Wizards General Manager Tommy Sheppard on Trade Deadline: ‘I'm Always Looking'

Wizards GM on impending trade deadline: 'I'm always looking' originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington

Wizards general manager Tommy Sheppard isn't ruling out making a trade before the March 25 deadline.

"I'm always looking," Sheppard told NBC Sports Washington Wizards Insider Chris Miller in an all-encompassing interview airing Thursday during Wizards Pregame Live ahead of their game against the Denver Nuggets. "We have to always look and evaluate what's best for our franchise."

"If there's opportunity to get better, we do that. But we're not looking to do anything right now," Sheppard said. 

After one of the league's worst COVID-19 outbreaks this season, the Wizards are finally back to full health and Sheppard's huge offseason move for Russell Westbrook seems to be paying off. 

Westbrook has helped the Wizards tremendously during their five-game winning streak, which the Clippers ended in a game that was a good measuring stick of where Washington lies this season. 

"We're finally getting in the groove with the guys we have, finally getting some chemistry and finally getting the ability to put the same group of guys out, night in night out," Sheppard said. "So we want to stay in that group because we think it's a pretty good group."

Though things are beginning to click for this season's iteration of the Wizards, Sheppard was sure not to rule anything out. 

"But if something comes along that helps us, we do that for sure," Sheppard said. "As trades come, you can plan for them a month out but most trades will happen either at the deadline or an hour or two before, or you take that into the summer."

While many trades do occur at the last minute of the deadline, Sheppard mentioned the biggest blockbuster trade of the season could make future deals more likely. 

"But, for us, we’re not looking to do anything, we just know the way the NBA is structured right now there are a lot of teams dissatisfied where they're at or they want to get higher than where they're at and people are going to be banging on each other's doors," Sheppard said. "I think a big trade that already happened is the trade Brooklyn did, and there's not a player blowing up as much as [James] Harden is. At his position, I think Bradley (Beal) is the best in his position, but Harden is running the league right now. That was a big trade for them.

"I think LA will be trying to take each other's heads off and Utah is playing better than anybody in the NBA, so teams are trying to gun for each other, I'm sure. The Wizards are, we just want to keep climbing, we're trending north as you say in your business. We want to keep moving forward. "

Tune in to NBC Sports Washington at 8 PM for the start of pregame coverage to see the full interview with Tommy Sheppard ahead of the Wizards final game of their west coast road trip. 

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