By 12:01 AM tomorrow morning, the Los Angeles Lakers could be without the league's most dominant big man and its most deadly perimeter threat.
Shaquille O'Neal could be a member of the Miami Heat and Kobe Bryant may change teams (though not arenas) and sign with the Los Angeles Clippers.
But all of this is speculation and observers of the NBA world won't know until the official announcements are made.
These answers will come sooner rather than later now that the NBA's moratorium on player movement is about to be lifted.
"It's going to go down," Mark Bartelstein, the agent for Miami's Brian Grant, said yesterday of the Heat's trade to acquire O'Neal. "I think it will be announced tomorrow."
Rasheed Wallace is also expected to sign a long contract to stay with the Detroit Pistons, but Joe Dumars called reports that a deal was already done "very premature."
"We're close," Dumars wrote in an e-mail. "We're going to get it done. But the report that it's actually done is inaccurate."
Miami is ready to send Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Grant and a first-round draft pick to the Lakers for Shaq. Team officials confirmed that the deal is likely but not finished. The Lakers will only make the deal if Bryant goes ahead and signs a seven-year offer for about $130 million from the Lakers.
Meanwhile, Rob Pelinka of SFX has resigned as the agent of Carlos Boozer because Boozer apparently broker his verbal agreement to stay with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
"I didn't make a prior agreement," Boozer said. "And if I did, I would've stayed here. For them taking shots at my character is incredibly wrong, and I don't understand that. I thought I had a great relationship with them. Maybe they're trying to save face or trying to make up stuff and kill my character."