NEW YORK \u2014 NBA teams appear as if they\u2019re done procrastinating.<\/p>\n
Normally, front offices clutch onto their assets \u2014 their draft picks, their players \u2014 until the final second. Within 24 hours of the trade deadline, agreements finalize. Swaps finally occur. After days or weeks or sometimes months of negotiating, there\u2019s movement.<\/p>\n
But we\u2019re witnessing a theme this season, and there\u2019s a chance it may become a trend.<\/p>\n
Teams are swinging deals 72, 48 hours before the arrival of the trade deadline, scheduled for 3 p.m. ET on Feb. 5. There was the James Harden trade, or the Darius Garland one, depending on your perspective<\/a>. The Boston Celtics acquired a long-awaited big man<\/a>: Nikola Vu\u010devi\u0107. The Sacramento Kings landed De\u2019Andre Hunter<\/a>. Mike Conley has had three employers in three days. And more<\/a>.<\/p>\n All of this after months of silence throughout the league.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n One front-office executive posed a theory: This is a reaction to chaos from last season\u2019s trade deadline.<\/p>\n Heading into the 2025 deadline, three different players had issues with their physicals. The Dallas Mavericks acquired Caleb Martin, who failed a physical, but the deal occurred a couple of days before the deadline, which allowed Dallas and the Philadelphia 76ers to amend the agreement and finalize the trade. But Martin\u2019s twin, Cody, also failed a physical, league sources said, after a trade to the Phoenix Suns.<\/p>\n But that trade was done right up against the deadline \u2014 as, more famously, was the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 trade for Charlotte Hornets center Mark Williams. Martin failed a physical. So did Williams. And since the deadline had passed, the Suns and Lakers were no longer allowed to amend the deal. League rules said they could let the trade go through as is or rescind it, sending all players back to their incumbent teams.<\/p>\n The Suns kept the trade as is; the Lakers, of course, did not, creating an uncomfortable situation they deemed necessary after seeing Williams\u2019 medical reports.<\/p>\n But no one wants to replicate that situation. And there\u2019s one way to make sure the awkwardness of Dalton Knecht getting traded to Charlotte, then having to return to the Lakers locker room doesn\u2019t happen to your team: Just execute the trade early enough in the week so that physicals occur before the deadline.<\/p>\n And right now, that\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing teams do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 NBA teams appear as if they\u2019re done procrastinating. Normally, front offices clutch onto their assets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3792],"tags":[208,7,75,247,473,329,193,149,187,188,164,194,126,4056,135,150,177,189,121,152,6,470,191,179,76,207,472,471,986,477,4055,474,476,427,468],"class_list":{"0":"post-583058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento-kings","8":"tag-atlanta-hawks","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-brooklyn-nets","12":"tag-charlotte-hornets","13":"tag-chicago-bulls","14":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","15":"tag-dallas-mavericks","16":"tag-denver-nuggets","17":"tag-detroit-pistons","18":"tag-golden-state-warriors","19":"tag-houston-rockets","20":"tag-indiana-pacers","21":"tag-kings","22":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","23":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","24":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","25":"tag-miami-heat","26":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","27":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","28":"tag-nba","29":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","30":"tag-new-york-knicks","31":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","32":"tag-orlando-magic","33":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","34":"tag-phoenix-suns","35":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","36":"tag-sacramento","37":"tag-sacramento-kings","38":"tag-sacramentokings","39":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","40":"tag-toronto-raptors","41":"tag-utah-jazz","42":"tag-washington-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}