Sak Sports Blog

The Cleveland Cavaliers are 31-22 sitting in 3rd place in the Eastern Conference. To some teams, it's an enviable position, but for LeBron James and the Cavaliers, it's a massive disappointment. After three straight trips to the NBA Finals, anything less will be considered a failure in 2018. The Cavaliers began to gear up for the 2018 NBA Finals last summer, when they made an NBA landscape-shifting move, shipping star point guard Kyrie Irving to the Boston Celtics for Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, and Brooklyn's 2018 1st-round pick. Fast forward to February's trade deadline and both those players are gone. The Cavaliers flipped their roster on Thursday in an unprecedented fashion, trading away six players in an effort to raise the team's playing standards. Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Derrick Rose, Iman Shumpert, Channing Frye and Dwyane Wade are all gone. In their place, the Cavaliers received Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance, Rodney Hood and Geor...

In a shocking, blockbuster trade, the Los Angeles Clippers have shipped star forward Blake Griffin to the Detroit Pistons in exchange for Avery Bradley, Tobias Harris, Boban Marjanovic, a 1st-round draft pick, and a 2nd-round draft pick. The move comes just hours after the story broke that the Pistons had made Bradley available for trade. I wrote an entire article on Bradley's potential landing spots, including the Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder, only for this trade with the Clippers to be announced as I was seconds away from hitting publish. My predictions, and the general consensus around the league, was Bradley would be shipped to a playoff contender in need of his elite defense and solid three-point shooting.  The Clippers aren't out of playoff contention, sitting 9th in the West at 25-24, so technically they fit the bill. But I was expecting a team near the top of the playoff race to acquire Bradley, not one currently on the outside loo...

The Detroit Pistons surged out of the gate this season, sitting 2nd in the Eastern Conference at an impressive 14-6. But point guard Reggie Jackson was lost for the season, and the wheels started to fall off.  An 8-20 stretch, and a current eight-game losing streak, has plunged the Pistons to 9th in the East. While there's still months to play, the team has lost realistic hope of making the playoffs and is trending towards the bottom of the conference. With hope dwindling, Detroit will reportedly shop guard Avery Bradley ahead of the February trade deadline. Bradley was acquired from the Boston Celtics last summer, but will be a free agent in the summer of 2018. The Pistons are looking to move, to avoid having him walk for nothing in July. Contenders would be wise to look at adding Bradley for a playoff run. While the guard's production offensively isn't as good as it was the previous two seasons, his defense is still elite and he can knock down an open thr...