The NBA season has reached a point where teams are beginning to know where they stand in their respective conferences, meaning they also know what they need to add to get better or subtract to help rebuild.
One of the teams who is currently in the middle is the Atlanta Hawks, as they currently sit at 18-16, good enough for the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference.
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The Hawks currently have a few free agents-to-be this coming offseason, though, and as they learned last offseason when they lost Al Horford to the Boston Celtics in free agency, it may be better to shop those players now so they can get something for them before the Feb. 23 trade deadline.
Among those players are veteran forward Paul Millsap, one of the NBA’s best three-point shooters Kyle Korver and defensive specialist Thabo Sefolosha.
Each of those players could be a nice piece for a playoff team or even a team that is rebuilding but can use a veteran presence, like the Los Angeles Lakers.
If the Lakers have any interest in them is currently unknown, but it does appear that the Hawks have begun shopping them, via Brian Windhorst and Marc Stein of ESPN:
The Atlanta Hawks have begun listening to trade pitches for All-Star forward Paul Millsap in recent days, according to league sources.
Sources told ESPN.com that the Hawks, fearful of losing Millsap in free agency without compensation in the summer, are not openly shopping him but are taking calls on the 31-year-old and other pending free agents, notably sharpshooter Kyle Korver and swingman Thabo Sefolosha.
If the Lakers were to make a trade for any of them, Millsap or Korver in particular, it would likely require a verbal commitment from the player that they intend to re-sign with the Lakers in free agency. Even then it is unlikely that the Lakers would be willing to give up any of their core young players in a trade for a player that is north of 30 years old.