Trade Deadline: Rubio, Muhammad Rumors

Yesterday we were bombarded with yet more Ricky Rubio rumors: He’s likely to be traded. To the Knicks for Derrick Rose. Or the Wolves don’t really want Rose. Or in a three way with the Pistons.

Expect more of the same today, and who knows, perhaps an actual trade.

The general sense seems to be that Thibs is committed to Kris Dunn in the future, though he hasn’t exactly pushed his playing time so far this season, relying on Rubio a lot for a guy he apparently doesn’t like very much.

I hope Dunn emerges, but it’s a gamble. As Britt Robson put it:

Apparently Thibs does. We’ll see.

Elsewhere, there was a convulsion in Laker land yesterday. Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchek were fired, and Magic Johnson hired as head of basketball operations for the franchise. We could go on at length about this, but here it is. Jeannie Buss was seemingly out of patience for their inability to attract stars to the Lakers over the last few seasons, and perhaps the Cousins-to-Pelicans deal was the final straw, as the Lakers refused to include Brandon Ingram in their offer for Cousins before the trade ultimately went down.

Magic’s first move was to trade Lou Williams, who has been a big scorer off the bench, to the Houston Rockets for Corey Brewer and a first round pick. Williams was clearly on the block as the Lakers look to gather assets going forward.

Williams was in play for a lot of teams looking for scoring punch off the bench, and now that he’s been moved, at least one of them has turned their attention to the Wolves’ Shabazz Muhammad. The WIzards are said to be interested in the Wolves wing man. My guess is they’d like him for cheap, so I don’t know that there will be a deal for the restricted free agent to be. I’d expect a Trey Burke (expiring) and second round pick type of offer. Whether the Wolves can do better remains to be seen.

There should be lots of chatter around the league today, and maybe some actual trades. Let’s talk about them here.