Grading 12 trade deadline targets from no-brainer to palpably awful

No. 3: Jakob Poeltl is a short-sighted trade target

The Thunder need size, the Raptors need to sell off their veterans, ipso facto the Thunder should trade for Jakob Poeltl. The problem with that idea is that Poeltl is expensive, he severely restricts the spacing on the court and he likely won't be available for free from Toronto.

Giving up significant assets to trade a non-shooting center flies in the face of what the Thunder have built over the past few seasons. Poeltl would help their rebounding and interior defense, yes, but the cost is too great and there are very real drawbacks on offense. This would be like buying a new hammer to whack one specific mole, ignoring the fact that the hammers they had were better suited to whack all of the other moles.

No. 2: Dejounte Murray is a shockingly bad trade target

The Atlanta Hawks should have known two years ago that the pairing of Dejounte Murray and Trae Young was unlikely to work, and they paid through the nose in future draft capital to give it a shot anyway. Fast forward to the present and the combination isn't working and the Hawks are openly shopping Murray on the trade market.

The Thunder have occasionally been mentioned as a team that inquired about Murray. That's probably true, as the Thunder are a good front office and good front offices do their due diligence on every available player. With that said, Murray and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would not be a great fit, the Thunder don't need to add smaller guards to their backcourt rotation, and they shouldn't be looking to win the bidding war for Murray. Trading for Murray would be a shockingly bad move for Oklahoma City.