Five under-the-radar teams that should be sellers ahead of the NBA trade deadline

It’s Christmas time in the NBA, and that means trade season is upon us, with the most recently signed free agents now eligible to be moved.

There is always a smattering of teams willing to make moves, either seismic or around the edges, to improve their chances of competing, just as there are teams that the entire league knows are looking to shed assets.

While we are looking at the sellers here, we’re going to ignore the Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards and Brooklyn Nets — obvious candidates — with the focus switching to a selection of under-the-radar teams who either will, or should, look to be sellers before the Feb. 5 trade deadline.

Charlotte Hornets

They key to a rebuild is to find your tentpole young star and then build around them. While the talent is clearly there, LaMelo Ball has neither the temperament nor the physical reliability to be the bedrock of a rebuild. Kon Knueppel, though, may be that guy.

If Charlotte decides to change course and build around its sharpshooting rookie, then Ball is likely to be bounced out of town. With a $40 million cap number and a mere 56% availability rate, Ball is simply not the player to build around.

Milwaukee Bucks

Granted, we might be cheating, here, given Giannis Antetokounmpo is the single biggest trade chip in the Association. That said, if the Bucks choose to move their megastar, it will be open season in Milwaukee.

Kyle Kuzma and Bobby Portis are near certainties to be moved, should Giannis leave. Myles Turner and Gary Trent Jr. would likely be hot on their heels. Would the Bucks look to strike while the iron is hot on successful reclamations in Ryan Rollins and Kevin Porter Jr.?

Should Giannis be moved, the Bucks brass will have a scroll of deals lined up in the aftermath.

Boston Celtics

The Celtics are rightly using their Jayson Tatum-inspired gap year to shed salary and avoid the repeater tax. However, they’re still $12.1 million above the luxury tax, so expect more moves before the deadline.

The obvious candidate is Anfernee Simons, the 26-year-old offense-first (only?) guard holding an expiring $27.7 million deal. Expect teams to sniff around the criminally underpaid ($7.2 million) Payton Pritchard.

While a team taking on Simons (hello, Brooklyn!) would ask for the world in add-ons, the Celtics would get actual assets back for Pritchard. From there, they could easily make up the remaining salary to dump through Chris Boucher and Xavier Tillman.

New Orleans Pelicans

While the asset management of the trade that brought in Derik Queen was all sorts of terrible, he has been stellar. Queen and Jeremiah Fears are again proving that head of basketball operations Joe Dumars and general manager Troy Weaver are actually pretty decent talent evaluators. It’s their trading and free-agency record that is a concern.

So, while the Pels certainly could do with selling off players such as Trey Murphy III and Herbert Jones while they hold peak value, you can’t guarantee that Dumars and Weaver will extract something close to that peak value in return.

Memphis Grizzlies

The fun but all-too-brief Ja Morant/Jaren Jackson Jr. era in Memphis is over. Morant appears to have at least one foot out the door, while Jackson has plateaued as a player.

It’s time to change tack and build around Cedric Coward and Zach Edey, with a solid supporting cast of Vince Williams Jr., Santi Aldama, Jaylen Wells and Cam Spencer already in place.

GM Zach Kleiman has proved time and again to be an expert trader and astute evaluator of young talent. While he has had some missteps of late, many of those — the coaching merry-go-round, for example — could conceivably be chalked up to satisfying the whims of Morant.

Moving on from Morant will allow Kleiman to do what he does best.