The dust has now settled on a 24-hour period in the NBA that can only accurately be described as bonkers.
Last week’s NBA Trade Deadline saw 11 deals involving 17 teams as 37 of the NBA’s 440 players were moved at the deadline – that’s 8.4 per cent of the league, according to NBA.com.
And no position was rebooted more times over a batty period than point guard. Of those 37 players spit-shining their names on brand new lockers, 14 players – more than a third – play the point. That includes two who will never know how that new uniform feels against their skin after being waived following the deals.
So which trade already looks a steal and which still has us scratching our heads?
1. Goran Dragic, Miami Heat
‘The Dragon’, other than being the owner of the NBA’s best nickname, is undoubtedly the best player moved at the deadline. The All-NBA third team guard landed in Miami for the measly sum of two future draft picks and roster flotsam, causing Heat Nation to erupt with talk of the league’s strongest starting five and fantasies of Cleveland first-round upsets.
Then the news broke of Chris Bosh’s season-ending blood clot.
Miami should still make the playoffs in the weak Eastern Conference, but after essentially gaining one top-20 player and losing another, nothing much has changed and their season remains unlikely to extend very far into May.
However, after giving up two draft picks, one of which is unprotected, in the Dragic deal, Heat president Pat Riley has no choice but to offer Dragic a max contract when he opts out of his player option in the summer. Nevertheless, Miami’s point guard rotation of Mario Chalmers, Norris Cole (shipped to New Orleans in the Dragic deal) and rookie Shabazz Napier was one of the league’s worst, and the capped-out Heat had no other way to land a guard of Dragic’s quality. Poor luck aside, this trade is a huge win.
2. Reggie Jackson, Detroit Pistons (above)
Jackson can’t shoot (27.8 per cent on threes this season), doesn’t get to the line an awful lot (2.3 free-throw attempts per game) and isn’t a great playmaker (4.3 assists), so on face-value, his pathological desire to be an NBA starter might seem a little over-confident.
But those stats don’t tell the whole story. Jackson, excellent in isolation and in the pick-and-roll, is the type of player who needs the ball in his hands in order to be effective – not easy while sharing the floor with Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant. When both were injured early in the season, Jackson averaged 20.2 points and 7.8 assists on 41.6 per cent shooting in 13 games. After pouting his way out of OKC, he landed in the ideal situation in Detroit, where he will be the undisputed primary ball handler.
Jackson is a restricted free agent and his stock has never been lower. If he outperforms expectations, Detroit will be happy to pay him a starter’s salary (and then try to sell high on currently injured Brandon Jennings in a trade). If Jackson flops, the Pistons could still keep him on the cheap or even let him go and use the cap space to find a less costly replacement. A low-risk move.
3. Brandon Knight, Phoenix Suns (above)
4. Michael Carter-Williams, Milwaukee Bucks
This three-team trade saw two players moved on by franchises who felt they had yet to find their point guard of the future. Milwaukee didn’t want to pay Knight, a restricted free agent, the going rate for a 17-plus-point scorer (upwards of $11m per season) when they are training young forwards Jabari Parker and Giannis Antetokounmpo to be their point-producers. The asset-hungry 76ers, meanwhile, had no interest in developing a player in Carter-Williams who they feel will never be elite.
Carter-Williams is a terrible shooter (38 per cent from the floor, 25.6 per cent from three), but he’s is a better defender and more willing playmaker than Knight, and Bucks coach Jason Kidd may well see some of his young self in the reigning Rookie of the Year. More importantly, Carter-Williams is much cheaper. He will be paid on his rookie-scale contract for three seasons after this one. For the Suns, Knight will prove less costly to re-sign than the departing combination of Dragic and Isaiah Thomas.
For Carter-Williams, the Sixers netted the Los Angeles Lakers’ top-five-protected draft pick from the Suns. Depending on the success of the Lakers’ rebuild, the pick could prove to be the deal’s most important piece.
5. Isaiah Thomas, Boston Celtics (above)
At first glance, it’s hard to see where 5ft 9in Thomas, a skilled, high-usage scorer, fits into a Celtics team who last summer drafted its future point guard in Marcus Smart and signed shooting guard Avery Bradley to a hefty four-year, $32 million deal. But Celtics GM Danny Ainge is another asset-hoarder, and Thomas’s trade-friendly four-year, $27 million contract, which declines each year, is just that – an asset. He was gleaned for one of the Celtics’ many protected future first-round picks. Don’t be surprised if Thomas is traded again, to his fourth team in two seasons, before next season’s deadline.
6. DJ Augustin, Oklahoma City Thunder
A career 37.3 per cent three-point shooter who excels in catch-and-shoot situations, DJ Augustin looks a much better fit than Jackson to come off the Oklahoma bench and share the backcourt with fellow ball-hog Dion Waiters.
7. Andre Miller, Sacramento Kings
8. Ramon Sessions, Washington Wizards
Andre Miller may be a hundred years old, but The Professor (second-best nickname in the league?) can still help a very young Kings team that is averaging the fewest assists in the league. Ramon Sessions is much younger, much cheaper and oh-so-much quicker than the man he replaces as John Wall’s understudy.
9. Isaiah Canaan, Philadelphia 76ers
10. Pablo Prigioni, Houston Rockets
Never try to pick the winner of a trade between Rockets GM Daryl Morey and Sixers counterpart Sam Hinkie – who knows which of these best buds now owes the other a favour? In this case, Canaan and two second-rounders were exchanged for super-freak KJ McDaniels. The Rockets also acquired New York Knicks guard Prigioni for Alexey Shved – previously with the Sixers – and two second-round picks.
11. Norris Cole, New Orleans Pelicans (above right)
Miami needed to move Cole in the Dragic deal, but did so with a heavy heart. Hard-working Cole was a two-time champ, fan-favourite and perennial Flattop of the Year Award candidate in Miami (if you enter ‘Norris Cole new’ into a Google search, it suggests ‘haircut’ before ‘Orleans’). Cole should earn some minutes behind Jrue Holiday with the Pelicans.
12. Tyler Ennis, Milwaukee Bucks
A throw-in in the Knight-for-Carter-Williams trade, yet a slightly confusing one – Ennis was picked 18th by Phoenix in the first round of last summer’s NBA Draft after an impressive year at Syracuse. He is just 20 years old and earns a pittance by NBA salary standards. With two point guards already moved at the deadline, did the Suns need to lose a third?
13. Ish Smith, Philadelphia 76ers
14. Kendall Marshall, free agent
Smith was sent from OKC to New Orleans, waived and subsequently picked up by the Sixers. Marshall, already ruled out for the season with a torn ACL, was traded from the Bucks to Phoenix and waived for a second time once more by the team that drafted him (very cold, Phoenix).
Jamie Goodwin is Web News Editor on gulfnews.com and has been an avid follower of the NBA for more than 20 years.
