Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
I would argue the opposite of the bolded. Teams are so unsure of whether they are definitely contending teams they won't want to mortgage any futures for rentals.
I agree there are only a handful of sellers. But I would say there are also only a handful of buyers while the rest of the league is just going to let things play out.
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Unsure because of their spot in the standings? Or unsure because of the life cycle of their franchise (not a contender, still retooling, etc)? The thing is a lot of GM's know that if you make the playoffs anything can happen.
I feel like a lot of GM's are optimists not realists. We saw this with Feaster here who blabbed on about intellectual honesty and that we should be sellers if the team didn't show him enough and then he still doesn't sell after they lose some key games and didn't look like they had a realistic shot.
Any team that is like 4 points out that has some reasonable excuse as to why they are that low (injuries, bad luck, w/e) and feels they can make the playoffs probably won't hesitate to add depending on cost. I mean the fringe teams may not be the ones adding the highest profile UFAss but they may still shop for depth at a lower price and picks up lesser UFAs for mid round draft picks. Obviously the fringe teams are unlikely to mortgage the future completely for just a chance at the playoffs but that doesn't mean they won't be "buyers" and won't affect the market. Just the fact that they aren't sellers will help the sellers as well.
Guess we'll see, we can speculate all we want. But based on how tight the standings are and the history of trade deadline action I see a lot of deals happening and I see UFAs going for decent amounts.