Dino-mite!
Raptors make most of quiet trade deadline
Jimmy Butler was getting out of Chicago. Paul George was on the block in Indiana. The Knicks were saying goodbye to Derrick Rose and maybe Carmelo Anthony if he cooperated by waiving his no-trade clause. The Celtics had more assets than ExxonMobil. Andre Drummond and Detroit were divorcing.
And when the NBA trade deadline arrived Thursday, nothing happened on any of those fronts. But movement elsewhere, coupled with a previous trade, made the Raptors perhaps the biggest winners at the deadline.
While they did not deal in topshelf names, Toronto, which already had acquired four-man Serge Ibaka, added bruiser forward P.J. Tucker from Phoenix for Jared Sullinger and two second-round picks. So the Raptors improved drastically on defense in gearing up for a playoff run.
“I’m a fan of both those players. Absolutely the Raptors are a winner,” said one veteran scout.
“Toronto is certainly arming up for the playoffs. Tucker gives them another defensive presence to throw on LeBron James if they get them in a sevengame series. They’ve got him and DeMarre Carroll,” said one opposing team executive. Thursday saw a number of reported deals, with one of the higher profiles names on the move being Nerlens Noel, who went from Philadelphia to Dallas in a bit of a surprise (the heavy wagering was on Jahlil Okafor becoming an ex-Sixer). The Sixers received Justin Anderson, a protected first-round pick and Andrew Bogut. The Mavericks also waived veteran point guard Deron Williams, who reportedly has interest in joining LeBron James and the Cavaliers. But the guys who did not move were the real news. Butler and George were both seen as possible fits in Boston, where the Celtics had the asset firepower — including the Nets’ first-round pick through a swap this year — to land one of the top catches. But Boston stood pat. “We had a lot of conversations about things that we could do to improve our team but nothing that was good enough to do,” Celtics general manager Danny Ainge, who kept the Nets picks (including next year’s, too), told reporters in Boston. “Certainly NBA executives are all smart enough to know the value of the Brooklyn picks.”
Reports swirled that George eventually wants to return to his L.A. roots and play for the Lakers. The Pacers All-Star can be a free agent after next season. Still, teams, including Denver, went all in chasing George.
“Teams think, ‘ We can treat him good enough here.’ So it might be a concern but I don’t think it’s a deal breaker,” one exec said of the possibility of teams being scared off by George’s Lakers wish. “It’s part of the equation but overwhelmingly for the whole league to say, ‘Oh, he’s going to the Lakers, back off.’ No, I don’t think that would scare me off.”
The Bulls did make a trade, if a bit of a head-scratcher. Chicago sent Taj Gibson, Doug McDermott and a second-round pick to Oklahoma City for rookie Cameron Payne, Joffrey Lauvergne and Anthony Morrow.
“Payne’s pretty good, but that seems like a pretty steep price to pay,” one scout assessed. “I don’t understand it. And then throwing in a pick?”
Here’s something you don’t hear too often: “The Nets were winners,” one scout said. For cash, they came up with K.J. McDaniels from Houston, “young, athletic … at worst projects to be a very good wing defender.”
He also liked the Nets trade Wednesday of Bojan Bogdanovic to Washington for a deal that “got them a first-rounder, not a great pick, but they give up a shooter who doesn’t defend.” Elsewhere, Roy Hibbert was again on the move as he went from Milwaukee to Denver for a protected secondrounder. Mike Scott became an expendable stretch four in Atlanta after the Hawks dealt for Ersan Ilyasova, so he went to Phoenix for cash. And the Lakers acquired guard Tyler Ennis from the Rockets for Marcelo Huertas in a deal that had many fans saying “who?” Virtually every trade was first reported by the Vertical.