I’ve been thinking a lot about red paperclips as the clock ticks down to the 2024 NBA trade deadline.
More specifically, I was reminded of a loose fable inspired by Canadian blogger Kyle McDonald’s early 2005 internet stories. The story describes it as “over the course of a year.” According to Wikipedia.
For the past few months, I’ve been mentally describing Star Trade returns as a “reverse paperclip” trade. Instead of replacing one office item with a Ferrari, teams are trying to trade their sports cars back. You can then showcase your assets on the internet or convert them into more assets.
It all started with washington wizardswho sent Kristaps Porzingis to boston celtics They acquired Tyce Jones, Mike Muscala, and Danilo Gallinari, hoping to showcase all three in exchange for adding to the assets of their Carnival Ball team. They have already traded the latter two for two second-round picks. Play against Marvin BagleyHowever, hopes for Jones to score his first goal by Thursday’s deadline appear to have waned, with the NBA reportedly open to trading him as a paperclip in an NBA team-building effort instead. The number of second-round contestants will increase..
Then portland trail blazers They traded Damian Lillard for Jrue Holiday, Deandre Ayton, Toumani Kamara, one Milwaukee first-round pick, and two picks in a trade. But they flipped Holiday for even more picks, and they acquired… Robert Williams, Malcolm Brogdon, and two more first-round picks from the same Boston Celtics. By doing so, he hoped to increase his earnings. Next, introduce Williams and Brogdon for trades with contenders.Unfortunately, Williams is over. Knee surgery will be required at the end of the seasonbut there are still rumors that it could flip him by tomorrow, but according to reports, it is It’s ‘unlikely’ they trade Brogdon.
of toronto raptors The most recent example is trading Pascal Siakam to the Indiana Pacers for three first-round picks and Bruce Brown. A commonly rumored reason for making the trade a few weeks before the deadline was that he was hoping he would later trade Brown for a first-round pick. “He’s a first-round pick and a quality player,” but has since publicly reduced that to just a first-round pick, and is now traded to veteran insider Marc Stein. ing. As envisioned in his latest Substack dispatch Ultimately, they may not be able to acquire his first-round pick by the deadline.
Of course, there is a context to all these situations.Brogdon is publicly lobbied He accepted to remain in Portland and play under head coach Chauncey Billups. But with so many teams desperately looking to upgrade, Los Angeles Lakers and dallas mavericks – There is So limited This “get and show” idea that these teams have tried with picks that can be traded at this deadline due to instant trades so far is not as good as they expected when they made these early trades in the first place. It seems that there is a possibility that they and other teams will not be able to obtain the additional harvest that they received. The hope was that additional time would allow us to expand the asset package we received in our initial transaction.
Do they need to lower their demands to move these players in order to avoid losing them for less money or nothing at all in the future? Or are some candidates desperate? Will he become a target and abandon the first-round team he originally hoped to flip? This writer will definitely be keeping an eye on this over the next 24 hours or so.
Still, each deadline is different in terms of which teams have the picks and where they are in the team’s lifecycle, so the viability of this strategy is probably not entirely based on this past year alone. Can’t judge. And we won’t be able to fully evaluate the effectiveness of this tact as an initial trade return extension vehicle until tomorrow, February 8th, at 3:00 PM ET.
But if these teams haven’t been able to acquire the players they want to use for the equivalent of flipping the house in the NBA by then, will this trade trend continue or will teams develop new star archetypes? It’ll be interesting to watch what we find out. A trade to try next time.
