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Observers: Trades brewing could stir the NBA

Damien Lillard is already sending hints, Bradley Bill is starting to despair, Ben Simmons is making a dangerous gamble and Forzingis is threatening Luca Doncic's future.

Assaf Ravitz on the rocking stars

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• Damien Lillard

• Bradley Bill

• Ben Simmons

• Pascal Siakam

• Kristaps Forzingis

Assaf Ravitz

Monday, 30 August 2021, 14:00 Updated: 14:27

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The last few years in the NBA have been characterized by frequent star passes, mostly to create super-teams.

This summer is less busy.

So far only Russell Westbrook and Kyle Laurie, two stars of secondary size, have joined the star pairs in the Lakers and Miami.

Ahead of the season opener, there are a few players left, more or less senior, whose situation seems fluid.

While it does not look like any of them are going to open the season with another team, it is likely that at least some of them will trade during the season, which will create new and intriguing situations.

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Portland under pressure, and rightly so.

Lillard looking for a ring (Photo: AP, Tony Avelar)

Damien Lillard

The Portland star provided the best example this summer of confusion and conflicting messages.

After being knocked out in front of a missing Denver lineup in the first round, Lillard began to express resentment about the Blazers' current team-building process and her inability to step up from a playoff-worthy playoff team.

Whoever already seemed like a serious candidate to be the rare superstar who spends his entire career on the same team, has suddenly become a leading candidate for the trade.

But later in the summer Dame took a step back and made it clear that he was committed to the club, even though the management had not made any significant changes that could be understood to be necessary for him.

The senior Money Time player in the NBA is already 31 years old, and has signed for at least another three years in a team that is hard to see seriously battling for a championship in those years.

Portland did make a change on the lines this summer, Terry Stotes making way after many years for the intriguing Chonsey Billups. Just in the last few days the Blazers have also taken part in the trade that brought Larry Nance to the team, which seems like a very successful move by Neil Olshey. Nance is a very diverse player who will give the Billups an option for high and low lineups and has the potential to be an ideal roll player in a big team. Sometimes a new coach and an accurate roll player is all it takes to take a talented team the extra step forward, one can imagine the current Portland making that move, but it takes a very optimistic scenario. If that does not happen, next summer will not be easy for the Blazers, as Joseph Norkich and Robert Covington, two very important five-man squads with very comfortable contracts, will end a contract and be two of the most attractive free agents in the league.

There is no doubt that Olshei is currently only committed to building a team as good as possible around Lillard and C.J. McCollum, but a poor start to the season could lead to drastic steps.

A trade for McCollum, in exchange for a player less similar in his qualities to Lillard, is probably the last card before giving up Dime himself.

There is little chance that Portland will give up Lillard without an explicit request from the star himself, but such a request could come in the coming months.

Dame is not James Harden, he will not come to the opening of training and make a mess, but precisely because of this his public expression of frustration should be taken very seriously this summer, it is not a trivial step for him.

It could be that this is the preparation of the ground for a request to leave, that if you arrive during the season you will stir up the candidates for the degree who will try to do everything to get it.

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Should they release him?

Bill (Photo: Reuters)

Bradley Bill

Portland can take comfort in the fact that Lillard has signed for the long term, and even if another year or two passes, it will still be possible to get a very significant package in return. That's not Washington's situation with Bradley Bill. The Wizards star is practically finishing a contract next summer (he has an option for another year that he is expected to give up). Tommy Shepherd would have been happy to sign Bill on a long-term contract already this summer, but the player has better wait until next summer because then he will have ten years of experience in the league that will allow him to sign a bigger five-year contract. The problem is, for Washington it means letting him end a contract and hoping he does not leave for nothing.

As in the case of Lillard, here too the question of whether Washington is capable of building a large group around Bill would be crucial. And if the Blazers at least have a good playoff team, Washington currently has a roster that is not at all sure it is worth a playoff in the growing East. Spencer Dinwidi has been signed to the standard of great hope for a secondary star, but he comes after a long injury and in his career there has only been one season in which he has provided numbers that can justify that hope. New coach Wes Ansald Jr. will have two or three worthy players in each position, but other than Bill no one on the roster is more than an average player for his position at this point in his career. The Wizards' realistic optimistic scenario is that of a playoff team capable of giving a fight in the first round, no more, and this is not a situation that should convince a superstar to commit to all of his career highs for it.

In recent years trades on stars the size of Bill have arranged the future for some teams, so losing him for nothing in the summer will be a severe blow for Washington and Shepherd.

Since there will be very few teams with a place below the salary cap, it is likely that the team that signs him will need a sign and trade that will allow the Wizards to get something in return, but that return will be much poorer than what can be obtained in the summer trade or during the season.

Right now everyone is talking about a wish Trail would stay in Washington for the long term, and maybe he loves the club and the five-year contract enough that only Washington can offer attractive enough for him to actually stay.

But even if Bill himself does not demand anything, there will come a point during the season where Shepherd will have to decide if he takes the risk of letting Bill end a contract and hope for the best.

The problems will start soon.

Simmons (Photo: Reuters)

Ben Simmons

In the days following Philadelphia's loss to Atlanta in the second round, few would bet that at this point in the summer Ben Simmons would still be a Sixers player. The crowd that only despised him in the midst of a crucial playoff game, Joel Ambide passed a public critique on him, he lost the trust of the system. His story in Philadelphia seems finished, it seems like one of those situations where there is no going back. Apparently, that's still true. Simmons is not in Daryl Murray's long-term plans, and the only reason he has not yet traded is tactical.

Murray tried to market Simmons early in the summer, but demanded a price from a senior superstar that no team thought of paying. Now he probably hopes a successful regular season opener will help forget the awful series against Atlanta, in which Simmons refused to be a factor in the final quarter, refraining from shots and scoring penalties at an unusually terrible percentage. The decline in the status of the unique Australian is probably really exaggerated. Simmons has proven at certain moments in the last two years that without Ambide he does know how to lead a team, and when you surround him with outside shots you can get more out of him. The winning formula has not yet been found for him, but I'm sure quite a few managers in the league believe such a formula exists, and it includes a move between a classic point guard and a Dry Center Green-type point center in low-stakes Golden State lineups. Simmons is a total of 25 years old and is one of the best guards in the league, at the right price he is definitely worth a bet.

The question is what is the right price for Murray.

Simmons is the Sixers' most important asset in trying to get a senior guard better suited to play with Ambide, and Murray doesn't seem to intend to compromise on less.

He is probably waiting with the trade also to wait for developments in the Lillard and Bill sector, although in the current status of all involved it might be more realistic to target CJ McCollum.

In any case, it is not certain that Murray takes enough into account the explosive situation of starting team training, when Simmons will have to meet Ambide and the rest of the team and start prep games with an audience.

This could be an example of a situation where the trade will be forced on the club earlier than planned because the team will not be able to function in the current situation.

Deserves more Luca.

Forzingis (Photo: GettyImages)

Christopher Forzingis

Dallas is another team that fails to form around its huge star a good enough assisting team. Luckily, Luca Doncic is still very young and far from a stage where his possible frustration will translate into a departure request, but the feeling that they have something rare in hand should have made Mark Cuban and his executives feel more pressure to start taking advantage of this opportunity. After a summer in which the signed senior player is Reggie Bullock, it's hard to talk about a club that does everything to build a contender around his diamond.

Dallas' situation with Forzingis is reminiscent of Philadelphia's situation with Simmons. Here, too, it is a matter of who was supposed to be the sub-star and for a moment it also looks like that, but over time the question marks become more and more relevant to the unique talent. In the series against the giant Latvians the Latvian failed to create throwing situations for himself, failed to function as a worthy defensive chin and ended up with another player standing on the line of three, waiting for Luca’s dedication and not contributing enough on defense. On the one hand, just before he was injured in the bubble, he showed sparks of a real superstar. And as in the case of Simmons, the truth about him is probably in the middle, and Dallas is probably hoping he will see some of his talent at the start of the season to remind league teams how promising he was recently considered.

In his condition and with his contract, Forzingis is probably best suited for teams at the start of a construction process, who do not plan to sign more senior players in the next two years.

This is an opportunity for them to bet relatively cheaply on a player with the potential of a star.

That will not be enough for Dallas to get the player it wants - a sub-star who can take some of the offensive burden off Lucca, while keeping good and scoring well from the outside.

But maybe she can get youngsters, picks or secondary players to help her build the package for this player, because right now it's hard to see where Cuban is pulling a rabbit from.

An intelligent bet.

Siak (Photo: Reuters)

Pascal Siakam

Toronto is in a very unusual situation: two years after winning the championship, it is already in the midst of a rebuilding process. In those two years, six of the eight rotation players in the championship playoffs have left, leaving only the two youngest: Pascal Siakam and Fred VanValit. Today they are both 27 years old, an age that places them on the seam between the stage where it makes sense to stay in a young team that is being built and lead it to a stage where it makes more sense to look for a team that is trying to succeed in the present. Around them there is a young and talented enough squad to fight for the playoffs this year, but not sure it's enough for players who just recently had a significant part in the campaign that ended in a ring.

Naturally, their name comes up in rumors of trades even though all parties are denying such an intention at the moment. Most of the rumors are directed at Siakam. Since the departure of Kwai Leonard, the diverse Cameroonian has become the Raptors' top scorer, but was stopped just before he became a true superstar. It is much more appropriate for him to be number 2-3 in the hierarchy, as he was in the championship season. He is exactly the type of player that many teams are looking for: a secondary creator who can maintain some positions and also play as a chin in low formations. It is very difficult to find such players available, even more difficult to find those who also scored almost 20 points per game in the NBA Finals, including the most important basket in the coronation game. VanValit has also done some great things in the playoffs and is also expected to arouse great demand in the league as a pick n 'roll expert with great shooting and excellent guard defense.

On the face of it, Masai Yujiri has good reasons to keep his two stars.

This way he will be able to put together a competitive team every year, let his youngsters gain significant experience and maybe within two or three years already build Toronto's next big team, make a San Antonio style generational change without a sharp drop in ability.

But it is likely that during the year, if not already in the summer, large teams looking for the missing piece in the puzzle will be willing to offer very attractive packages of youngsters and draft picks for his two stars, especially Siakam, which is a temptation that will be hard to resist.

Golden State, for example, could offer some of the youngsters selected high in the draft in recent years.

No one will be surprised if Siakam ends the season elsewhere.

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