Trade rumors will be flying like bats at dusk over the next 16 days as the NBA trade deadline nears, and inevitably some of them are going to include Will Bynum of the Pistons.
Our own Moke Hamilton has advocated the New York Knicks going after him, and it would not surprise me at all if the Oklahoma City Thunder made a bid for Bynum, who would bring stability and scoring to the backup point guard position behind Russell Westbrook.
Thunder coach Scott Brooks has used backups Eric Maynor and Reggie Jackson sparingly (both average less than 11 minutes per game), and one of the side effects of trading away James Harden was removing a player who took some of the distribution and ball-handling duties away from the turnover-prone Westbrook, allowing him to spend more time off the ball.
Bynum, who becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer, would be a better addition for the Thunder than Derek Fisher was at the end of last season.
With the Pistons in rebuilding mode, and the Thunder in win-now mode, don’t be surprised if there is a fit here. Oklahoma City owns one of the league’s most valuable non-player trade assets — the rights to Toronto’s No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft (Top 3 protected), which the Thunder obtained from Houston in the Harden trade.
I discussed Bynum and several other NBA topics, including the San Antonio Spurs’ upcoming nine-game Rodeo Road Trip, in this interview with CineSport’s Tara Petrolino.