Marc Stein

They are more difficult, but they're still going to happen.

Again, a week ago or not a week ago, even Friday.

We had only seen one trade to that point.

People are getting frustrated.

This trade deadline sucks.

When are we going to see some action?

And, like, things have already picked up.

We saw two trades over the weekend.

You know, Cleveland.

Keyon Ellis was the guy that I think most teams, at least most teams that I spoke to, they thought he was the guy who could move independent of whatever is going on with Giannis.

And that proved correct.

The Cavs make a three-team trade where they get both Keyon Ellis and Dennis Schroeder and Shedd.

DeAndre Hunter and reduce their tax bill significantly.

So there's like Charlotte, Brooklyn, and Utah.

Those are three teams that are all very willing to take up, to do the kind of trades you just suggested.

The Nuggets have to make a move like that.

The Raptors, if the Raptors don't make a big move, they still need to shed some salary to get under the tax.

You've got a variety of teams that want to create roster room specifically

So they can convert two-way players to standard contracts like your Nuggets with Spencer Jones, like the Mavericks where I live with Ryan Nebhard and Musa Cisse.

You're going to, I still think, look, we're already talking about a potential hardened trade that nobody really had on their bingo card.