NBA trade season might be quieter than usual this year. Teams are finding it really tough to make deals happen, thanks to some new rules, salary caps, and the way teams value their draft picks these days.
"The market is pretty stiff right now," says ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. He’s been talking to agents, team executives, and scouts who are all scratching their heads trying to figure out how to work around these new restrictions.
Here’s the thing: unless teams are swapping players with similar big contracts, we probably won’t see any major stars changing teams before next month’s deadline.
Money is a huge part of the problem. The NBA has set next season’s salary cap at $140.6 million, with a tax level of $170.8 million. That’s a lot of numbers, but basically, it means teams have less wiggle room than ever to make trades work.
The new collective bargaining agreement (that’s the rule book for how teams can spend their money) doesn’t help either. It’s created different spending limits for different types of teams:
- $12.8 million for teams under the tax limit
- $5.2 million for teams paying luxury tax
- $8 million for teams with cap space
Making things even trickier? A lot of the big-market teams have already traded away their future draft picks, which are like gold in trade negotiations.
But there might be one big move coming. Brandon Ingram of the New Orleans Pelicans could be on the move. The Pelicans are having a rough season – they’re sitting at the bottom of the league with just 7 wins and 29 losses.
Ingram’s been dealing with injuries, and he’ll be a free agent soon. That’s putting the Pelicans in a tough spot.
"They can’t afford to be picky," Kevin Pelton of ESPN points out. The team might need to take what they can get now, rather than risk losing him for nothing in free agency.
Several teams are interested in Ingram, but they’re waiting to see how he looks when he comes back from injury. After all, nobody wants to trade for a player who isn’t ready to help right away.
