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Free Agent Stock Watch: Pacific Division

February 27th, 2021 at 3:15pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Throughout the season, Hoops Rumors takes a closer look at players who will be free agents or could become free agents this off-season. We examine if their stock is rising or falling due to performance and other factors. This week, we take a look at players from the Pacific Division:

Kelly Oubre, Warriors, 25, SF (Up) – Signed to a two-year, $30MM deal in 2019

The Warriors were willing to explode their luxury tax bill by using a $17.2MM trade exception to acquire Oubre. Initially, it looked like a colossal waste of money. He got off to a woeful start, missing 28 of his first 30 3-point attempts. Oubre has settled in this month, doing what he does best – providing offensive punch while helping out around the boards. He’s averaging 20.5 PPG and 6.5 RPG and shooting 44% from long range in February. Productive wings are always in demand and Oubre – though his perimeter shot is still inconsistent — should be able to attract offers similar to the one he signed two years ago with the Suns.

Markieff Morris, Lakers, 31, PF (Down) – Signed to a one-year, $2.33MM deal in 2020

Morris had his contract bought out by the Pistons last season in order to join a contender. He made a good choice, giving the Lakers some rotation minutes during their championship run. He re-upped with the Lakers this offseason and has retained his rotation role. Morris’ playing time has recently increased in Anthony Davis’ absence, but he hasn’t moved the needle. He’s shooting 38.9% from the field and 30.4% from deep after making 39.7% of his 3s for Detroit last season. It’s quite possible that Morris will see his playing time evaporate when Davis returns and/or the Lakers add a frontcourt piece.

Langston Galloway, Suns, 29, SG (Down) – Signed to a one-year, $2MM deal in 2020

When Galloway signed with Phoenix for the veteran’s minimum, it initially appeared like one of the better under-the-radar moves of the offseason. It hasn’t worked out that way. At the moment, Galloway is under wraps. He was coming off a strong season for the Pistons, averaging 10.3 PPG off the bench while shooting 39.9% from the field and playing solid defense as well. With the Suns, Galloway finds himself out of the rotation with E’Twaun Moore absorbing most of the backup guard minutes. Galloway could still make his mark on a playoff team at some point.

Jabari Parker, Kings, 25, SF (Down) – Signed to a two-year, $13MM deal in 2019

Imagine if the Bucks had selected Joel Embiid in 2014 and waited out his foot injuries. Alas, Milwaukee chose Parker and missed out on a potential superstar pairing with Giannis Antetokounmpo. Parker is on his fifth NBA team, though if you weren’t aware that he’s on Sacramento’s roster, it’s perfectly understandable. Due to a back injury, personal reasons, and now COVID-19 protocols, Parker has appeared in just two games this season. He’s still young enough to reestablish himself as an instant-offense reserve but he’ll probably be looking at veteran’s minimum deals in free agency.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Cash Sent, Received In NBA Trades For 2020/21

February 26th, 2021 at 7:40pm CST by Luke Adams

During each NBA league year, teams face limits on the amount of cash they can send out and receive in trades. Once they reach those limits, they’re no longer permitted to include cash in a deal until the following league year.

For the 2020/21 NBA season, the limit is $5,617,000. If a team is including cash in a deal, the minimum amount required is $110,000.

The limits on sending and receiving cash are separate and aren’t dependent on one another, so if a team sends out $5,617,000 in one trade, then receives $5,617,000 in another, they aren’t back to square one — they’ve reached both limits for the season and can’t make another deal that includes cash.

Adding cash to a deal can serve multiple purposes. It can be a sweetener to encourage a team to make a deal in the first place – like when a team acquires a second-round pick in exchange for cash – or it can be a necessity to meet CBA requirements.

For instance, when the Jazz agreed to trade Ed Davis to the Knicks in November, they were looking to dump his $5MM salary, and sent New York a pair of second-round picks as a favor for helping them out. But Utah had to receive something in the deal, so the Knicks agreed to send the Jazz $110K, the minimum amount that can change hands in any trade involving cash.

We’ll use the space below to track each team’s cash sent and received in trades for the 2020/21 season, updating the info as necessary leading up to the 2021 trade deadline and for the first part of the 2021 offseason in July. These totals will reset once the ’21/22 league year begins in August.

Note: Data from Basketball Insiders, ESPN’s Bobby Marks, and various media reports was used in the creation of this post.

Atlanta Hawks

  • Cash available to send: $5,617,000
  • Cash available to receive: $3,517,000

Boston Celtics

  • Cash available to send: $4,317,000
    • Sent $1,300,000 to Bulls.
  • Cash available to receive: $5,617,000

Brooklyn Nets

  • Cash available to send: $3,017,000
  • Cash available to receive: $5,617,000

Charlotte Hornets

  • Cash available to send: $5,617,000
  • Cash available to receive: $3,617,000

Chicago Bulls

  • Cash available to send: $5,617,000
  • Cash available to receive: $4,067,000

Cleveland Cavaliers

  • Cash available to send: $3,617,000
    • Sent $2,000,000 to Jazz.
  • Cash available to receive: $5,617,000

Dallas Mavericks

  • Cash available to send: $4,517,000
  • Cash available to receive: $5,617,000

Denver Nuggets

  • Cash available to send: $5,617,000
  • Cash available to receive: $5,507,000

Detroit Pistons

  • Cash available to send: $5,257,000
  • Cash available to receive: $1,017,000
    • Received $4,600,000 from Rockets.

Golden State Warriors

  • Cash available to send: $1,767,000
  • Cash available to receive: $5,617,000

Read more

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Hoops Rumors’ 2021 10-Day Contract Tracker

February 26th, 2021 at 3:52pm CST by Luke Adams

On February 23, NBA teams became eligible to sign players to 10-day contracts, and many of the signings that take place between now and the end of the regular season in May will likely be of the 10-day variety. Hoops Rumors has created a database that allows you to keep on top of those deals, tracking every 10-day signing all season long.

Besides featuring all of this year’s 10-day deals, our 10-Day Contract Tracker includes information on all 10-day contracts signed since the 2006/07 season, giving you a chance to identify trends regarding your favorite teams and players. The search filters in the database make it easy to sort by team, player and year. For instance, if you want to see all the 10-day contracts that the Lakers have signed in recent years, you can do so here.

You can also see whether a player and team signed a second 10-day contract, or if those short-term deals led to an agreement that covered the rest of the season. Our tracker, which is updated when a 10-day signing becomes official, also notes which 10-day deals remain active, saving you from having to figure out whether a particular contract ends on Wednesday or Thursday.

A link to our 10-Day Contract Tracker can be found at any time in the right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features” on our desktop site. On our mobile site, you can find it on our “Features” page. We’ll be keeping it up to date for the rest of the season, so be sure to check back to keep tabs on the latest signings as they become official.

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Recap Of Non-Guaranteed Contract Decisions

February 25th, 2021 at 7:29am CST by Luke Adams

February 24 was a key date for the NBA players who were on non-guaranteed contracts for the 2020/21 season. While their salaries won’t technically become guaranteed until February 27, the players who remained under contract through 4:00pm central time on Wednesday are now assured those guaranteed salaries. If released today, they wouldn’t clear waivers by the start of February 27, so they’ve survived the cut.

While several players with non-guaranteed contracts were released in recent days, most are now safe. We’ll use the space below to break down those decisions from around the league.

The following players will have their non-guaranteed 2020/21 salaries become fully guaranteed on Saturday:

The following players were waived within the last few days before their salaries could become fully guaranteed. Their dead-money cap hits are noted:

Some of these players remain on waivers, so their salaries technically could still become fully guaranteed – and their cap hits could be fully removed from their old teams’ books – if they’re claimed by a new team.

Salary information from Basketball Insiders was used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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2020/21 NBA Reverse Standings Update

February 24th, 2021 at 1:11pm CST by Luke Adams

Throughout the 2020/21 NBA season, Hoops Rumors is maintaining a feature that allows you to keep an eye on the tentative 2021 draft order. Our 2020/21 Reverse Standings tool, which lists the NBA’s 30 teams from worst to first, is updated daily to reflect the outcomes of the previous night’s games.

Our Reverse Standings are essentially a reflection of what 2021’s draft order would look like with no changes to lottery position. We’ve noted each club’s odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick, based on the league’s current lottery format.

[RELATED: Hoops Rumors Glossary: Draft Lottery]

In instances where two non-playoff teams or two playoff teams have identical records, the order in our standings isn’t necessarily definitive — for draft purposes, the NBA breaks ties via random drawings, so those drawings would happen at the end of the year.

Of course, the 14 non-playoff teams all draft before the 16 playoff teams, even if some non-playoff teams have better records than those that made the postseason. Our reverse standings account for playoff seeding, though for now they assume that the Nos. 7 and 8 teams in each conference will earn those final two postseason spots. Since the NBA’s new play-in format opens the door for the Nos. 9 and 10 seeds to sneak into the postseason, we may have to account for a little movement in the draft order at season’s end.

Traded first-round picks are included via footnotes. For example, the note next to Golden State’s pick says the Warriors will send their pick to the Thunder if it’s not in the top 20. As of today, the Warriors’ pick projects to be exactly 20th, meaning that pick wouldn’t change hands.

The Timberwolves are currently in the driver’s seat at the “top” of our reverse standings — their 7-25 record giving them a 2.5-game cushion on the second-worst team, the 9-22 Pistons, with the 11-21 Cavaliers up next. It will be interesting to see whether that race tightens now that Chris Finch has taken the head coaching reins from Ryan Saunders in Minnesota.

Although the league’s bottom three teams will all have an equal chance at the No. 1 overall pick (14.0%) and a top-four selection (52.1%), finishing atop the reverse standings would still benefit the Wolves — the NBA’s worst team can’t fall further than the No. 5 pick, while the third-worst team could end up selecting as low as No. 7.

The Rockets‘ and Thunder‘s spots in the reverse standings are also worth keeping an eye on over the course of the year. Oklahoma City has the ability to swap first-round picks with Houston, but only if the Rockets’ pick doesn’t land in the top four. Currently, Houston is tied for the NBA’s fourth-worst record, while the Thunder are tied for the league’s sixth-worst mark.

Our Reverse Standings tracker can be found at anytime on the right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features” on our desktop site, or on the “Features” page in our mobile menu. It’s a great resource not just for monitoring a team’s draft position, but also for keeping an eye on whether or not traded picks with protections will be changing hands in 2021. So be sure to check back often as the season progresses!

Note: Mobile users are advised to turn their phones sideways when viewing the Reverse Standings in order to see team records and lottery odds.

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Poll: Biggest 2021 NBA All-Star Snub?

February 24th, 2021 at 10:57am CST by Luke Adams

There were no undeserving selections among the 14 players named on Tuesday as the 2021 NBA All-Star reserves, but that didn’t mean that certain players who were left off the team don’t have legitimate grievances about missing out.

In both the Western Conference and the Eastern Conference, there were far more than 12 players who made strong cases for an All-Star spot and could’ve easily made the team in another year in which the competition wasn’t quite so strong.

The abridged nature of this season’s first half made selecting the team even trickier — a top-five seed in a conference may only be a game or two removed from the lottery, making it difficult to know how heavily to weigh a team’s record when considering a player’s case. Additionally, any multi-game absence related to an injury or COVID-19 had to be considered, since some teams have yet to even play 30 games this season.

With that in mind, there were a few players who stood out as the most notable omissions…

Western Conference:

Devin Booker didn’t make the cut despite averaging 24.7 PPG on 50.1% shooting for the 20-10 Suns, prompting LeBron James to call the star guard “the most disrespected player in our league.”

Kings guard De’Aaron Fox (22.5 PPG, 7.1 APG), Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (22.8 PPG, 6.5 APG), and Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan (19.8 PPG, 6.9 APG) have led their respective teams in both scoring and assists, with DeRozan doing it for a top-five seed in the West.

Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram (23.9 PPG, .469/.394/.882) is virtually replicating his numbers from last season, when he was named an All-Star.

And Mike Conley (16.4 PPG, 5.6 APG, .412 3PT%), who has never been named an All-Star, has been one of the most valuable players for the NBA’s best team, the 25-6 Jazz. While Conley’s counting stats are more modest than those of his competitors, most advanced metrics rate him among the NBA’s top players so far this season. Utah has an incredible +17.1 net rating when he plays, compared to +1.7 when he sits, a far more impressive on/off-court split than that of teammate Donovan Mitchell (who was named a reserve).

Eastern Conference:

Bucks forward Khris Middleton and Pacers big man Domantas Sabonis were All-Stars a year ago, but didn’t make the cut this time around, despite posting similar numbers. Despite a recent slump, Middleton is still nearly a member of the 50/40/90 club, having averaged 20.3 PPG, 6.1 RPG, and 5.7 APG on .498/.434/.895 shooting. Meanwhile, Sabonis (21.5 PPG, 11.6 RPG, 5.7 APG) became the first player in history to be left off the team despite being part of the 20/10/5 club (Twitter link via StatMuse).

The Heat have gotten off to a slow start this season, but it’s still surprising that neither Bam Adebayo nor Jimmy Butler was named to the All-Star team after both making the team in 2020.

Adebayo has anchored the defense while improving his offensive output (19.6 PPG, 5.5 APG). As for Butler, he has made his usual two-way impact, leading the team to an 11-8 record in the games he has played, compared to 3-9 when he’s out. Only playing 19 games essentially killed his case, but as John Hollinger of The Athletic observes, Butler has missed fewer games than Kevin Durant, who was rightly considered a slam-dunk starter.

Hawks guard Trae Young is yet another player who had a strong All-Star case this season after making it in 2020. He’s averaging 27.0 PPG and 9.6 APG so far this season, making him the first player in 30 years to average 25+ points and 9+ assists and not be named an All-Star, according to StatMuse (Twitter link).

Hornets forward Gordon Hayward (21.9 PPG on .489/.424/.867 shooting), Sixers forward Tobias Harris (20.7 PPG, 7.7 RPG, .517/.415/.889 shooting), and Raptors guard Fred VanVleet (19.8 PPG, 6.7 APG) were also worthy candidates, with VanVleet rated especially highly by advanced metrics.

It may not be worth spending a ton of time bemoaning certain All-Star omissions, since certain players listed above could become injury replacements in the next week or two — Anthony Davis, for one, likely won’t be able to participate in the game, so the West will have to send at least one more player.

Still, now that the 24 initial All-Stars have been named, we want to know what you think: Who is this season’s biggest All-Star snub? And if you had to remove one of the current All-Stars to make room for that snubbed player, who are you taking off the team?

Vote in our poll, then head to the comment section below to share your thoughts!

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote.

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Free Agent Stock Watch: Northwest Division

February 19th, 2021 at 9:25pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Throughout the season, Hoops Rumors takes a closer look at players who will be free agents or could become free agents this off-season. We examine if their stock is rising or falling due to performance and other factors. This week, we take a look at players from the Northwest Division:

Hamidou Diallo, Thunder, 22, SG (Up) – Signed to a three-year, $3.9MM deal in 2018

Diallo has entered the conversation for the Most Improved Player award. The Dennis Schröder trade to the Lakers opened up a little more playing time for the third-year guard and he has seized the opportunity, nearly doubling his scoring average (12.5 PPG from 6.9 PPG) and also contributing on the boards (5.4 RPG) while making more plays for his teammates (2.5 APG).

Diallo’s perimeter shooting remains an issue (28.9% on 3-point attempts) but he’s reached double figures in 13 of his last 15 games. He will be a restricted free agent and it will be intriguing to see if another team will overlook his perimeter woes and extend an offer sheet to force the Thunder’s hand.

Naz Reid, Timberwolves, 21, C (Up) – Signed to a three-year, $4.2MM deal in 2019

Very little has gone right for Minnesota this season but Reid continues to be a bright spot. The undrafted second-year big man is averaging 12.5 PPG, 4.9 RPG and 1.2 BPG and his 3-point shot is improving (39.7%). Reid had a 29-point performance against OKC and a 23-point outing against the Clippers this month. He filled the stat sheet with 18 points, nine rebounds, three assists and three blocks in an overtime loss to Indiana on Wednesday.

Reid’s $1.78MM salary for next season is non-guaranteed; the Timberwolves’ front office will have some tough roster decisions to make over the next year but that won’t be one of them.

Gary Trent Jr., Trail Blazers, 22, SG (Up) – Signed to a three-year, $3.92MM deal in 2018

Trent, who will be a restricted free agent, emerged as a valuable rotation piece in his second season a year ago. He’s become even more important with CJ McCollum sidelined by a foot injury. Trent is averaging 15.3 PPG while knocking down an impressive 44.7% of his 3-point attempts despite taking 7.2 shots per game from deep. He’s averaging 19.8 PPG during the team’s current six-game winning streak. The Blazers already have $70MM committed to their starting guards next season; can they afford to hold onto Trent if someone lavishes the sharpshooter with a lucrative offer sheet?

Will Barton, Nuggets, 30, SG/SF (Down) – Signed to a four-year, $53MM deal in 2018

Barton has a player option worth $14.67MM for next season and the way he’s played this season, he’ll have no reason to opt out. Barton missed the summer restart due to a knee injury and hasn’t been a consistent factor on a team with championship aspirations. He scored 10 or fewer points in six of his last 10 outings before taking off a few games for personal reasons. His PER for the season is 11.6, well below average. The Nuggets need more from their wings, including Barton, if they want to make another deep playoff run.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Community Shootaround: Eastern All-Stars

February 18th, 2021 at 9:51am CST by Luke Adams

Before the NBA announces its 2021 All-Star starters on Thursday night on TNT, we want to get your thoughts on which players deserve to make the All-Star teams this season. After focusing on the Western Conference on Wednesday, we’re turning our attention to the Eastern Conference today.

There likely won’t be much debate over the Eastern frontcourt starters, as Sixers center Joel Embiid, Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Nets forward Kevin Durant are all playing like legitimate MVP candidates. Durant has been limited to just 19 games due to various health issues and COVID-19 protocols, but I think that’s enough — he has played big minutes (35.7 MPG) in those contests.

The Eastern backcourt starters are harder to nail down. You could make a legitimate argument for Nets guards James Harden and Kyrie Irving, Wizards guard Bradley Beal, and Celtics swingman Jaylen Brown. Beal is the NBA’s leading scorer and Irving isn’t far behind, but I actually favor Brown and Harden for the starting spots here.

Brown is the best defender of the group, and his scoring numbers (25.9 PPG on .506/.409/.768 shooting and a 31.4% usage rate) have been terrific. Harden, meanwhile, has been arguably the league’s best play-maker so far this season, averaging an eye-popping 11.8 assists per game to go along with his 24.3 PPG since arriving in Brooklyn.

All four guards belong in the game, so that leaves three frontcourt spots and two wild card slots to fill out the bench. I’d start with Tatum, a two-way star who is averaging career highs in PPG (25.8), RPG (7.0), and APG (4.7) to go along with his stout defense for the Celtics.

From here though, thinks get awfully tricky. Hawks guard Trae Young and Bulls guard Zach LaVine aren’t good defenders, but they’re enjoying elite offensive seasons. Young (26.5 PPG, 9.3 APG) has been the better play-maker, while LaVine has scored a little more, and has done so far more efficiently (28.5 PPG on .520/.437/.847 shooting). Both are strong candidates.

The fourth-seeded Pacers probably deserve to have a player in the game, and you could make a legitimate case for either Domantas Sabonis (21.5 PPG, 11.6 RPG, 5.7 APG) or Malcolm Brogdon (21.6 PPG and 6.6 APG).

Big men Bam Adebayo, Nikola Vucevic, and Julius Randle have been the most valuable players so far this season for the Heat, Magic, and Knicks, respectively. Adebayo anchors his team’s defense in a way the other two don’t, though his offensive numbers (19.9 PPG, 5.3 APG) don’t quite match Vucevic’s (23.4 PPG on .476/.414/.816 shooting) or Randle’s (23.2 PPG and 5.5 APG with a .407 3PT%).

Bucks forward Khris Middleton, Hornets forward Gordon Hayward, Pistons forward Jerami Grant, and Sixers guard Ben Simmons also deserve serious consideration as two-way impact players.

And while they probably won’t make the 12-man squad, Raptors guards Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet, Sixers forward Tobias Harris, Hawks big man Clint Capela, Bucks guard Jrue Holiday, Heat forward Jimmy Butler, and Cavaliers guard Collin Sexton each at least warrant a look and an honorable mention.

For now, my choices to fill out the Eastern squad would be LaVine, Young, Adebayo, and Middleton. LaVine is the East’s second-leading scorer; Young isn’t far behind him and his on/off-court numbers make a compelling case; Adebayo is one of the conference’s best interior defenders; and Middleton has been one of the NBA’s best shooters (.510/.442/.902).

Still, there are at least four or five other players whom I could comfortably sub into one of those spots and feel good about it. Leaving out guys like Randle, Grant, Simmons, and especially Sabonis (my last man out) is tough.

What do you think? Which 12 players would you pick for your Eastern Conference All-Star team? Which players would be the most difficult to omit?

Head to the comment section below to share your choices and your reasoning!

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Community Shootaround: Western All-Stars

February 17th, 2021 at 1:37pm CST by Luke Adams

Voting for the NBA’s All-Star starters has now closed, and the league will reveal on TNT on Thursday night the 10 players who have been named starters for this year’s game, with an announcement on the All-Star reserves to follow next Tuesday.

Before that happens, we want to get your take on which 24 players deserve to make this year’s All-Star Game, starting today in the Western Conference.

This year’s Western Conference All-Stars, who will be represented by Jazz head coach Quin Snyder, per Tim Bontemps of ESPN, have six clear frontrunners for the five starting spots.

Lakers star LeBron James, Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, and Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard are the odds-on favorites to claim the three frontcourt openings, while Warriors guard Stephen Curry, Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard, and Mavericks guard Luka Doncic will vie for the two backcourt spots.

While it remains to be seen which five players will earn starting spots, it’s safe to say that all six will safely make the team. That leaves six other spots up for grabs.

The general consensus among Marc Stein of The New York Times, Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer, and Josh Robbins of The Athletic – all of whom made their picks this week – is that four of those spots will be claimed by Anthony Davis, Paul George, and the Jazz duo of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, which would make sense, given those players’ importance to the top three clubs in the conference.

After that, there’s little consensus. Stein and Robbins have Jazz guard Mike Conley nabbing one of the last two spots, while Stein and O’Connor each penciled in Suns guard Chris Paul. O’Connor also has Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander making his team, while Robbins opted for Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan.

Suns guard Devin Booker, Pelicans forwards Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, Kings guard De’Aaron Fox, Rockets big man Christian Wood, and Grizzlies guard Ja Morant all merited consideration and/or honorable mention from Stein, O’Connor, and Robbins. Beyond that, it’s hard to find legitimate candidates whose cases haven’t been hurt by injuries or COVID-19, as is the case for Blazers guard CJ McCollum, among others.

Following the format of four guards, six frontcourt players, and two wild cards, my picks would be Curry, Doncic, LeBron, Jokic, and Kawhi in the starting lineup, with Lillard, Mitchell, Davis, George, Gobert, Paul, and DeRozan on the bench. If Davis remains sidelined through the All-Star break due to his calf injury, picking a frontcourt player to replace him would be tricky, but for now I’d lean toward Williamson.

What do you think? Which 12 Western Conference players would be on your All-Star squad for the 2020/21 season?

Head to the comment section below to weigh in!

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Early Check-In On Traded 2021 First-Round Picks

February 17th, 2021 at 9:57am CST by Luke Adams

We’re over a third away into the NBA’s 2020/21 regular season, and while the standings will surely fluctuate significantly between now and the end of the season in May, we’re starting to get a sense of which teams will be competitive and which teams probably won’t be.

As a picture begins to form of which teams will be vying for top seeds in each conference and which might be battling for lottery odds, it’s worth checking in on the traded first-round picks for 2021. Of next year’s 30 first-round selections, as many as 13 could technically change hands, via trades or swaps. This year’s standings will dictate where those picks land and whether or not some of them change hands at all.

With the help of our reverse standings tool, here’s an early look at which of those traded picks are most and least likely to change hands, and which ones are still very much up in the air:

Unprotected picks that will definitely change hands:

  • Knicks acquiring Mavericks‘ pick.
  • Pelicans acquiring Lakers‘ pick.

There’s no mystery here about whether or not these picks will be conveyed in 2021, since both are unprotected. It looks like the Knicks will make out much better than the Pelicans, given how well the Lakers have played and how much the Mavericks has struggled. As of today, Dallas’ pick projects to fall in the lottery, at No. 13 (depending on play-in results), while L.A.’s first-rounder would be No. 29.

Protected picks that almost certainly won’t change hands:

  • Grizzlies acquiring Jazz‘s pick (1-7 and 15-30 protection).
  • Rockets acquiring Pistons‘ pick (top-16 protected).

The Jazz currently have the NBA’s best record, while the Pistons hold the league’s second-worst record. That means Utah’s pick will be at the end of the first round (currently No. 30) and comfortably fall within its 15-30 protection, while Detroit’s pick will absolutely be in the lottery (currently No. 2) and won’t be sent to Houston. It’s hard to imagine any scenario in which this outlook changes in the coming months.

The Grizzlies can at least count on getting Utah’s first-rounder in 2022, when it will become top-six protected. It may be a while before the Rockets get a pick from Detroit though — that first-rounder remains heavily protected in 2022 (top-16), 2023 (top-18), and 2024 (top-18) before those protections start to loosen a little.

It’s also worth mentioning here that the Knicks have the ability to swap first-round picks with the Clippers this season, but are very unlikely to pass L.A. in the standings and be in position to exercise that option. New York’s first-rounder currently projects to be No. 17, while the Clippers’ would be No. 28.

Still up in the air:

  • Warriors acquiring Timberwolves‘ pick (top-three protected).
  • Thunder acquiring Warriors‘ pick (top-20 protected).

The Timberwolves have the NBA’s worst record, which theoretically puts them in the driver’s seat for the No. 1 overall pick in 2021. However, the league’s lottery format means that even if Minnesota finishes at the bottom of the NBA standings, there’s still only about a 40% chance they’ll end up in the top three and keep that first-rounder, with a 60% chance of it going to the Warriors. The fate of that pick figures to remain up in the air right up until lottery night.

We have a better chance at getting clarity on the fate of Golden State’s first-rounder before the end of the season, but at the moment, it could still easily go either way. The Warriors’ 15-13 record would give the team the No. 20 overall pick if the season ended today, allowing them to keep their pick rather than sending it to the Thunder. But that could change quickly — there are currently 11 teams within two games of Golden State in the NBA standings, on one side or the other.

Analyzing the Rockets/Thunder/Heat/Blazers/Nets situation:

Six teams’ draft picks are tied up in a series of convoluted trades and swaps that are nearly impossible to explain clearly and concisely. Fortunately, one of those teams is the Pistons, whose pick will be protected this year, removing them from the equation.

That still leaves five teams in this complex arrangement, however. We did our best in an earlier story to explain how this situation will work. It essentially breaks down like this:

  1. The Thunder will have the right to swap either their first-round pick or the Heat’s first-round pick for the Rockets‘ first-round pick, but only if Houston’s pick doesn’t fall in the top four. In other words, if Houston gets a top-four pick, the Rockets will keep their own first-rounder; if not, the Thunder will get the two most favorable picks of their own, the Heat’s, and the Rockets’, and Houston will get the least favorable.
  2. Once the first step is complete, the Rockets will be left with at least one first-round pick, and likely two, since they’re also owed the Trail Blazers‘ first-rounder (top-14 protected). They would then have the right to swap either of those picks with the Nets‘ first-rounder (unprotected).

If the season ended today, the Heat, Thunder, and Rockets would – believe it or not – all be tied in the standings with matching 11-16 records. A random tiebreaker would determine where those first-rounders land in the 6-to-9 range (since Atlanta also has a 11-16 record), assuming no lottery movement, then the Thunder would claim the two most favorable picks (no worse than No. 7 and No. 8), while the Rockets would get the least favorable pick (either No. 8 or No. 9).

The Rockets would also receive the Trail Blazers’ first-rounder (either No. 25 or No. 26), and would subsequently swap it with the Nets’ pick (No. 24), leaving Brooklyn with that Portland pick.

I’d expect this situation to continue to evolve considerably over the course of the season, but for now it looks pretty favorable for both the Thunder and the Rockets.

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