It’s NBA trading season and nothing will be more fun to watch than the Western Conference’s arms race. With the very real possibility that 50 wins will be the bare minimum for playoff qualification, the ten teams in the hunt for the eight available spots in the postseason will likely be working the phones in order to stockpile more talent.

After the Oklahoma City Thunder acquired former lottery pick Dion Waiters, it was time for three more conference foes -- the Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans and Phoenix Suns -- to make moves of their own.

These deals have left two key questions behind in their wake.

1. Are the combination of Brandon Wright and Alex Len enough to keep Oklahoma City out of the playoffs?

As of today, Phoenix has a 2.5 game lead over over Oklahoma City. Even though the Pelicans are lurking, the Suns' primary competition is likely to come from a now healthy Thunder. As last year’s surprising contributor Miles Plumlee continues to fall off, Len has usurped his role as the first option at center. The team has gone 10-5 since inserting Len into the starting lineup and defensive rating of 98.2 when the second-year big man is on the floor -- a number that would put them third overall in the league if it held up for an entire season.

Whereas Len is emerging as a defensive force, the addition of Wright, who will presumably take Plumlee’s role as Len’s backup, will boost Phoenix’s offense considerably. Though Plumlee and Wright have similar games, Wright has far more skill, length and athleticism and is also far more reliably at catching and finishing than Len. They’ll team to form a nice 1-2 punch where one or the other can finish games depending on what is needed on a particular night.

And despite being a non-shooter, Wright can create a Channing Frye-like effect for the Suns dynamic guard trio of Isaiah Thomas, Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe to take advantage of. Wright is such an explosive threat finishing on the roll that any big man guarding him is hesitant to leave his body -- similar to how they were with Frye, just at a different area on the floor. So even though Wright isn’t a “stretch big” he can act as a floor spacer for Suns team that has really missed Frye’s presence offensively.

The combination of Wright and Len will be essential to Phoenix’s attempt to hold off an OKC team attempting to dig out of hole created by their early season injuries. Last year, the Suns fell apart not only due to an ill-timed ankle sprain to Dragic, but a fall off in production from Plumlee and a general lack of size so glaring that Shavlik Randolph was given minutes in crucial games. With Len’s development and the addition of Wright, frontcourt issues won’t be a problem going forward unless injury strikes. That’s bad news for the Thunder.

2. What is Memphis looking do with Jeff Green?

On the surface this deal is a bit of head-scratcher for a Memphis team that always seem to lack consistent outside shooting. Green sits at below league average from 3-point territory for his career (34 percent) and has been abysmal in catch-and-shoot situations this year per Synergy data. In general, Green has always been a player who has passed the eye test but failed to produce any tangible effect on winning when graded by objective metrics.

He also represents a possible logjam in the Memphis wing rotation. It’s hard to believe that the Grizzlies would dare disrupt their starting wing combination of Tony Allen (the heart and soul of their identity as a team) and Courtney Lee (shooting 48.4 percent on three-pointers this year). Inserting Green for Allen at the small forward position would certainly cause some internal riffs, while swapping Green of the sweet-shooting Lee would create a starting lineup bereft of outside threats.

The logical destination then it seems is bringing Green off the bench, perhaps in the combo forward role that James Johnson, now in Toronto, occupied last year. It’s a role that Prince, had he not been in the twilight of his career, would have been able to fill. But Prince is no longer a serviceable NBA player and it forced Memphis to utilize a bevy of players to fill minutes at both forward spots -- most notably relying heavily on Jon Leuer at the 4.

But Leuer seems like a player destined to be a glaring liability come playoff time. He can space the floor reasonably well but doesn’t defend his position well and offers no versatility to the Memphis lineups. So far this year, the Grizzlies are -4.4 when Leuer is on the floor, one of the worst marks on the team of players that, ya know, actually play. Green, in theory, upgrades that but ironically, in more expensive and less impactful way than the departed Johnson.

No matter where Memphis slots Green, it definitely tightens up their rotation to an effective and malleable nine-man rotation featuring their typical starting five and bench unit comprised of Beno Udrih, Vince Carter, Kosta Koufos and Green. Green and Carter could soak up minutes at all the guard and forward positions while Koufos and Udrih could be straight swaps for Gasol and Conley, respectively. But unlike with Leuer, Green gives Memphis the ability to go big with Green and Carter on the wings or small, with Green at the 4. And in the rugged West, they’ll need to play both ways in order to make that elusive trip to the Finals.