Sport-Blog.com

By Ed Jennett

Not surprisingly, the teams in the Southwest Division are not involved in a lot of trade rumors. The Southwest is the best Division in the NBA. Dallas and San Antonio are tied for the second best record in the league at 38-10. The Grizzlies and the Hornets, two teams who many experts expected to miss the playoffs are the sixth and seventh seeds respectively. Houston is the only team in the Southwest under .500. The poor performance of the Rockets is clearly due to All-Stars SG/SF Tracy McGrady and C Yao Ming a lot of time due to injury. The duo is back in the lineup now however, and the team has gone 6-4 in its last 10 games. If not for the health woes of McGrady and Yao, Houston would probably have one of the best records in the Western Conference.

The Dallas Mavericks are supposedly interested in trading SF/PF Keith Van Horn (and his expiring contract) to the Toronto Raptors for PF/C Antonio Davis (and his expiring contract). This would be a great deal for the Mavericks as it would give them another big man to help defend the premier power forwards and centers in the Western Conference. Dallas will have to be creative however to get Toronto to make this swap. The Mavericks cannot offer their first round pick because they have traded their first pick the last few years and have already traded their pick for next year. Dallas can add additional players in to the trade to try to entice the Raptors, but Toronto can only ship out Davis. This is due to Davis having just being traded to the Raptors from the New York Knicks for PG/SG/SF Jalen Rose and a first round draft pick.


The Houston Rockets are attempting to acquire SG/SF Keith Bogans from the Charlotte Bobcats. Bogans would provide Houston with a strong perimeter defender and with an additional shooter on offense. The Rockets would most likely send PF Lonny Baxter to Charlotte in return. The Bobcats have numerous front-court injuries. Due to Charlotte being under the cap the salaries do not have to match up. Houston also still has a trade exception from last year that can be used to add another player.

The Memphis Grizzlies are not currently involved in any trade rumors. This obviously is at least partially due to the fact that Memphis GM Jerry West has a long history of ripping off his counterparts in trades.

The New Orleans/Oklahoma Hornets are not involved in any trade rumors at the moment, but they are involved in a rescinded trade. The Hornets had made a trade with the Philadelphia 76ers for PF/C Steven Hunter. The Sixers were to receive a 2006 and a 2007 second round draft pick. Philadelphia also would have received a one year trade exception for $2.85, which is Hunter’s salary for this season. This was due to the New Orleans/Oklahoma being under the salary cap and thus able to absorb Hunter’s contract in the trade without sending out any salary.

The deadline for the deal had been extended five times before the Hornets informed Philadelphia that the trade was off. Due to a confidentiality clause in the collective bargaining agreement neither team can say why the swap was scrapped. It is believed that the issue that killed the trade was a knee condition that Hunter had played with throughout his career.

The San Antonio Spurs are not currently involved in any trade rumors. This makes sense since they are arguably (the other team in the argument is the Mavericks) the best team in the Western Conference and because unlike their counterparts in the East, the Detroit Pistons, the Spurs do not appear to have any weaknesses. While Detroit has to depend on its starters because of a weak bench, San Antonio can afford to rest its starters on a regular basis because of an assortment of deep and talented reserves. In fact, the Spurs might even have the best bench in the league. If the Spurs are to make any changes to their roster it would probably be a trade of backup C Nazr Mohammed, who will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. There is a chance that Mohammed will receive a contract offer so large (possibly from Atlanta, Chicago, or Toronto, all of whom have cap space and are desperate for big men) that small market San Antonio would not try to match it.