We're now just three weeks away from the 2024-25 NBA season's trade deadline. At this point in the year, pretty much all of the teams are known commodities.
The true contenders have risen to the cream of the crop, the pretenders have revealed themselves, and the tankers have made their way to the bottom of the standings. Sometimes, a team might start the season thinking it belongs to a different group, but wherever they are now is more likely to be what they actually are. For example, the New Orleans Pelicans thought they were contenders but were pretenders at best and now have found themselves among the tankers.
Any squad that still wants to change its fortunes for the season only has one hope left: the trade deadline. While a tanking team like the Pelicans won't be able to become contenders with just a few roster tweaks, a pretender can exalt itself to contender status with some shrewd moves. Last year, the Dallas Mavericks traded for P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford and subsequently went on a 16-2 run to end the season before making a run to the NBA Finals.
Playoff-bound teams will be looking to capture that kind of magic ahead of this season's trade deadline. The Pelicans, with their cache of valuable veterans, may present the greatest hope for any squad looking to push its roster over the hump. They should act fast, though, because New Orleans's prices may be rising by the minute. Brandon Ingram's trade stock may have just gotten a huge boost recently, even though he hasn't set foot on an NBA court in 40 days.
Did Brandon Ingram just become this season's most coveted trade deadline asset?
Every season, there's one available commodity that becomes the prize at the trade deadline. Some acquisitions certainly pan out better than others but there's almost always one very publicly attainable player that's sought after by multiple teams before one ultimately lands him.
Last season, the Oklahoma City Thunder won the Gordon Hayward sweepstakes with a package built around rising scoring guard Tre Mann. The year before that, the Phoenix Suns landed Kevin Durant in a massive four-team deal. In 2022, the Philadelphia 76ers nabbed James Harden from the Brooklyn Nets.
This year, the trade deadline was shaping up to revolve around the Miami Heat and their star wing Jimmy Butler. Butler had privately requested a trade from the Heat, got shot down by the team, went public (and messy) with his demands, and was struck with a seven-game suspension for his theatrics.
His dramatics seemed to work, though, as Heat President Pat Riley succumbed to Butler's outcries to leave Miami, even if Riley did spin it into his own idea to banish Butler from the vaunted "Heat culture." It was reported that Miami would now be willing to trade Butler, although not to one of his preferred destination but to whichever team put up the most enticing bid.
It appeared like it would only be a matter of time before Butler landed on his fifth team. With a player like Butler — someone who's led his team to the Finals twice in the last five years — stuck in limbo, it's only natural that a massive chunk of the league would want to wait to see how his situation played out before they made any significant deals. After all, adding a player of Butler's pedigree could vault a middling team into title contention. Even teams that are far outside of the playoff picture could get involved as a third-party facilitator and benefit greatly.
The New Orleans Pelicans in particular were directly affected by the Butler saga, as it's been reported that many of Butler's top suitors had Brandon Ingram on their radars as a backup plan. Well, those teams might want to put their package together and give Vice President David Griffin a call soon, because Jimmy Butler might be off of the table now.
Per Kevin Love's Instagram, Butler met with Heat owner Micky Arison recently and it apparently went pretty well. Love posted an infamous clip from the film, The Wolf of Wall Street, in which the main character, Jordan Belfort, tells his company that he's not f***ing leaving with the following caption: "LIVE LOOK - Jimmy after his meeting with Micky #getmyjoyback"
The hashtag is referencing a postgame interview in which a reporter asked Jimmy if he'd be able to rediscover his joy playing basketball with the Heat. He answered with a firm "no." That seems to have changed.
This could simply be a convoluted scheme between the team and its disgruntled superstar, agreeing to temporarily join forces in order to find a deal for Butler. If not, though, the Pelicans' Brandon Ingram may have just become the best available player ahead of this season's trade deadline.