Trade Deadline Thoughts

I love the trade deadline for one simple reason: it gives me a chance to measure my NBA IQ. Last year, like most sane people, I found myself having to give reasons why the Shaq trade was good for Phoenix. "Oh, Shaq's a proven winner." "It will give them a go-to-guy in the half court." Etc. When it didn't work out, I promised myself I would never not follow my gut on an NBA trade ever again.

So here are my gut reactions to the deals:

Jermaine O'Neal and Jamario Moon for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks

Great trade for the Heat, but I think it might be getting over hyped a bit. Yeah, when Jermaine is healthy he can play great defense, but he's never been that good offensively and he hasn't been able to stay healthy for most of his career. He's also 30 years old and has an awful contract. If Miami wanted to have the ability to contend for the best team not named Boston, Cleveland, or Orlando, then they've succeeded. But they've also killed their ability to sign Carlos Boozer this summer. Jamario Moon will also be a nice fit as a poor man's Marion. Overall there's some upside to this trade, I'm just not sure it's enough to justify paying Jermaine O'Neal $50 million.

Watching the Raptors play, it's pretty obvious they need a wing scorer. Shawn Marion is over the hill, he's a selfish person, and he's not a wing scorer. The one nice thing is that he's off the books this season, giving the Raptors some cap room for one last stand before Bosh leaves in 2010. The only problem is that nobody in their right mind wants to play for Toronto.

If you read my last article (which should probably also be rescinded), you'll notice that I wanted the Thunder to pick up a defensive-minded wing player. No doubt they did this in picking up Thabo Sefolosha. In one of their many draft day deals, Chicago dropped the so far disappointing Sefolosha, but I think time will show that this deal was a steal for the Thunder as this is exactly the type of player they had been looking for.

Bulls and Kings swap 6 players

When I watch the Bulls, I get a little confused. As far as I can tell, they have no direction offensively. Sometimes they push when they should pull, sometimes they pull when they should push (some might call that having a rookie PG). No doubt, however, that picking up two players as talented as Brad Miller and John Salmons will help things out.

Here's their rotation currently:

PG: Derrick Rose
SG: Ben Gordon
SF: Luol Deng
PF: Tyrus Thomas
C: Brad Miller
G: Kirk Hinrich
G/F: John Salmons
F: Joakim Noah
C: Aaron Gray

That's a strong rotation. Before the trade, I would've labled two of Chicago's bigger offensive problems as poor passing and lack of bench scoring. Well, I think they've addressed those needs (Miller averages 3.4 APG from the center position, Salmons was scoring 18.3 PPG). Before the trade, I would've put Chicago on the outside looking in at the playoffs. Now, I think they should be a lock.

The Bulls also picked up Tim Thomas from the Knicks, whose having a nice little season shooting over 40% on 3's, so he's a good pickup for them too, although I'm not sure where he'll squeeze those minutes in, unless Aaron Gray gets stashed on the bench.

On the other side, the Knicks pick up Larry Hughes, who has one of the worst contracts in basketball (he'll make just over 25 million over the next two years). But his contract expires in time for, you guessed it, 2010.

The other Knicks move is probably my favorite move of the season. After the rescinded New Orleans trade, New York snatched up the available Chris Wilcox. People who have talked NBA with me before know where this is going, but I think this is going to be the time when, once and for all, we discover just how overrated Amare Stoudemire is.

To explain, coming out of Maryland, Chris Wilcox was billed as a very athletic, great finishing power forward. Given that his point guards have ranged from Rick Brunson to Luke Ridnour to Russell Westbrook, and he's still put up relatively good shooting %'s for his career, it will be telling to see if he can put up some really good numbers with Mike D'Antoni.

I don't want to say that he'll put up Amare-esque numbers, because he's going to be behind David Lee and Al Harrington on the depth chart and might not get the minutes, but if he puts up anything close to the efficiency numbers that Amare put up, it will put the issue of Amare's talent to bed once and for all.

Sacramento pulled off three different trades, all of which served little or no purpose, or were just bad. To be honest, I couldn't tell you Sacramento's gameplan right now. They signed Beno Udrih to a really bad contract this summer, and will live with that through 2013. Then they went out and picked up Andres Nocioni's really bad contract, which also goes through 2013. They have Fransisco Garcia, Kevin Martin, Spencer Hawes, Jason Thompson, and Donte Green all tied up for awhile as well, but I really don't see that core winning anything any time soon. I think they might have involved themselves in a few deals where they helped out some teams in exchange for "scratch my back, I'll scratch yours in the future" type deal.

The final trade I'll look at sent Rafer Alston to the PG desperate Orlando Magic. He'll be good to hit the occasional shot and to manage the Orlando offense. I like the move. Houston were lucky enough to be able to take in Kyle Lowry, the very athletic "point guard" from Villanova. I'm a fan of his, but I feel like he'll get sucked into the Houston point guard trap (although maybe not with T-Mac being done for the season). The last team, Memphis basically dumped Kyle Lowry in a financial move.



All around wholesome fun for everyone involved, although it's not completely done, as there are still teams who have fewer than 15 players (ahem, Celtics) and will look to fill up their roster with quality veterans as they look forward to playoff and championship pushes.