Sunday Best: LOTS of updates from NBA Trade Season
The trade deadline itself is less than two weeks away now ... so let's cap a weekend filled with weather disruption in the warmest manner we know how
Anthony Davis. Ja Morant. And, of course, Giannis Antetokounmpo.
And now Jonathan Kuminga.
Those are four of the foremost headline-generators of this NBA Trade Season. Stories like this edition of the Sunday Best around-the-league notes wouldn't have existed in recent weeks or months without them.
Yet all of them have been sidelined by injuries that will prevent them from playing until after the Feb. 5 trade deadline. Kuminga was the latest to be ruled out indefinitely via this Sunday announcement from the Warriors ... after I tweeted something similar (which is also enclosed) about Morant on Saturday:
You know what they say, though, about the NBA and life in general: Deadlines spur action.
So I wouldn't dare jump to the conclusion that this is going to be a quiet deadline. True: We've only seen one trade so far. Yet the last two seasons — both of which took place in the NBA's dreaded Aprons Era — witnessed an average of 26.5 in-season trades according to the bookkeeping of ESPN's Bobby Marks.
Translation: Trae Young to Washington won't be the only swap this season. Promise.
Let's proceed, then, to my latest compilation of trade chatter items from all over the NBA. We have lots to work with …
Among the factors frequently cited for the lack of trade movement since the Hawks dealt Young to the Wizards on Jan. 9: There are multiple teams out there that have held off on other business in hopes that the Bucks might truly (and finally) greenlight offers for Giannis Antetokounmpo, which still hasn't really happened in earnest yet. The People's Insider Jake Fischer wrote about Giannis extensively here Saturday:
A couple things I can add to Jake's reporting …