After a stunning NBA trade deadline, the landscape of the league looks to have taken a major shift with many teams having drastically changed in the span of a few hours.
So then, what teams should be counted as the biggest winners, and which ones came away worse for wear? Here’s a closer look.
Winners
Miami Heat
Executing the transaction of the deadline, the Heat were able to acquire disgruntled Phoenix Suns point guard Goran Dragic, and his brother Zoran, for Danny Granger Justin Hamilton and a couple of first-round picks.
At first glance the two first-rounders may seem like a steep price to pay, but consider that the Cleveland Cavaliers leveraged two firsts in order to get Timofey Mozgov, while the Heat are using theirs, plus spare parts, to acquire a star player in the making in Dragic.
Dragic is head and shoulders better than any other point guard the Heat have on their roster and his acquisition immediately accelerates the team’s rebuild as they once again look to have a three-headed monster on their hands.
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Concerns are there regarding his drop in productivity from his All-NBA 2013-14 season, but that should be more chalked up to the fact that he was upset and uncomfortable with the switch to the off-guard in Phoenix this season.
The biggest problem in acquiring Dragic for Miami will be to convince him to sign as he’s an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, but seeing as the Heat were one of the teams on his alleged list of approved clubs to be traded to, chances are good that he’ll stick around on South Beach.
The Heat currently hold the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference with a 22-30 record. With him in the fold, combined with Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and the pleasantly surprising Hassan Whiteside, expect to see Miami shoot up the standings and, at the very least, be the team no other top Eastern Conference team – like the Raptors – wants to see in the first round.
Detroit Pistons
Playoffs or bust. That appears the mentality behind the Pistons’ move to acquire Reggie Jackson for essentially just D.J. Augustin and Kyle Singler as part of a larger three-team deal – and they should be applauded for this.
Detroit may be sitting in 11th place in the East, but it is only two games back of the eighth seed and acquiring Jackson should help its cause immensely. He’s exactly the player the Pistons need.
When Brandon Jennings was ruled out for the season much of Detroit’s hope left with him, but Jackson can fit right in as the team’s starting point guard and take on similar scoring and playmaking responsibilities that Jennings had.
The long-term prospects of Jackson staying is the only wild card in this deal as he’s a restricted free agent at the end of this season. Jackson reportedly stated he’d be willing to sign his qualifying offer, which would make him an unrestricted free agent in 2016, so he may not be a permanent fixture in the Motor City.
Still though, after seeing a team like the Philadelphia 76ers dial it back again after doing so for the past two seasons, it’s nice to see a team that’s been stuck in a rut of irrelevance make a hard push for the playoffs and actively try to change its situation – the future be damned.
Boston Celtics
Similar to the Pistons, the Celtics are another Eastern Conference team that many expected to tank but surprisingly finds itself on the cusp of the playoffs.
As almost a reward of sorts for the excellent job coach Brad Stevens has done, Boston GM Danny Ainge went out and acquired dynamic point guard Isaiah Thomas from the Suns along with decent role player Jonas Jerebko and throw-in Luigi Datome from the Pistons, all just for the price of the unwanted Tayshaun Prince, the mercurial Marcus Thornton and one of their many first-rounders.
On all accounts, this deal feels like highway robbery for the Celtics. To land a talent like Thomas for a pair of pieces that definitely aren’t part of their future and a first-round pick that doesn’t figure to be in the lottery — it’s actually Cleveland’s pick — is nothing short of amazing.
Sweetening the deal is the fact the Celtics have him under control for another three seasons after this one, so there’s no risk of him bolting anytime soon.
Thanks to the eight first-round picks they’ve acquired through trades in the past – four alone potentially in this year’s draft – Boston found itself in the rare and enviable position of being able to make a hard playoff push without sacrificing much of the team’s future, and Ainge took full advantage of this. Bravo.
Losers
Phoenix Suns
In a head-scratching decision, the Suns dealt Dragic, Thomas, Miles Plumlee and Tyler Ennis in order to acquire a few first-rounders, Brandon Knight, Thornton, Granger and Hamilton in multiple deals.
While the Dragic situation left the Suns with no choice but to deal him, trading Thomas made no sense whatsoever, particularly after they just signed him to a five-year deal and that his incoming replacement, Knight, is set to hit free agency at season’s end.
It’s been reported that the Thomas move was made to try to appease Dragic and convince him to stay in the desert, but that seems like a pipe dream at best — Dragic and his camp had reportedly been very adamant in his desire to leave Phoenix.
In terms of how this will affect the Suns on court, Knight and Thomas put up comparable numbers, but expect Phoenix to quickly drop in the standings as the Suns will dearly miss Plumlee’s inside presence; Granger and Hamilton won’t bring much of anything to the table, while Thornton is just a nice expiring contract.
So, by the look of things, Phoenix’s management is blowing up its roster and preparing for a rebuild just because it screwed up big with Dragic, and despite the fact the team currently holds a playoff spot.
In short, the Suns came out of the trade deadline looking like a hot mess.
Milwaukee Bucks
As bad a deal as it was for Suns, the Knight trade may have been even worse for the Bucks.
Trading away Knight, the team’s best player this season, is very puzzling, particularly because the replacement Milwaukee got for him was Michael Carter-Williams.
Carter-Williams may be the reigning rookie of the year, but that doesn’t mean he’s better than Knight or will become better in the future. At the moment, the two players’ numbers are very similar this season, with the big difference being Knight’s superior shooting ability (43.5 percent from the field to 38.0 percent) and the fact that Knight’s been putting his numbers up on a team that currently sits seven games above .500 and comfortably in a playoff spot.
The only bright spot for Milwaukee is the acquisition of Miles Plumlee – who fits a desperate need with Larry Sanders reportedly reaching a buyout agreement with the Bucks – and to a lesser extent Tyler Ennis, who despite being a highly touted point guard prospect, was rotting away in Phoenix, buried behind Dragic, Thomas and Eric Bledsoe on the depth chart.
These two positives can’t mask the glaring negative of trading Knight for a downgrade, though. Maybe Milwaukee was afraid Knight wouldn’t re-sign with the team after this season and it wanted more security at the point guard position? But given how Knight’s game has blossomed in Milwaukee and the amount of opportunity coach Jason Kidd has given him it still makes more sense to try to re-sign him.
Hopefully the future will clear up this confusion. For now, the Bucks aren’t looking too good.
Utah Jazz
As part of the Jackson deal, the Oklahoma City Thunder managed to fleece acquire Enes Kanter and Steve Novak from the Jazz for Kendrick Perkins.
That’s right, that Kendrick Perkins. You know, the guy who forces the Thunder to play four-on-five on offence and has difficulty defending the pick-and-roll despite being a supposed defensive specialist? Yeah, that guy.
Kanter reportedly requested a trade, frustrated with his lack of playing time, but if you’re the Jazz that doesn’t mean you just accept any trade that comes around.
While making the move in order to buy out the remaining $9.6 million on his contract makes sense to a certain degree (more cap space to work with in the off-season), holding onto the disgruntled centre still would’ve made sense even if he still refused to re-sign with the club in the off-season as the Jazz could work out a sign-and-trade for him in the summer when his market value could be higher due to teams inevitably striking out on their first and second targets.
Alas, the Jazz decided they didn’t want this situation looming over what has been a very dreary season and pulled the trigger on the worst looking deal of the deadline.