NBA trade deadline will be moved to before the All-Star game

Christmas will come a week early next season for trade lovers. The league has decided to move up the NBA trade deadline.

Those who love trades will love the new change the NBA made on Wednesday afternoon. The NBA approved a change to its trade deadline, moving the date up a week, prior to the All-Star game. The new trade deadline is now Feb. 8, 2018.

Shams Charania of The Vertical was the first to report the ruling.

We’ll call this “The Boogie Rule.”

All-Star DeMarcus Cousins was in New Orleans speaking to the media after the game when news broke that the Sacramento Kings dealt him to the Pelicans. Immediately, the focus shifted from the game to the blockbuster trade. Prior to the deal, rumors involving Cousins, Carmelo Anthony, Paul George, and others dominated All-Star weekend and took the attention away from the festivities.

By pushing the deadline up a week, the NBA is ensuring that the All-Star game will be the center of attention during the weekend. Now, if two general managers are seen talking to each other at the game, we can assume that they’re making dinner plans and not discussing a multi-player swap involving cash and protected draft picks.

Along with keeping the attention on All-Star weekend, this change benefits the players and teams. Players who are traded won’t be quite as rushed to move in with their new team seeing as games won’t be played almost a full week after the trade deadline passes. This gives players extra time to settle in and teams extra time to incorporate new players, getting them familiar with the organization and how things are done.

Finally, this should open up the buyout window a week earlier, allowing those players to move to their new teams quicker.

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As of now, this ruling is only effective for the 2017-18 season.