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Most of this season’s deals will go down within 24 hours of the February 20th trade deadline. That doesn’t mean January won’t feature at least one intriguing swap. Last season there were two trades, and while the Grizzlies helped their ledger with a three-for-one swap with the Cavs on the 22nd, the deal that really made waves came eight days later, when Memphis shipped Rudy Gay out of town. The Raptors put Gay into yet another trade last month, so there’s certainly precedent for big names changing teams at or before this point in the season.

Here’s a look back at the most significant January trade from each of the past four years, deals in which the Grizzlies and Mavericks figured prominently:

January 30th, 2013: In a three-team deal, the Grizzlies traded Rudy Gay and Hamed Haddadi to the Raptors, the Pistons traded Austin Daye and Tayshaun Prince to the Grizzlies, and the Raptors traded Jose Calderon to the Pistons and Ed Davis and a 2013 second-round pick (Jamaal Franklin) to the Grizzlies.

• The only player from this trade still with Toronto less than a year later is Daye, and he wasn’t even sent to the Raptors in this deal; he signed with the Raptors in the offseason after playing out the rest of 2012/13 with the Mavericks. The Pistons are similarly empty-handed, though they used the cap flexibility created when they sent out Prince’s long-term deal to help them sign Josh Smith this past summer.

January 4th, 2012: In a three team deal, the Grizzlies traded Xavier Henry to the Pelicans and a 2012 second-round pick (Tornike Shengelia) to the Sixers, the Pelicans traded a second-round pick (Glen Rice Jr.) to the Sixers, and the Sixers traded Marreese Speights to the Grizzlies.

• The Pelicans (then Hornets) wound up with a player picked 12th overall just 18 months prior for the cost of a mere second-round pick, though Henry didn’t display his promise until he wound up with the Lakers this season. The Grizzlies dealt Henry away for frontcourt depth in the wake of an injury to Darrell Arthur, and Memphis would shed Speights a little more than a year later in last year’s three-for-one trade. The Sixers sent out both of the second-rounders they acquired in later trades.

January 24th, 2011: The Mavericks traded Alexis Ajinca, cash, and a 2013 second-round draft pick (Jamaal Franklin) to the Raptors for Georgios Printezis.

• Recent Pelicans signee Ajinca endured his second trade in a little more than six months and was on his way out of the league for two years until New Orleans brought him back two weeks ago.

January 11th, 2010: The Mavericks traded Kris Humphries and Shawne Williams to the Nets for Eduardo Najera.

• Humphries was a lightly regarded backup before he got to the Nets, but the then-sixth-year power forward assumed his most significant role to date in New Jersey, and the Nets re-signed him to a one-year, $8MM deal after the lockout. He made even more on his next contract, a two-year, $24MM pact that expires at the end of this season.

Hoops Rumors passes along the latest news and rumors on NBA player movement 365 days a year, but those aren’t the only updates you’ll see on the site. On our right sidebar, you’ll find a number of additional features and featured posts. Here’s a rundown of a few of them:

• You can follow all our updates about your favorite teams or players on your iPhone or iPad using the Hoops Rumors app.
• We’re still keeping a close eye on free agency with the help of our list of 2013 free agents. If you want to look ahead to the summer of 2014 or 2015, we’ve rounded up those free agents as well. All of these FA lists will continue to be modified as needed.
• Not all the players currently on NBA rosters have guaranteed deals, and we’ve broken down the non-guaranteed contracts by team. All the deals on that page will become guaranteed next week if players aren’t waived on or before Tuesday.
• Our list of 2013/14 roster counts is a convenient tool for keeping tabs on how many players your favorite NBA team is carrying, and how many guaranteed contracts are on each club’s books.
• It’s trade season in the NBA, so we’re tracking this season’s deals and profiling players we consider trade candidates.
• If your favorite team has a better chance at Andrew Wiggins or Jabari Parker than at a playoff berth, be sure to follow our reverse standings, which are updated daily to reflect the projected 2014 draft order.
• We’re keeping tabs on this season’s D-League assignments right here.
• Our agency database is a handy reference point for determining the representation for virtually every NBA player.
• Using our 10-day contract tracker, you can find any 10-day contract signed since 2007, sorting by player, team, year, and other variables.
• On Mondays at 4:00pm CT, I answer readers’ questions in a live chat. You can check out transcripts of our past live discussions here.
• Our list of outstanding traded player exceptions is updated whenever a trade exception is created, is used, or expires.
• We’re tracking teams’ amnesty provisions — using our complete list, you can check to see which clubs have used the amnesty clause and which will have it available next summer.
• The Hoops Rumors glossary helps explain some of the more complex concepts in the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
• Zach Links rounds up the best of the blogosphere every Sunday in his weekly Hoops Links feature.
• If you’re looking to catch up on a few days worth of content, our Week in Review posts round up the week’s news and rumors, while our Hoops Rumors Originals posts recap the site’s original content for the week. Both round-ups are published every Sunday.
• Be sure to check out the Featured Posts section on the right sidebar for more original pieces from the Hoops Rumors writing team. Recently, we detailed how December’s Kings/Raptors trade worked financially, listed players with trade kickers, and explained why the Rockets had imposed an unofficial deadline to trade Omer Asik.

News that another former All-Star will probably miss the season broke Friday, as Al Horford went down with a torn pectoral muscle. He joins a group of seven players who are either definitively out for the year or appear to have a strong chance of missing the rest of the season. Derrick Rose‘s more than $17.6MM salary leads the bunch, and put together, those injured players will make $54,200,765 in 2013/14. All of that money is guaranteed salary.

It’s a figure that’s just a few million dollars shy of the $58.679MM salary cap, and it’s greater than the entire payroll of the Sixers, who have a player of their own on the list in Nerlens Noel. That total doesn’t include the salaries of recovering stars like Kobe Bryant, Russell Westbrook and Marc Gasol, who are all missing significant time but should return later this season. It also doesn’t account for players like Danilo Gallinari and Carl Landry, who’ve yet to play this season because of injury but are slated to come back at some point before 2013/14 is over.

Some of the teams with players who are out for the season may wind up with some additional flexibility via the disabled player exception, but even that wouldn’t make an injured player’s salary stop counting against the salary cap or toward luxury tax penalties. When a player with a fully guaranteed contract goes down for the season, it’s a sunk cost.

Here are the seven players lost for 2013/14, in descending order of their salaries:

• Derrick Rose, Bulls ($17,632,688)
• Brook Lopez, Nets ($14,693,906)
• Emeka Okafor, Suns ($14,487,500)
• Al Horford, Hawks ($12MM)
• Nerlens Noel, Sixers ($3,172,320)
• Quincy Pondexter, Grizzlies ($2,225,479)
• Jeff Taylor, Bobcats ($788,872)

ShamSports was used in the creation of this post.

Less than two weeks remain before teams have to make decisions about whether to pick up the full-season salaries for players on non-guaranteed contracts. The leaguewide guarantee date is January 10th, but those players would have to be released no later than January 7th to clear waivers in time. That leaves four dozen players in jeopardy of losing their jobs, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com points out.

Of course, not every player on a non-guaranteed deal is at risk. Stein identifies a few as slam-dunks to keep their roster spots, and a handful of others he didn’t mention seem unlikely to hit the waiver wire. The Lakers aren’t letting go of rotation pieces like Xavier Henry and Shawne Williams, and the Bobcats, without Jeff Taylor for the season, probably intend to keep newly signed Chris Douglas-Roberts. By contrast, the Magic are almost certain to part ways with Hedo Turkoglu, who hasn’t played a minute this season after the team told him before training camp to stay home. He could have his full $12MM salary guaranteed if the Magic find a trade partner, but that possibility is looking slimmer by the day.

There are some players, like Kendall Marshall and James Johnson, who’ve been signed too recently to accurately gauge whether their teams intend to keep them for long. We won’t include those guys here, but everyone else on a non-guaranteed contract who hasn’t been seeing much playing time and doesn’t fill an obvious need is below. I’ve ranked them in descending order of minutes per game, with a comment assessing their chances of staying in their jobs.

• Andrew Bynum, Cavaliers (20.0 MPG): Stein figures there’s no chance the Cavs will let him go, and the only reason he’s on my list is because the Cavs would have to lay out an extra $6.25MM for the big man if he stays on the roster past the guarantee date. He’s shown glimpses of his former All-Star form, but as his 0-for-11 performance against the Pistons this week demonstrates, he hasn’t necessarily played like someone worth his full $12.25MM salary.
• Cartier Martin, Hawks (18.2 MPG): The 29-year-old started and played 31 minutes on the last night of November, but he’s only seen 46 minutes of action spread over five appearances since then, in part because of a sprained ankle he suffered in practice.
• Matthew Dellavedova, Cavaliers (15.6 MPG): His playing time has bounced up and down since three starts last month when the team was shorthanded, but his 44.1% three-point shooting is one reason he’s probably safe.
• Diante Garrett, Jazz (14.2 MPG): His minutes have been inconsistent, but the Jazz may be inclined to give the 25-year-old an extended look in a player development year.
• Mike Scott, Hawks (13.4 MPG): He’s had more appearances of less than 10 minutes than he has games in which he’s played more than 20. Still, he put up a 16.3 PER last year and he isn’t far off with a 16.0 PER this time around, so he’s been efficient when on the floor.
• Jeff Adrien, Bobcats (12.6 MPG): The power forward’s minutes have fluctuated all season, and he hasn’t played in two weeks. Still, he’s been efficient in his limited time, posting a better-than-average 16.2 PER.
• Robbie Hummel, Timberwolves (12.2 MPG): Shorthanded Minnesota gave him his first career start on December 16th, but Hummel followed it up with a pair of DNPs. His minutes have been up and down all season, so it’s hard to gauge how the team feels about him.
• Brandon Davies, 76ers (12.0 MPG) His minutes have been inconsistent, and a 35.9% field goal percentage and his 5.9 PER don’t bode well for his chances of sticking around.
• Mike Harris, Jazz (11.3 MPG): The 30-year-old journeyman saw regular playing time at the start of the season, but that’s dropped off since, and there doesn’t appear to be a compelling reason for him to stick.
• Roger Mason Jr., Heat (11.9 MPG): His appearances have ranged from a season-high of 23 on December 8th to a season-low two in his next outing. There was talk over the summer of the Heat carrying only 13 players in the regular season, and while that hasn’t come true so far, there’s no strong indication that Mason will remain the team’s 15th man.
• Lorenzo Brown, 76ers (10.9 MPG): Like teammate Elliot Williams, he saw his longest periods of action in a pair of mid-month blowouts, but he hasn’t played since, and the Sixers assigned him to the D-League on Thursday.
• Daniel Orton, 76ers (10.9 MPG): He started four games in late November, but he hasn’t seen as many as 10 minutes in a single contest since.
• Elliot Williams, 76ers (10.8 MPG): It’s been three weeks since he played more than 10 minutes in a game decided by a margin of fewer than 10 points. Still, the Sixers have to keep at least 13 guys, so unless they want to bring in free agents or 10-day signees, they’ll have to keep at least two of Williams, Orton, Brown and Davies.
• Lou Amundson, Pelicans (10.5 MPG): Three of his four longest outings came in the 10 days leading up to the return of Anthony Davis, but Amundson has only played five minutes since.
• Josh Harrellson, Pistons (9.2 MPG): “Jorts” helped the Pistons last week with his two longest stretches of playing time all season, but he’s disappeared from the rotation again this week.
• Ian Clark, Jazz (8.8 MPG): The summer league star has yet to reproduce the magic with Utah, appearing for just 70 minutes so far this season, and he’s put up pedestrian numbers in three D-League games.
• Greg Smith, Rockets (8.4 MPG): A sprained knee has limited him to just eight games so far this season, though with uncertainty surrounding the power forward position in Houston and the future of Omer Asik, there doesn’t seem to be much motivation to drop Smith.
• Solomon Jones, Magic (8.2 MPG): The 29-year-old hasn’t played since December 6th and is seemingly only around in case too many big men go down. The Magic, with little to play for this season, probably don’t need to spend a full season’s salary on such a player.
• Hasheem Thabeet, Thunder (8.0 MPG): His $500K partial guarantee covers his salary right up until the day Oklahoma City would have to waive him to avoid paying him his full $1.2MM salary. With rookie Steven Adams having beaten him out for the backup center job, Thabeet may not be long for OKC.
• Julyan Stone, Raptors (7.3 MPG): If GM Masai Ujiri was going to let go of Stone, who’s played for Ujiri in Denver as well as Toronto, he’d probably have done so earlier this month when he waived D.J. Augustin instead.
• Ryan Gomes, Thunder (7.0 MPG): The veteran swingman has only appeared in four games this season, making him tantamount to an insurance policy Oklahoma City hasn’t needed to exercise. The Thunder are less than $1.5MM away from luxury tax territory, so not having to pay Gomes for the entire season could give the team more breathing room.
• Ryan Kelly, Lakers (7.0 MPG): Mike D’Antoni hadn’t found much use for this year’s 48th overall pick all season until Christmas Day, when his 17 minutes nearly doubled his previous high. He appears to have played his way into the rotation for now, and given the Lakers’ investment of a draft pick, it seems he’ll stick around.
• Dionte Christmas, Suns (6.9 MPG): The 27-year-old rookie is a favorite of GM Ryan McDonough, but he hasn’t played as many as 10 minutes in a game in more than a month.
• Rasual Butler, Pacers (6.5 MPG): The 34-year-old entered the rotation this week for the first time all season, but Friday he saw just six minutes in Danny Granger’s return from injury. If Granger can prove himself fully healthy in the next couple of weeks, the cost-conscious Pacers might unload Butler.
• Kent Bazemore, Warriors (6.3 MPG): The second-year shooting guard hasn’t grabbed a rotation spot even with other Golden State wings missing time with injury, though I’d be surprised if the Warriors gave up on the 24-year-old so soon, especially if they feel he’d be attractive to other teams in a trade.
• Peyton Siva, Pistons (5.8 MPG): His $150K partial guarantee became irrelevant a week ago, and if Detroit opts to keep this year’s 56th overall pick, it will represent an investment in the future rather than the present, given his almost non-existent playing time. The Pistons sent him to the D-League on Thursday.
• Toure’ Murry, Knicks (5.7 MPG): The Knicks wanted to keep some younger players coming out of camp, but they haven’t given Murry much chance to show what he can do in the regular season.
• Hamady N’Diaye, Kings (5.3 MPG): Apart from a 25-minute appearance in November, he hasn’t recorded double-digit minutes in any game. The 26-year-old probably doesn’t have much upside, and with DeMarcus Cousins locked up long-term, there’s little call for journeyman centers in Sacramento.
• Henry Sims, Cavaliers (5.3 MPG): The 6’10” center has played more minutes in the D-League than he has in the NBA this year, even though he’s only appeared in three D-League games.
• Ronnie Brewer, Rockets (4.8 MPG): The seven-year NBA veteran was a part of a vaunted Bulls bench that helped the club to back-to-back top playoff seeds in the Eastern Conference in recent years, and he started 34 games for the Knicks last season. He’s curiously become an afterthought following a midseason trade to the Thunder a year ago, and he’s seen the fewest minutes of his career this season with the Rockets.
• Cole Aldrich, Knicks (3.5 MPG): He, like Murry, is part of the team’s commitment to young players, but the Knicks didn’t find much use for him with Tyson Chandler out, and he may be the one to go if the team signs Jeremy Tyler.
• Erik Murphy, Bulls (2.4 MPG): He’s seen just 36 total minutes all season, and the Bulls might want to reduce their luxury tax bill now that they don’t have realistic title hopes. Still, I’d be surprised if they gave up so soon on this year’s second-round pick, especially since more than half of his rookie minimum salary is guaranteed.
• Malcolm Thomas, Spurs (0.0 MPG): The power forward has yet to make his debut in San Antonio after the Spurs signed him December 3rd, but he’s already been on a pair of D-League assignments. Thomas seems like a long shot to remain on the roster unless the Spurs value him as a long-term asset.