OKC Thunder trade No. 5) Al Horford for LaMarcus Aldridge swap
Over the past several months, Al Horford has been showing glimpses of revival in his career with the OKC Thunder which, in turn, has gotten fans excited about the potential returns they may be able to receive for him via trade.
Essentially all of the proposed trades involving the 34-year-old have seen either a first-round pick or a promising young player with reletively high upside coming back to the Sooner State.
This deal concocted by Favale sees neither of these two trends continuing and, instead, sees another aging big man/ former All-Star in LaMarcus Aldridge coming to OKC.
The idea behind this move is that the team would be swapping out two more years of Horford for the remaining year of Aldridge and, in turn, would clear their books for potential free agency signings.
"Cap space doesn’t mean as much in smaller markets, but ditching the next two seasons of Horford’s deal invites them to be more aggressive on the salary-dumping market or even when making buy-now trades. That’s worth doing Aldridge-for-Horford straight up. Other moving parts are involved only because San Antonio is hard-capped. Finishing plus-one in the second-round-pick department would be quite impressive for Oklahoma City given the impressions of Horford’s pact just a few months ago."
Though this idea would be one worth considering for a bigger market team like the Miami Heat, New York Knicks, or even the Atlanta Hawks, a team like the Thunder are rarely in play for big-time free-agent contracts as is and, even if they were to make more room in their salary space, the idea for the franchise is to develop their younger players and build through the draft, not free agency.
Add in the fact that they also see themselves losing Muscala in the process, and this idea just becomes less and less appealing for the Thunder.