NBA Trade Deadline: 3 trade targets teams should avoid
By Duncan Smith
The NBA trade deadline is nearing in March, and contending teams are looking for deals to bolster their title chances. There are plenty of top-level targets, led by Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal, where it’s clearly worth paying a big price to acquire them.
It gets murkier in the tiers below the top, and some players could be downright catastrophic to yield a haul of assets for. We’re going to break down three of the riskiest players on the trade market, a group that teams should avoid giving anything up for.
Player No. 3 to avoid trading for at the NBA trade deadline: Victor Oladipo
He’s already been traded once this season, and Victor Oladipo may be on the move yet again before the end of the year. The Indiana Pacers traded Oladipo to the Houston Rockets in the four-team blockbuster deal that sent James Harden to the Brooklyn Nets, and he is rumored to have the Miami Heat on his mind as his next long-term destination.
He’s a free agent after this season, which means that teams trading for him would have to do so with the understanding that he likely would walk in free agency. Oladipo also hasn’t been very good this year with shooting splits of .387/.255/.730, averaging 18.3 points on 18.1 field goal attempts and 3.1 free throw attempts per game.
Giving up anything of value for a player who may be a net negative on the floor and who is likely out the door after the season would be a bad idea for any team hoping to make a push into the ranks of the NBA’s best.
This leads us to our next must-avoid candidate.