Many teams are doing the NBA's annual mid-season shuffle in a bid to gain assets via draft picks and expiring contracts or to improve their team from pretenders to contenders.

Several teams, most notably Cleveland, have shaken up their roster because they know they were not winning the title with their existing squad.

The Cavaliers have done all they can to convert their under-performing side into one that can mix it with the big guns in the playoffs. They effectively converted Dion Waiters - giving them very little return for his talent - and a draft pick into sorely needed rim protection in Denver centre Timofey Mozgov and some perimeter defence in Iman Shumpert, with the added bonus/potential dud acquisition of streaky shooter JR Smith.

When LeBron James and Shumpert return from injury in the near future, there will be no more excuses for Cleveland to be mired in mid-table mediocrity. That'll put even more pressure on coach David Blatt to deliver.

Their rivals in the east, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington and Toronto, have not been active on the trading floor - mainly because there has been no need to do so. You can't see Chicago making any moves but the Wizards, Hawks or Raptors could make minor tweaks if the right deal comes up before the trade deadline.

Such is the intense competition between the top 11 teams in the west vying for eight playoffs berths, each of them has made deals or been mentioned as possible trading partners to gain what could be an infinitesimal but potentially season-defining roster upgrade. Except for San Antonio. The Spurs rarely make trades. They won't be changing their side unless, of course, eight of their stars fall victim to eight separate misfortunes along the lines of Montgomery Burns' rigged softball team in Homer At The Bat.

Even Golden State, riding high at the top of the standings, have not been immune from trade talk. Veteran forwards David Lee and Andre Iguoudala could be on the move before the February 19 deadline because the Warriors need to clear cap space to avoid the luxury tax and re-sign their biggest improver this season, Draymond Green.

For two of the west's contenders, their mid-season trades will come down to chemistry. Bringing in the wrong player can cause havoc with the locker-room dynamics.

The Andrew Bynum experiment at Indiana last season is a cautionary tale for all NBA general managers. The Pacers were sailing along beautifully. Then they added Bynum. He wasn't even playing but their wins dried up. The former LA Lakers dual championship winner was coming off a season in Philadelphia where he never did suit up due to pre-existing and tenpin bowling-exacerbated knee injuries.

Bynum, who theoretically would have been a great back-up centre to Roy Hibbert at Naptown, played only two games after a month of rehab and then after another month taking up a large portion of the bench, the Pacers announced he would not play again for the rest of the season and not be involved in basketball activities. Basically, code for: we're getting this guy away from our malfunctioning squad early in the playoffs in the hope we can regain our missing mojo. It didn't work. It was too late.

Dallas brought in Rajon Rondo recently in a cushy deal with Boston. There were concerns the veteran point guard would not fit in with the Mavericks' up-tempo game. They have been quickly put to rest. The Mavericks have not only maintained their excellent offence but Rondo has given them a notable improvement in defence. Although trade bait Brandan Wright's absence hurts their bench depth, a starting five of Rondo, Monta Ellis, Chandler Parsons, Dirk Nowitzki and Tyson Chandler means Dallas are now bona fide contenders in the loaded west.

The early signs at Houston are that the mid-season acquisition of Josh Smith could have Bynum-like consequences. It's hard to resist a bargain basement pick-up like Smith after Detroit punted him but the fact that Pistons overlord Stan van Gundy waived the compulsive shooter without looking for anything in return meant any potential suitor needed to exercise extreme care.

The Rockets were skinny at the four spot. Smith is friends with Dwight Howard. Houston coach Kevin McHale is one of the greatest power forwards in the history of the game. It all had the potential to add up to the kind of move that would give them the impetus to scale the summit out west.

In his first 10 games in Rocket red, Smith's averaging 10.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.9 fouls in his 24 minutes per game while still shooting a modest 44 per cent from the field and a woeful 17 per cent from three-point land.

Worse for the Rockets, they lost three of their first seven matches with Smith on board but have bounced back a little with a three-game winning streak as McHale has used his new recruit primarily as a back-up on the bench but they have slipped back into a dogfight with Memphis, Dallas, the Clippers in the race for the three seed.

After relatively quiet trading periods over the past couple of seasons, there will be probably be a lot more over the next six weeks because the race for the title is so wide open this year. Any of the teams in the Western Conference finals equation at the moment, plus slow starters Oklahoma City, are a chance of lifting the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy while the top five in the east would all consider themselves in the mix.

The talented players who get moved around usually seem to land on their feet eventually but general managers need to be careful - they are easily expendable when impatient owners see their teams deteriorate rapidly after a bad trade.

Louis Winthorpe and Billy Ray Valentine eventually found their feet in Trading Places but the Duke brothers who engineered the switch ended up penniless and on the streets.