Update: Adrian Wojnarowski reports that conversations between the Raptors and Grizzlies didn’t progress too far.
What we thought to just be smoke and mirrors might be real after all.
Reported live this afternoon on The Jump’s NBA Trade Deadline broadcast, Brian Winhorst of ESPN said that Ricky Rubio, Mike Conley and Kyle Lowry could all be on different teams by 3PM tomorrow afternoon.
It was also reported yesterday that the Jazz and Grizzlies were engaged in trade discussions centred around a Rubio/Draft pick for Conley swap. Details emerged this afternoon that Mike Conley reportedly has no interest in playing for the Utah Jazz, which may have spawned the above suggested transaction.
To reiterate the point made by Louis in yesterday’s reports, conversations happen all the time, and with rapid frequency this time of year. It doesn’t necessarily mean a deal is close to being done just because it’s been tweeted about. It is the job of Masai Ujuri and other NBA General Manager’s to explore options to improve their respective teams, and talking through trade packages is part of that process.
The other side of this equation is the fashion in which this information is becoming publicly available. Leaking information as a leverage tactic is something that happens quite often in the NBA. One team who is incentivized to move a player intentionally leaks players that were (or weren’t) mentioned in trade discussions, in an effort to ignite other trade offers for that player. Masai rarely ever has had any information leak from trades he’s orchestrated, and the same can be said for the negotiations Utah has made over the recent years. The same cannot be said for the Memphis Grizzlies.
Given that it is public knowledge that Memphis has been shopping longtime franchise duo Mike Conley and Mark Gasol in an effort to rebuild this struggling franchise, there has been many accusations made suggesting Memphis has intentionally leaked these supposed offers in an attempt to get more teams to pick up the phone and make them an offer. Nobody is suggesting Masai never uttered the words “Kyle Lowry” in trade discussions over the past few weeks, but the notion that this is a deal close to being done, or even appealing to all parties involved, is bleak at best.
The lack of other reputable sources reporting or confirming the above deal, indicates that no-one should hold their breath until more details on this situation emerge.
As for the impact this this trade would have on all teams involved, it’d difficult to flush out the details without more information of who is in the deal. Given the comparative size of Rubio’s salary (15.1M) versus that of Lowry and Conley (30M), there would definitely need to be more guys involved from each team to make the money and trade make sense. If you missed Louis Zatzman’s analysis of what the Conley/Lowry aspect of this swap could mean for the Raptors on-court success, I encourage you to check it out.
It won’t be long until we can make sense of all this, and it will be interesting, to say the least, how Raptors management and Kyle Lowry move forward if the 5-Time All-Star stays put (where he belongs). Buckle up boys and girls, we’ve got 22 hours to go.
