Title: Raptors Trade Deadline Primer
Date: February 6, 2018
Original Source: Raptors.com
Synopsis: I’m going to be helping Raptors.com out a bit this year. In my latest for them, I went over what fans need to know ahead of the NBA trade deadline.
The NBA trade deadline is at 3 p.m. ET on Thursday. With it comes the annual array of questions, trade hypotheticals, and exciting chatter that’s become the defining trait of basketball in early February. It’s a really fun time of year.
It’s also a complicated one. The NBA’s salary cap rules govern what teams can and can’t do in trade. Coming up with trade scenarios that are legal can get a little complex, and while it’s not fans’ responsibility to know all of these rules, the answer to “why didn’t the Raptors do THIS” is often that it may have been illegal. Even the vaunted ESPN Trade Machine has some holes.
In order to try to get ahead of some of the usual questions this time of year, what follows is an attempt at a high-level explanation at some of the restrictions facing the Raptors. If you still have questions at the end, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 