Atlanta Hawks: Kent Bazemore Trade Scenarios for Every Contending Team

Slam Dunks:

Now we get to the juicy ones. These teams have already been active in acquiring players in order to help bolster their rosters, so trading away Baze to these teams should guarantee a future draft pick.

The 76ers are desperate for depth. One need only listen to the last few episodes of The Rights to Ricky Sanchez podcast to know that Philly fans are getting a little loopy watching their team trot out lineups of players “who can’t do enough things” on the court. Enter Kent Bazemore. Trading Baze for Wilson Chandler, Markelle Fultz and a future pick would certainly put a dent in the Sixers’ depth, but it would also allow the Sixers to get off of Fultz’s nearly $10 million cap hit next season. Chandler isn’t particularly helping the team right now either, so shopping Baze to Philly would make sense for the Atlanta Hawks and Travis Schlenk.

We’ve previously outlined a deal sending Kent Bazemore to the Rockets, but this one features a slightly different lineup of players. While the main trade parameters remain the same, the Atlanta Hawks could include Tyler Dorsey in order to pull in Vince Edwards from the Rockets in addition to Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss as well as a future pick. The addition of Baze and Dorsey to the Rockets would immediately give Houston two rock-solid perimeter shooters, and Baze would be able to slide into the Rockets’ switching defensive system ably and reliably. For the Atlanta Hawks, rookie Vince Edwards has played very little for the Rockets and a flyer on Marquese Chriss (in addition to a pick hopefully) should make for an easy decision.

Lastly, LeBron James recently gushed about Anthony Davis joining the Lakers, but in the meantime, Los Angeles could prioritize incremental growth by adding an excellent defender and a solid shooter in Bazemore – two areas that the Lake Show would love to improve. On top of that, the Lakers would get another young talent in Taurean Prince to add to the young core of Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram. In return, the Atlanta Hawks would get Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who could be bought out or traded elsewhere, Michael Beasley (ditto) and Isaac Bonga, a very young (19) international rookie that would provide the Atlanta Hawks with additional young talent to explore – in addition to the first round pick that the team would likely require in any deal.

There you have it — potential Kent Bazemore trades for almost every contending team in the league. Of course, these are pie-in-the-sky, wishful thinking scenarios, but many of them make sense for both sides. The NBA is extremely unpredictable, so whatever deal does get done will likely shock everyone, but until then, chew on these as some fanciful possibilities.