On the Market

February 18^th, 2010. That’s the deadline for trades in the National Basketball Association and it has been a while since we had that many big names with the possibility to move before that date. For various reasons, we have a lot of teams trying to get free of who used to be their franchise players.

The first name that comes to mind and fit all those qualifications is Tracy McGrady. It’s not crazy to say that the Houston Rockets are ready to quit on T-Mac. His injuries throughout the years and his inability to play well during the playoffs series probably made them realize that McGrady won’t be the one to lead them to a championship and add that to the fact that the team always react well when he’s not there like they were better off without him. McGrady just underwent micro fracture surgery and a feud between him and the franchise about his comeback has been reported. The Rockets do need somebody who can create his own shots on clutch moments and T-Mac can be a nice trading asset for them to get that guy.

Another big name that can be on the move is Michael Redd. Redd, who was part of the Redeem Team, underwent another knee surgery last season and when he returned this year, couldn’t last two weeks before he needed to rest again. With the emergence of Brandon Jennings, questions about the coexistence of those two have been raised. It’s hard to imagine that Jennings can be this good if from now on he has to share touches with Redd and I believe won’t he have to, if somebody will have to take the backseat, it’ll be Redd and although he doesn’t seem to be the guy who makes a big deal out of it and with that backcourt they have a shot to make the playoffs, maybe the Bucks could be more comfortable without the controversy and trade him. Maybe Milwaukee is ready to move on.

Underrated players to move before the deadline are Stephen Jackson and Andre Miller. Jackson was just traded this week from the Warriors to the Bobcats but we shouldn’t rule out him switching addresses again still in the ongoing season because this is a trade that never made any sense anyway. Golden State gave Jackson a terrible contract, 3 year $28 million dollar extension, and nobody should be stupid enough to take it, even more Charlotte whose franchise is for sale and didn’t want to take on long term deals. Miller is on a similar situation. Portland had cap space free on the offseason and tried to sign a couple of big men, Paul Millsap and David Lee, however it didn’t work out and they had to go for the next best thing which was Andre Miller but the fact is that Miller doesn’t fit well in the Blazers backcourt, he’s a Guard that needs the ball and so does Roy who is better completed by a shooter, Steve Blake. Insiders believed that the Trail Blazers did the right thing by using the cap space to sign him because now they have an asset to trade and since Outlaw can be gone for the remainder of the season, they might need to get a Forward for their second unit.

The most likely player to move is Elton Brand. The Brand experiment hasn’t work so far in Philadelphia. The team only made the push to the playoffs last season after he went out and they were able to get back to the Iguodala Isotope. This season hasn’t been different. He’s a non factor there and a very expensive overpaid one.

This season’s trade deadline will be an exciting, promising one. Not all of these guys will be moved, although all of their teams would be better off without them. Trades in the NBA are all about dumping salary which makes tough to believe those guys will be gone however there’s always that team willing to make a move to try to get to the next level (or in the Bobcats’ case, somebody really stupid) and those players are the missing pieces of a lot of teams out there.

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~ by Rafael Uehara on November 21, 2009.