Brooklyn Nets center Brook Lopez still appears likely to be traded before the Feb. 19 deadline. Basketball Insiders' Yannis Koutroupis believes Brooklyn is simply just trying to drive up Lopez's value before pulling the trigger on a deal - perhaps with the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Denver Nuggets - right before the deadline.
Oklahoma City and Denver have both tried to trade for Lopez on multiple occasions, but none of their offers convinced the Nets to part with him. Despite the reported failures, most NBA analysts - including Koutroupis - still seem to think Lopez will be traded. Nets general manager Billy King has said he won't make a deal just to make a deal, and while Koutroupis doesn't doubt that, he does believe King is playing the wait-and-see game in order to further hike up Lopez's trade value.
Per Koutroupis:
"All it takes is two teams to drive a player's price up and create a bidding war. In the Nuggets and Thunder, the Nets have two teams that would be willing to accept their phone calls on Lopez leading up to the final moments of the February 19 trade deadline. Not to mention, all the other teams that we don't know about who could sneak in and top their offers. They're certainly not the only two."
One of the biggest questions surrounding Lopez is whether he will opt into his contract next season, which could - in part - determine how much a team is willing to trade for him. Lopez's lengthy history of injuries makes it make sense for him to play out the final year of his contract, something Koutroupis believes he will do - for both the financial security and the chance to land a bigger pay day in 2016.
"With another year of no injury setbacks and an increased salary cap thanks to the new TV deal coming next summer, Lopez could make significantly more next summer," Koutroupis wrote Monday. "... Typically, it just doesn't make any sense for a player to put off free agency and the ability to secure up to a five-year commitment. In this case, though, the smart move is probably for Lopez to hold off, prove his health troubles are behind him and potentially go into free agency with an all-time high salary cap with his stock closer to the max, which it would be well short of this summer, although he'd still likely get paid very handsomely (anywhere in the $10-14 million per year range)."
Other teams reportedly interested in Lopez include the Miami Heat and the Houston Rockets.
