Rosters are mostly set after this summer’s free agency period, and teams are just mostly now nibbling around the edge. Aside from a couple of training-camp decisions, most players are now on the teams they will be with through at last January, as rarely do teams make mid-season changes prior to that. Come January, though, and trade season will begin. Between then and the trade deadline at the start of February, many a player will be on notice, re-assignable at the drop of a hat as teams change and tweak directions based on the changing information throughout the first half. And then after that, in the time between the trade deadline and 1st March (a key date for player eligibility; if a player is on an NBA team’s roster at the end of that day, then that is the only team they can play for in the playoffs), some veteran players every season seem to get bought out, giving back money for the freedom to choose a team better suited for their needs, often going from a lottery team to a playoff team in the process. There follows a look at some of the players who may fall victim to the latter practice. Jeremy Lin, Atlanta Hawks Lin was acquired by the Hawks into cap space, without much in the way of sweetener going the other way. Normally, players traded into cap space are either very good or highly unwanted, and with the latter, a first-round pick (or more) is usually traded with their contract as sweetener. Not so with Lin, onto whom the Brooklyn Nets stuck only a 2025 second-round pick in moving him to Atlanta. Lin is an unlikely Hawk, a now-veteran reserve point guard without upside or team control on his contract, who nevertheless replaces Dennis Schroeder […]
Something I had forgotten about in the Hornets summer league round-up, pointed out to me by ticktock6 of Hornets Hype.com, was that Craig Brackins and Quincy Pondexter will be joining the Hornets roster once their as-yet-uncompleted trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder goes down. This goes some way to explaining why their roster is, frankly, a bit weak. However, a look at the upcoming Nets roster also highlights the flaws in the Hornets’s lineup. New Jersey have on their team many undrafted players from this year’s draft class, several of whom could easily have been second-round picks. There are a couple of also-rans, of course, but with roster spots to be won, the Nets have drawn a crowd of players who can certainly win them. This is in contrast to the Hornets roster, which, apart from the NBA players on it, has few possible NBA players on it. (If that makes sense.) Julian Wright was intended to play on the Hornets team as well, but he opted out. Doesn’t seem like a smart move for a man who needs to both win favour and improve greatly. A.J. Abrams There are many undersized shooters in the world, most of them pretending to be point guards to advance that career. However, Abrams has no such pretense; he’s a shooter and plays accordingly. This is evident in his first professional career, where he played for Trikalla in Greece and put up A.J. Abrams-like numbers; 17.3ppg, 1.6rpg, 1.0apg. Abrams left the team in December and did not play elsewhere that season. He was on the Nets summer league roster last year as well, but did not make the team. Indeed, as a 5’11 shooter with no point guard skills, he never will make an NBA team. He is what he is; undeniably talented, but […]
