NBA trade season’s key opening move. Plus, NBA Stock Report + Giannis’ familiar block

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The “Inside the NBA” crew usually gets a 10 out of 10 on almost everything they do on their show. Stephen A. Smith going 3-of-5 from the free-throw line to beat Kenny Smith shooting 1-of-5 left-handed, followed by Shaq and Stephen A airballing 3-pointers left and right wasn’t their best work. I still love them, though.

Stock Report!

NBA Cup finalists are heading up

The NBA Cup is trending up! We all knew that, though. Otherwise, latest trends (both good and bad) are constantly evolving and devolving in the league landscape. That’s why we created the NBA Stock Report, to help keep you in tune with the risers and fallers each week. Let’s check who’s heading in the right direction, and give some encouragement to those heading in the wrong direction.

📈 Thunder (20-5): This isn’t just about everybody having NBA Cup fever. The Thunder could pretty much be trending upward every single week in this section. They’re still going to add Chet Holmgren back into the mix in a few weeks, which can only make you think about how ridiculous their defense will be. The Thunder have won five straight games going into Tuesday’s Cup Final, and they have a net rating of plus-20.3 during these five games. This team is detonating every opponent right now. And it’s going to get better for them.

📉 76ers (7-16): We’re headed toward “but how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” territories of this Sixers season. They had won four of five games and looked like they were finally getting on track. Throw in a couple of days off during this past week, and they could’ve gotten things right … or at least better. Wrong. Rookie Jared McCain tore his meniscus and needs surgery. Joel Embiid suffered a sinus fracture. And it’s looking like there won’t be a positive turning point for Philadelphia. Hopefully, the Embiid issue isn’t too serious. He’s played with a mask before. Philly can’t catch a good break, though.

📈 Kings (13-13): Don’t look now, but Sacramento has won four of its past five games and put up some big performances in the process. The Kings are one of the few teams to beat Houston recently, and they put up 140 on San Antonio and 142 on Utah before closing out a tough one against New Orleans. The defense has been good, and the offense has been elite. If the Kings can stay healthy, they’re going to start looking more like the team we saw a couple years ago. It looks like that Keegan Murray jumper is back too.

📉 Blazers (8-18): It appears the Blazers have lost hold of the rope. They were 6-8 at one point and playing solid defense. Since then, they’ve won just two of their last 12 games. Most of these losses are justifiable because their schedule has been brutal. But they also lost by 42 to the Jazz. That’s when you knew things were really bad. Their offense has been terrible. And on defense? That might be even worse right now. This team isn’t expected to win, but it has to be more competitive and show development.

📈 The Heat (13-10) have won four in a row, and their offense has really been clicking during this stretch. Their team true shooting percentage is above 60 percent in these wins, and the defense is still clicking like you’d expect. Miami tends to rise above when everybody is doubting its team and things seem needlessly complicated. If that’s true, these Jimmy Butler trade rumors were right on time. Five of their next seven games are on the road, and one of those home games is hosting OKC.

📉 Pistons (10-16): We celebrated Detroit in this space a couple weeks ago, but it’s since kind of fell back down to earth. It’s understandable the Pistons would regress some as their schedule turned against them. They lost to a mostly healthy Sixers team before falling to the Bucks and Celtics (twice). And the good news is Cade Cunningham has been on a tear recently, shooting the ball exceptionally well (50.5 percent from the field and 45.5 percent from deep in his last five games). Rookie Ron Holland III is also coming along pretty well of late.

📈 Bucks (14-11): We couldn’t forget the other team with NBA Cup fever! Milwaukee has won 12 of its last 15 games, and the defense has been very encouraging lately. Khris Middleton is still trying to find his form on the court, but we’ve seen that connection between him and Giannis Antetokounmpo still showing up. The Bucks have a great test Tuesday night, and finally winning the Cup might be the thing that gets everybody to believe in them again as a contender.

The Last 24

Is the NBA expanding to Mexico?

🇲🇽 South of the border hoops. The NBA has flirted with Mexico City for expansion. Joe Vardon checks how real it is.

🦌 Bucks getting better. They’re riding Giannis’ great play recently, and it’s working. Sam Amick from Vegas.

🔥 Jimmy Butler’s trade market. How close is he to actually getting moved? David Aldridge breaks it down.

🏀 LeBron James returned to the Lakers’ lineup after a two-game absence and says he’s feeling pretty good.

🏀 John Hollinger breaks down the start of trade season and more.

📺 Don’t miss this game tonight. Nuggets (13-10) at Kings (13-13), 10 p.m. ET on League Pass. Best game on the schedule and two potent offenses going.

Trade SZN Is Reborn

Warriors begin it with a shrewd move

Every season, Dec. 15 is the day everybody starts firing up trade machine apparati on the internet because deals that had been signed in the offseason are eligible to be traded – finally! Most of them anyway. There are exceptions, but we don’t need to dig into that. Basically, we get to quickly find out which teams are having signer’s remorse.

With that key date passing this weekend, the Warriors opened up trade season with a much-needed acquisition. Well, technically we had Thomas Bryant traded from the Heat to Indiana as the first deal reported, but that one isn’t sexy.

The Warriors brought in Dennis Schröder from the Nets in exchange for De’Anthony Melton, Reece Beekman and three future second-round picks. Don’t tell John Hollinger this, but the Nets’ motivation for this trade likely wasn’t acquiring his fellow Virginia alum and two-time ACC DPOY Beekman. This was about the draft picks. I’ll remind you Melton is on a one-year deal and out for the rest of the season with a torn ACL.

For the Warriors, this brings them another initiator on offense, which they desperately need. They’re entirely dependent on Steph Curry being on the floor if they want to have any kind of offense. Golden State scores 120.2 points per 100 possessions with Curry on the floor. Extrapolate that for the entire season, and they’d sit tied with Cleveland for the best offense in the NBA. Take Curry off the court, and it plummets to a 101.8 offensive rating. That would be the worst in the league.

The Warriors are excited about Schröder playing alongside Curry, but really this trade should be about survival when Steph isn’t on the court. It’s a great trade for the Warriors, but I’m wondering if they’re done dealing.

READ: Trade grades

DON’T MISS: Every team’s biggest need during trade season

Weekend Madness

Giannis to the rescue and Jordan Poole hilarity

Usually, we keep the weekend recap strictly to what’s happening in the NBA Stock Report, but there were too many things from the weekend we needed to highlight. Let’s start with Saturday’s NBA Cup action in Las Vegas, with the Bucks taking down the Hawks 110-102 behind 32 points, 14 rebounds, nine assists and four blocks from Giannis. It was a great game between both teams that pretty much went down to the wire.

The play of the night happened with about 2:30 left in the fourth quarter with the Hawks down 103-98. Trae Young turned the corner on a pick-and-roll and tossed the lob up to the heavens for Clint Capela to throw down. If he dunked this, we’d have a one-possession game. Giannis had other ideas. Watch him erase this dunk attempt.

It was an amazing moment. Giannis went crashing to the floor after the block, but the Bucks secured possession. It was reminiscent of his incredible block in Game 4 of the NBA Finals when Devin Booker tried to find Deandre Ayton on a lob to tie the game with 1:15 left, and Giannis erased that one too.

That block set the stage for the defensive battle that was the Thunder taking down the Rockets 111-96 to win the West side of the bracket. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander dropped 32 in that one as the Thunder recovered from a 41-point first half to find their rhythm in the final 24 minutes. It’s a good bit of preparation for facing Giannis and company on Tuesday.

Nothing could prepare us, though, for the latest Jordan Poole “highlight” that happened on Sunday. The Celtics ended up beating the Wizards 112-98, but everybody left that game talking about what Poole did in the third quarter. Check this out.

Poole dropped Payton Pritchard on a beautiful move to free himself up for the 3-point shot, which could’ve cut it to a 13-point game. In true Poole fashion, he hesitated to shoot and pointed at Pritchard on the ground. This gave Sam Hauser time to rotate over and force a pass. The Wizards did not score on the possession, but did get a steal quickly after to get a bucket.

And finally, the Mavericks (17-9) and Warriors (14-11) played an actual barnburner. Here are some stats from the game:

• The Warriors made 18 3-pointers in the first half and were losing 81-74.
• The Mavericks (21) and Warriors (27) broke the NBA record for combined made 3-pointers in a game.
• Draymond Green made three straight 3-pointers at one point.
• Luka Dončić had a 41-point, 10-rebound, 10-assist triple-double… after three quarters. He finished with 45-11-13.
• The Mavericks won 143-133 behind 59.8 percent shooting as a team.

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(Top photo: Juan Ocampo / Getty Images )