With a dearth of available cap space in the NBA just as the league’s new media rights deals will increase the salary cap in the coming years, there are a number of teams with title ambitions who must enter the trade market to make meaningful changes. This could create potential bidding wars for some of the star players who may come to market this offseason with many deals potentially coming to fruition during the week of the draft.
“You have a log jam and so therefore you have some teams that are a little bit stuck. And so what you have is the perfect storm, the perfect recipe for a lot of movement,” said Brian Windhorst on the Ryen Russillo podcast this week.
“Free agency is not really existent this year. There’s only a couple of teams that have space. There’s not really high level free agents. So it means the way that you alter your team is through trade. And we have a draft that is interesting. There’s a bunch of different players in this draft that teams could fall in love with in the top-five or six. And there’s some teams in the top-five or six that may be willing to do business.
“So you put all that together and it’s just a roiling pot bubbling. I’m expecting there to be action. I think the crazy week for transactions will be at the draft. It’ll always be in July, but the draft week is going to be a crazy week of transactions. I think from the moment the Finals end, maybe even before the Finals end, you’re going to start seeing real action. I just think it’s a perfect storm for it.”
The San Antonio Spurs, Philadelphia 76ers and Houston Rockets own draft picks number two, three and 10 respectively. They also own a number of future draft picks that could be used in significant trades.
Windhorst also added that the way it will play out will be unpredictable with one transaction from one team leading to other unforeseen ones similar to how the Boston Celtics acquired Jrue Holiday by way of the Milwaukee Bucks trading for Damian Lillard.
“I think we’re going to see domino effects,” said Windhorst. “And it’s a little bit unpredictable on how it’s going to go. Just expect a lot of action.”
