Sports
Predicting Top NBA Stars and Players Traded This Season – Bleacher Report
Mass player movement has become the norm for NBA offseasons, and 2023 was no exception. But even after a flurry of trades and free-agency signings, it still feels like a few outstanding moves are floating around the ether.
There will undoubtedly be more trades between now and the 2024 trade deadline, and you’ll find some decent bets on who’ll be involved in those deals below.
Whether from an effort to unload an expiring contract, grant a trade request or some other reason, these seven players will be moved this season. We start with three players who don’t have a star-level impact on the court, and we finish with four who do.
The explanation here is pretty simple. Expiring contracts can still hold some value for teams looking to move unwanted long-term salary, and 2023-24 is the final season of Gordon Hayward’s deal.
Unless Hayward stays healthy, plays well and helps the Charlotte Hornets smash preseason expectations, trading him for the last few months of the contract could be very enticing.
Of course, Charlotte would certainly want something beyond another team’s onerous salary, so it might be able to coax a second-rounder out of the trade too.
The other version of this involves Hayward checking two of the three boxes above by staying healthy and playing well for a Hornets team that is still somewhere between bad and mediocre.
In that situation, a contender might be willing to rent Hayward’s services for a late first or prospect languishing on that team’s bench.
Evan Fournier’s under contract through 2024-25, when he’s set to be paid $19 million, but it’s a team option. Functionally, that makes it an expiring contract for whatever team takes him on.
That means much of the analysis from the Hayward slide applies here, but the 30-year-old Fournier is three years younger than the Hornets forward. He doesn’t have as concerning an injury history either.
And although he fell entirely out of the New York Knicks’ rotation last season, it’s hard to imagine he’s suddenly unplayable.
During the three seasons immediately preceding 2022-23, Fournier averaged 16.3 points and 2.8 threes, while shooting 39.7 percent from deep. And over the course of his entire career, his teams’ point differential is slightly better when he plays.
His ability to at least space the floor could make Fournier as likely to be a rental as he is to be a salary dump. And two paths out of New York make him a pretty obvious trade candidate.
D’Angelo Russell is a solid outside shooter and pick-and-roll playmaker, but he may not be the championship-level defender the Los Angeles Lakers need to contend, and the contract he signed looks suspiciously like a trade chip.
And that speculation was only fueled when Russell immediately waived the implied no-trade clause that came from the two-year contract he signed (players who re-sign for one year or one year and an option can veto trades during the upcoming season).
At $17.3 million for 2023-24, Russell’s salary is very movable. And if aggregated with Rui Hachimura, it might be enough to get a star.
If that star wasn’t a guard, L.A. could lean on Austin Reaves, Gabe Vincent and LeBron James to replace Russell’s playmaking. If that star was, oh say, Kyrie Irving, the Lakers wouldn’t have to worry about that player.
Of course, the Dallas Mavericks would want some additional consideration in such a move, but it’s easy to imagine trades like that for L.A. thanks to the deal Russell signed.
The Chicago Bulls front office can reasonably point to the ongoing Lonzo Ball injury saga as the reason for the team’s mediocrity, but it doesn’t seem like that will end any time soon.
And over the two seasons since DeMar DeRozan was acquired, Chicago is a thoroughly uninspiring minus-1.7 points per 100 possessions when he, Zach LaVine and Nikola Vučević are all on the floor. The Bulls are an even worse minus-2.6 when those three play without Lonzo.
With no meaningful shake-up from this offseason and several teams in the East likely to improve, it’s hard to imagine that trend reversing.
So, if Chicago remains in that bad-to-mediocre range a couple months into 2023-24, it’ll have to start thinking about breaking up that core. In that circumstance, LaVine will almost certainly have the highest trade value.
At 28 years old, he figures to have a few prime seasons left. He’s under contract through 2026-27 (when he has a $49 million player option) for a salary that will look pretty reasonable as the cap continues to rise. And he could be a dynamic second or third option for a team in the hunt for a title.
Over the last four seasons, LaVine has averaged 25.5 points and 4.5 assists with a 55.8 effective field-goal percentage.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and LeBron James are the only players in the league who match or exceed all three of those marks over the same span.
Like the Bulls, the Toronto Raptors may have to face the harsh truth that, at least as presently constructed, they’re just not very good.
Last season, they failed to advance past the play-in tournament. And this summer, starting point guard Fred VanVleet left in free agency.
Dennis Schröder may be able to pick of some of that slack, but his 13.8 points and 4.9 assists over the last three seasons certainly doesn’t measure up to VanVleet’s 19.8 and 6.8 during the same span.
And while the Chicago numbers are worse than the plus-1.5 net rating Toronto had when Pascal Siakam and Scottie Barnes played without VanVleet in 2022-23, that Raptors number shouldn’t move many fans either. It suggests a second straight season with a play-in ceiling.
So, if Toronto is hovering in or around the bottom third of the East as the trade deadline approaches, it should (and probably will) explore the value of Siakam.
As a third or fourth option, he can still move the needle the way he did for the 2019 championship-winning Raptors, but he’s a little over-extended in his current role (2018-19 was the last time he posted above-average scoring efficiency).
Moving him for shooting or a player closer to Barnes’ developmental timeline could set Toronto up for more meaningful success in a few years.
This is a gimme, of course (as is the next slide), but Damian Lillard is still on the Portland Trail Blazers despite recently confirming his trade request.
And although there’s plenty of time between now and the start of the 2023-24 season, there’s also no imminent deadline pressuring Portland to move. With each passing week, it feels more likely that this could drag into the regular season.
If it does, the Lillard trade watch will remain a constant storyline till he’s moved, February’s deadline or he backs off the request.
Again, given that recent confirmation, the last scenario seems like the least likely.
And even if the deal has yet to be finalized, it still feels like all roads are pointing to the Miami Heat for Lillard.
He’s still one of the best offensive players in basketball (he led the league in 2022-23 offensive estimated plus-minus), but he’s a 33-year-old defensive liability under contract through 2026-27 (when he has a $63.2 million player option).
On top of reports that Miami is the only team Lillard wants to play for, any team acquiring him would have to know it’s a bona fide contender immediately after the trade is finalized.
The Heat might be the only team that has the assets necessary to pull off the deal and remain a contender afterward.
Here’s another gimme, and this one feels likelier to drag into the regular season than the Dame dilemma.
Even after James Harden publicly called Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey a liar for not trading him this summer (a move that resulted in a $100,000 fine that the NBPA is appealing), there appears to be little to no traction on any potential Harden deals.
Given his age (34), recent playoff struggles and the fact that whatever team does land him would be faced with his free agency in 2024, that shouldn’t be surprising.
At this point, remaining with the Sixers for at least the start of 2023-24 is probably Harden’s best path to what he wants.
To rehab his trade value, he probably needs to soldier up, play well and convince at least one suitor that his playmaking is worth the cost of some real assets.
The scorched earth strategy he may be planning (as evidenced by the “Daryl Morey is a liar” video) is almost certainly riskier.