NBA Power Plays: This Week's Trades, Shocks and Shifting Strategies

ben simmons signed a one year $3,500,000 deal with the sacramento kings after sitting out an entire season the former number one pick is back in the league on a prove it contract that is one of the biggest low risk high reward gambles we've seen in years in episode 18 we talked about the power shifts from blockbuster trades like john morant to portland but this week the league's entire strategic landscape got a lot more complicated now here's what else is moving the biggest story hanging over the league is giannis antetokounmpo trade talks have intensified over the last ten days with one proposal including a 10% trade kicker that's not just negotiation that's a team preparing to pay a premium to unload a generational talent and it signals the bucks are getting serious about a post yana's future meanwhile the boston celtics just blew up their core they traded jaylen brown to the philadelphia seventy sixers then went out and signed paul george and mike connelly president brad stevens called it a move for salary cap and

future flexibility but you have to ask flexibility for what they did this while their franchise player jayson tatum is recovering from an achilles injury and is questionable for the start of the season this is a massive franchise altering bet out in detroit the pistons and jalen duran are in a contract standoff the team has made what's being called a ballpark offer but there's no deal it shows a new kind of caution sweeping the league teams are getting very careful about who gets the big second contract and in a smaller but telling move the utah jazz sent cody williams and john contour to minnesota for josh green and cash it's a depth move but it shows how teams on the fringe are shuffling the deck looking for any small edge they can find finally the defending champion new york knicks did almost nothing they added andre drummond for veteran depth and lost mitchell robinson they are betting that continuity is the key to repeating standing pat while the rest of the east is in an arms

race so what does it all add up to you have two massive situations that show you the two paths a franchise can take at a crossroads the one you choose and the one that gets chosen for you let's start with boston trading jaylen brown a homegrown all star in his prime is a move you make when you believe your window is closed even if nobody else sees it yet this is the front office playing chess while the fans are still watching checkers they see the salary cap tightening they see tatum's injury and they decided to cash out their second biggest asset before his value could possibly decline where have we seen this before it's the corporate raider playbook from the nineteen eighties a company sells off a profitable stable division to generate cash for a riskier high growth venture stevens is essentially saying the current model of this team the tatum brown duo has peaked we're selling our blue chip stock to get liquid and find the

next big thing the problem is this isn't wall street in the nba chemistry and championship windows are incredibly fragile you can't just buy them back with cap space boston just traded a guaranteed all star for the mere possibility of future greatness it's either a stroke of genius or an act of self sabotage and we won't know which for years then you have the opposite situation in milwaukee they aren't choosing this path it's being forced on them the giannis trade talks aren't a strategic pivot they are a damage control operation this is the pattern we've seen a dozen times from anthony davis in new orleans to james harden in houston a superstar decides his time is up and the franchise loses all its leverage the rest

of the league smells blood in the water the inclusion of a 10% trade kicker tells you everything you need to know that's a tax the bucks might have to pay just to facilitate a deal sweetening the pot for giannis on his way out the door it's a sign of desperation the analogy here is a hostage negotiation the bucks don't hold the cards their only goal is to get the best possible return for an asset they know they are going to lose the question is no longer how do we win with giannis it's how do we survive losing him this week sets up a fascinating split in the eastern conference you have the defending champion knicks betting on stability you have the sixers going all in adding jalen brown to their roster and you have the celtics a perennial contender tearing it down for parts while everyone is watching the players the real game is the battle of philosophies in the front office and this season we're gonna find out which one was right