8 trade deadline.
🏀 2017
The gap has actually widened in recent years, remember, after the NBA moved the trade deadline up slightly entering the 2017-18 season to ensure that it passes before the whole league descends upon one city to get together for All-Star Weekend every February. Call it The DeMarcus Cousins Rule; you'll recall that Cousins found out he was being traded from the Kings to the Pelicans while representing Sacramento at the 2017 All-Star Game that was played ... in New Orleans. #thisleague
🏀 13
Luka Dončić leads the league with 13 technical fouls this season. Dončić's 14th tech — and fifth in seven games — was rescinded Monday by the league office. The newly crowned Western Conference Player of the Month faces a one-game suspension if he reaches 16 technicals and an additional one-game suspension with every other technical (18th, 20th, etc.) after that.
🏀 12
Houston's Dillon Brooks was closest to Dončić entering Tuesday's play with 12 technicals. Atlanta's Trae Young has 11 and four other players (Minnesota's Anthony Edwards, Milwaukee's Bobby Portis, Cleveland's Max Strus and Charlotte's Grant Williams) each have 10.
🏀 16
Donovan Mitchell missed 13 of Cleveland's first 60 games this season and that number will rise to at least 16 after Mitchell received a PRP injection Monday to treat a left knee bone bruise. Once Mitchell misses 18 games, he is ineligible for MVP or All-NBA consideration this season.
🏀 25
This is the 25th season that the Lakers and Clippers have been co-tenants at the building formerly known as Staples Center.
🏀 50-47
The Clippers narrowly won the building’s all-time matchup often referred to as the Hallway Series by 50-47 ... thanks largely to a remarkable 37-9 surge (excluding a win for the Lakers in the Walt Disney World bubble in Orlando) starting with the 2012-13 season.
🏀 0
The Lakers and Clippers have never met in a playoff game — at the building they’ve shared for a quarter-century or anywhere else. So their last game as co-tenants, barring a playoff showdown at last this spring, saw the Lakers erase a 21-point deficit on Feb. 28 to claim a 116-112 triumph.
🏀 11
The Bucks clearly didn't appreciate Monday's article suggesting Boston and Denver might already be on a crash course to square off in the NBA Finals. Milwaukee has won six games in a row under new coach Doc Rivers to rise to No. 2 in the East ... despite Khris Middleton missing 11 consecutive games with a sprained left ankle.
🏀 47.1
As pointed out earlier this week via the usual excellent math from The Athletic's John Hollinger, 47.1% of the Celtics' shots this season (whoa) have been taken from 3-point range.
🏀 .441
As pointed out by loyal reader
, Boston entered Tuesday’s play not only on a 66-16 pace but with the easiest remaining schedule based on opponent winning percentage (.441) according to Tankathon.🏀 38
Although it happened against the Wizards, Utah’s Jordan Clarkson made some history Monday night with what Basketball Reference says is the first game in its database in which a player has recorded at least 38 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists in a reserve role.
🏀 97.1
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Yeah I agree it would be better if it were a few weeks earlier, gives more time for players to adjust to their new team and find their role. Plus as a fan especially for the leafs who have trade rumours/dreams start in November lol it feels so daunting having to wait until early March for trade action. It would be awesome as a fan of both if it was a week apart from the NBA deadline lol
Marc, one note on the NHL deadline wasn’t mentioned specifically in the article is the salary cap implications of making moves exactly at the deadline. The later you make a move for a player with a large cap hit the less money you need to put in your cap hit which gets calculated at the end of the season. So teams like my Maple Leafs are incentivized to wait until the last minute to land a player with a large salary cap hit (which I’m praying they do before Friday lol) and with the deadline being so late in the season helps with that, versus it being earlier. I really hope some day the NHL can adopt some version of a NBA luxury tax, it would make the game way more fun with transactions, plus the players salaries will be drastically less scrutinized which is a common topic in Toronto sadly.