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Get ready for Draft rumors! Are Nets pursuing 8th, 14th picks?!?

NBA: Draft Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

They will be in the form of reporters tweets and stories, players’ Instagram posts, blogs and who knows what else. The NBA Draft rumors which start today in earnest.

As our Wonders and Blunders summary of the last 20 years of Draft Nights shows, most of them will not come to fruition ... but they will sustain us until the real thing, news of a trade or a promise, gets confirmed (usually by Woj or Shams or Stein, none of whom needs any further introduction.)

Here’s the first of Tuesday, from Sam Amico, who cover the Cavaliers. He writes this morning about how there are many pursuers for Cleveland’s pick in the Draft, which of course was the Nets until Billy King sent it away five years ago.

A lot of teams are very interested in trading up to that eighth spot. Or at least interested in trading for whoever the Cavs select...

Interestingly, the Brooklyn Nets are said to be the biggest suitor. Interesting because the Cavs’ eighth overall pick originally belonged to the Nets (and came to Cleveland via the Kyrie Irving trade with the Boston Celtics). The Cavs are listening to all offers for the pick and will continue to do so well after they select a player.

Does this make any sense for the Nets, who would almost certainly have to give up one of their core pieces or the Cavaliers, whose fans have been counting on that pick, once thought of as the key piece in the trade that sent Kyrie Irving to Boston?

The only way, it would seem, that it could make sense for the Nets is that they have fallen in love with someone who would be available at No. 8, where players like Wendell Carter Jr., Kevin Knox and Michael Porter Jr. sit. As for the Cavaliers, they only do this kind of a deal if they believe LeBron James is returning, which at this point seems uncertain. You don’t trade a pick even for a young player when you’re in rebuild mode.

What MIGHT it look like? How about a salary dump of Tristan Thompson, the Cavs’ center whose production dropped off while his tabloid presence rose with his romance with Khloe Kardashian. He is still owed $36 million over two years ... and the Cavs are WAY over the luxury tax threshold.

Meanwhile, Jake Fischer of Sports Illustrated reports on another rumored trade partner, the Denver Nuggets who, he says, are willing to give up the 14th pick for the right price.

In other words...

Or...

There will be other rumors and maybe even before the day’s end, a Woj bomb like there was a year ago today when at around 5 p.m., the Nets and Lakers made the deal that brought D’Angelo Russell to Brooklyn and sent Brook Lopez to L.A.

So we wait.