Why Does NBA Allow Finals to Get Overshadowed by Trades?

The Pacers-Thunder NBA Finals, which Oklahoma City leads 3–2, could be basketball’s first seven-game finale since the Cavaliers and Warriors in 2016. Yet heading into Monday’s critical Game 5, much of the coverage was around the Grizzlies trading Desmond Bane to the Magic in exchange for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Cole Anthony, four first-round draft picks, and a pick swap. 

The NBA is different than most leagues. What happens off the court often draws more interest from fans than what happens on the hardwood. Once their season is over, the 28 teams not playing in the Finals can swing trades in preparation for their next season. That can take some of the spotlight away from the Finals—The Association’s marquee event. 

Take Sunday’s blockbuster Bane deal. The first megatrade of the NBA offseason was the talk of the sports world Sunday night. On Monday morning, NBA Finals media partner ESPN opened the Get Up morning show with the “huge” news of the trade, and its implications for Grizzlies superstar Ja Morant. 

It wasn’t until a full 38 minutes into Get Up that the cast addressed Monday’s Game 5 in Oklahoma City. 

ESPN’s First Take did take the opposite approach. With both Stephen A. Smith and Brian Windhorst on-site in Oklahoma City, the show opened up with an in-depth breakdown of Game 5 among Smith, Windhorst, Jay Williams, and Molly Qerim. Over on X/Twitter, the Bane deal was one of the top trending stories, along with J.J. Spaun’s U.S. Open victory at Oakmont Country Club and a midseason trade of Rafael Devers by the Red Sox.

It’s hard to imagine the NFL or MLB allowing trades to take the spotlight away from the Super Bowl or World Series, respectively. During the 2024 NFL season, for example, the league’s 32 clubs could not make trades between the Nov. 5 trade deadline and the official start of the new year on March 12, 2025.

MLB, meanwhile, prohibits trades of players under contract between the July 31 trade deadline and the conclusion of the World Series. What’s more, there’s an unspoken agreement not to let player and team news overshadow postseason action, according to my FOS colleague Eric Fisher. In the same vein, MLB clubs are discouraged from making manager and general manager hires during that period. When super-agent Scott Boras announced during the 2007 Red Sox–Rockies World Series that Alex Rodriguez was opting out of his Yankees contract, he was denounced for hijacking the Fall Classic. The New Yorker dubbed him “The Extortionist” for his talent at media manipulation.

On the other hand, you could argue the Bane trade helped keep the NBA top of mind on a day when the sports world should have been fixated on Spaun’s 64-foot walk-off putt to win the Open.

NBA insider Jake Fischer, who writes for Marc Stein’s The Stein Line, told FOS that the past week of these supposedly boring NBA Finals has generated the Substack site’s best subscription revenue in a “long, long time,” he says. Granted, the site has done plenty of offseason reporting between games.

“People are just looking to consume NBA content in between the 48 and the zero on the clock, too,” Fischer says.