Baseline Wire: NBA Trade Rumor Analysis

Where the Nets aren't in a rush and the Fox temperature rises

NBA trade rumor season really begins this week.

With contracts signed this summer coming available to be dealt in the coming weeks and teams starting to understand what they are and are not this season, conversations start to pick up and so do the leaks.

I want to start with a base element that it took me some time to learn in conversations with front office folks.

Teams always look to move from a position of opportunity, not from weakness. "

“You don’t want to take a bad situation and make it worse by losing on a deal to try and save the season,” one executive commented this week.

A league insider on the player side had a more cynical view.

“It’s easier to do nothing and kick the can down the road,” the source said. “It gives you more time for things to turn around on their own which keeps you employed a lot of the time.”

But when teams have a chance to make a run, they’ll go for it. It’s why you saw the Suns trade for Royce O’Neale two seasons ago and why Boston added Xavier Tillman.

This is why so many players sit on the trade block for years because their teams would like to deal with them but are waiting to trade them from a position of strength, not weakness.

Which leads us to the Brooklyn Nets and the Chicago Bulls.