Eric Sorenson
‘Tis the season.
As the summer temperatures rise, so to do the blockbuster, often miscast NBA trade rumors.
ESPN’s Chad Ford proposed a three-team deal involving New York, Cleveland and the Suns. The Knicks would send Carmelo Anthony and former Sun Robin Lopez to the Cavaliers. The Cavs would ship Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, Mo Williams and Sasha Kaun to Phoenix. The Suns would trade Eric Bledsoe to Cleveland; Brandon Knight, Archie Goodwin, Alex Len, P.J. Tucker and the 4th and 13th picks in next week’s draft to the Knicks.
Got that?
“It just sounds too fantastic to believe,” ESPN NBA Front Office Insider Amin Elhasson told Sports360AZ.com’s Brad Cesmat during a phone interview Wednesday morning. “There are just too many big name players, too many moving parts for this to be palatable.”
Elhasson believes parts of the deal make sense, particularly since Bledsoe and LeBron James are not only friends, but share the same agent in Rich Paul who is based in Cleveland. There’s also new Knicks’ head coach Jeff Hornacek who’s quite familiar with the quartet of players New York would get in return.
But the reality of a trade of this magnitude going through is remote according to the Suns former Assistant Director of Basketball Operations.
“There’s just way too many moving parts there to believe this could happen,” he told Cesmat. “The other thing is Cleveland is really getting the short end of the stick here. They’re giving up two All-Star [type] players…for [Anthony] who’s on the downswing of his career and needs the ball in his hands all the time…this sounds like something that someone dreamt of and it kind of filled in the blanks.”
Elhasson believes Love is somewhat miscast in Cleveland playing with two players (James, Irving) who need the ball the majority of the time and was asked not to focus on rebounding with the Cavs because it “gums up the paint.”
If Phoenix holds on to the fourth and 13th picks there are several different directions General Manager Ryan McDonough could explore.
“If Dragan Bender is on the board at four, then you have to take a look at him there,” Elhasson explained to Cesmat. “At 13 it gets a little more difficult because again, this draft is weird…a guy who might go 13 could also go 25. You never know.”
For now, let the wild rumors continue.
