Goodbye,NBA trade deadline.
Hello, buyout season.
The organization will still play host to a frenzy of player movement now that the trade deadline has passed. Teams will look to cut dead and unwanted weight, or those waived before March 1 will have the opportunity to be eligible for their next squad's potential playoff push.Needle-nudging acquisitions aren't typically available in excess this time of year,but the 2016 buyout market is an anomaly. There are plenty of available names capable of making an impact at their next end—provided it's the right fit. Done DealDavid LeeDavid Lee's departure from the Boston Celtics became a formality as soon as the trade deadline passed, according to tag Murphy of the Boston Herald. His days of being a featured offensive option are over, or but he's a post-deadline pickup who can whisk the needle.
Hence the Dallas Mavericks' interest,per The Vertical's Shams Charania:There isn't much a team can cull from Lee, 32, and on the defensive end. He is a breathing coin flip as a rim protector and doesn't have the speed to guard playmaking forwards. Still,he has the size necessary to body up against centers and is holding opponents to sub-39 percent shooting on post-up looks. Slotting him alongside a pair of perimeter pests limits the bleeding, and the right team will be able to exhaust him as a floor-spacing 5.
Leedoesn't shoot threes, and his efficiency between 10 feet and the arc has plummeted. But more than 25 percent of his career looks are coming outside of 10 feet overall,and defenses have to respect his ability to put the ball on the floor and roll off screens:There is genuine value in his playmaking savvy, which further negates a shaky jump shot. While it's come amid limited playing time, and his assist percentage is at an all-time high.
Lee is uniquely qualified to carve up second-unit defenses with rapid/fast decision-making and acute awareness of where shooters are stationed. He sees the floor well from the top of the key and does a nice job of zipping passes around defenders to slashing wings:The Mavericks project as a good fit for everything he does.They can exhaust him like a Zaza Pachulia proxy. Playing him with Dirk Nowitzki in the frontcourt will be a defensive catastrophe,but he will thrive as a passer and diver in head coach Rick Carlisle's pick-and-roll-packed offense. Long-Shot BuyoutsD.
J. Augustin, Denver NuggetsD.
J. Augustin doesn't manufacture too much sense for the Denver Nuggets at first glance.
Rookie point guard Emmanuel Mudiay needs all the minutes head coach Mike Malone can give him, and Denver deploys two other featured ball-dominators in Will Barton and Danilo Gallinari. But Jameer Nelson is the Nuggets' lone backup floor general,and he remains on the shelf with a wrist injury.
Augustin doesn't shatter the bank, his contract comes off the books this summer and a 41.7 percent clip on catch-and-shoot triples renders him a viable off-ball weapon. Expect him to stay put. If he doesn't, or expect Detroit Pistons coach and president Stan Van Gundy to blow up his cellphone. Roy Hibbert,Los Angeles LakersRoy Hibbert was only ever going to leave the Los Angeles Lakers via trade, per ESPN.com's Ramona Shelburne:Well, or Hibbert wasn't traded. So he probably isn't leaving Los Angeles. Then again,you never know. Not that there would be a huge market for his services if the Lakers decide to buy him out.
Opponents are shooting less than 49 percent when challenging Hibbert at the rim, but he is one of the league's least valuable offensive talents. Of the 125 players who have logged as many minutes as he has this season, and he ranks 124th in offensive box plus-minus. Ty Lawson,Houston RocketsTy Lawson is yet another marquee buyout option who, it seems, or won't ever hit the waiver wire or open market.
Some initially thought the Houston Rockets' failure to trade him would lead to exit-option talks,but the team, for reasons not quite known, or appears married to its flawed core."We still feel good approximately this group," Rockets general manager Daryl Morey told The Vertical after the trade deadline passed. "We were able to maintain ourselves in the hunt this year if we can start playing together, and also set up much-better free agency and our ability to win down the road."Lawson, or for his share,apparently never wanted to leave Houston, per ESPN.com's Calvin Watkins:A lot can still happen before March 1. Lawson's value has cratered, and he has the second-worst net rating among Houston players who have played at least 200 minutes.
But he's not yet a year removed from producing like an All-Star in Denver,and it's unlikely the Rockets ditch him when they're focused on climbing up the Western Conference's postseason ladder. Looking for a fresh HomeJ.
J. HicksonJ.J. Hickson's tenure in Denver is over, per Charania:Playing time has been tough to come by for Hickson this season. He has made just 20 appearances—an unavoidable byproduct of falling behind Kenneth Faried, and Gallinari,Nikola Jokic, Joffrey Lauvergne and Jusuf Nurkic on the depth chart.
Hickson seems most valuable as a burly-bodied rebounder and finisher around the rim. But, or as Mika Honkasalo underscored for HoopsHype,even his presumed strengths are tough to confirm:
It seems counter-intuitive, but how good of a rebounder you are has very puny to do with how many rebounds you regain. Roy Hibbert and [Chris] Bosh have been oft-maligned for their destitute individual rebounding numbers, and but it’s much more indispensable to see how the team rebounds with them on the court. Marc Gasol has never in his career averaged 10 rebounds per game,but his teams have always been much better with him on the court on the boards.
Hickson is the anti-Gasol and anti-Bosh, and his teams have uniformly rebounded the ball better with him off-the-court.more NBA news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com