Prediction No. 1: Bradley Beal and Zach LaVine stay put
About a month earlier into the season, Bradley Beal and Zach LaVine would top every reporter’s and writer’s trade candidate list. Fast forward to the All-Star break and it seems unlikely that either of these two gets dealt prior to the trade deadline.
This pair of shooting guards have been putting on a clinic this season. Beal is averaging 32.9 points per game and leading the league in scoring, while LaVine is a close No. 6 in the rankings at 28.7 points per game.
The initial thought was that both are too good for their own team. While that statement was correct at the time, the Washington Wizards have been on a killer run as of late, winning eight out of their last eleven games and are approaching the playoff seeds at breakneck speed.
The Chicago Bulls have been battling in-and-out of the playoff spots for quite some time now and are not looking like a tanking team, a rare sight in the past few years. On top of that, LaVine is apparently happy in Chicago and has no immediate plans of asking for a trade.
Trading for either Bradley Beal or Zach Lavine would require giving up a lot to get them. Young players or draft picks aren’t enough. When you’re dealing with out-of-this-world scoring machines, it has to be young players AND multiple draft picks.
If by the end of the season we fail to see Washington or Chicago make the playoffs, the trade talk regarding this pair will resurface. Until then, we can only watch them light it up every night, as they continue to work on their individual teams as leaders.