NBA Trade Deadline: 3 trade targets teams should avoid

NBA trade deadline must-avoid player No. 3: Blake Griffin

NBA teams are savvier in today’s game than they were even just a few years ago, which means that a major mistake on somebody’s part would be required for Blake Griffin to get traded. Either Detroit Pistons general manager Troy Weaver would have to incentivize a deal with a young player or asset, which is unlikely, or another team would have to come up with a gargantuan salary fodder package to make a deal possible.

Considering how washed Griffin appears to be, the very idea on the side of either party smacks of lunacy. He played 18 games last season before getting shut down with a knee injury, and he played 20 games this season before coming to an agreement with Weaver and Pistons head coach Dwane Casey that he would sit out until they can make arrangements for him to move on.

Of course, even in a savvier NBA, trades we never saw coming do happen every so often. Maybe some team thinks Griffin has a Nicolas Batum-style revival in him, but trading for his contract on those faint hopes is (respectfully) nuts.

Griffin is likely to end up getting bought out after this year’s NBA trade deadline, and any team that short-circuits that process has some major explaining to do.