Davis stays put as contenders make deals
At the end of a dizzying frenzy of trades in the NBA, featuring 24 deals in one week, Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans stayed put — for now.
Yet there was plenty of action to make up for the lack of a Davis trade, with two of the four title hopefuls in the Eastern Conference making significant acquisitions before Thursday afternoon’s trade deadline, intensifying the race at the top of the East after Philadelphia’s big trade earlier this week.
In the most significant deadline-day deals, Toronto acquired former All-Star center Marc Gasol from Memphis, while Milwaukee imported the sharpshooting forward Nikola Mirotic from New Orleans as part of a three-team deal that also involved Detroit.
Those moves capped a wild seven-day stretch that began with the New York Knicks’ blockbuster trade of Kristaps Porzingis to Dallas and also included the 76ers’ acquisition of Tobias Harris from the Los Angeles Clippers. Philadelphia’s big swing to land Harris, who joined a starting lineup that already featured Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Jimmy Butler and JJ Redick, seemingly forced the Raptors and Bucks, who entered Thursday as the East’s second- and first-place teams, to make their own moves.
Milwaukee, Toronto and Philadelphia, along with Boston, are jockeying to become the first LeBron James-less team to represent the East in the NBA Finals since 2010.
The Sixers, at fifth in the conference standings, didn’t stop at their Harris trade, though. Shortly before the deadline, they made a surprising deal with Orlando to send wayward guard Markelle Fultz — whom they selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 draft — for small forward Jonathon Simmons and two future draft picks (one in the first round, one in the second).
The Celtics, who entered Thursday in third, came away from trade season simply relieved that Davis had not been traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a nervy two weeks, during which the Celtics could merely watch because of an obscure league rule, they will now get an opportunity to make a run at Davis in the offseason — although Davis is said to remain adamantly against signing a long-term contract with the Celtics should they trade for him.
The Celtics were ineligible to make in-season trade offers for Davis with Kyrie Irving still on their roster, since both Davis and Irving are playing under maximum rookie-scale contract extensions; league rules allow teams to field only one such player.
The Lakers, however, were unable to persuade the Pelicans to surrender Davis during the exclusive negotiating window they had to pursue him in the wake of Davis’ Jan. 28 request to be traded. The front offices of Los Angeles and New Orleans had no discussions about Davis on deadline day, according to two people familiar with the talks.
The Lakers were left trying to recover from the instability wrought by their pursuit of Davis as they seek to make the playoffs in James’ first season in Los Angeles.
When the Lakers couldn’t acquire Davis on Thursday, they did trade Croatian center Ivica Zubac — who was among the promising young players men- tioned as potential parts of a trade for Davis — along with Michael Beasley to the Los Angeles Clippers in a deal for forward Mike Muscala.
As the Davis talk cooled Thursday, much of the focus leading into the deadline centered on the Grizzlies, who wound up trading Gasol but keeping their point guard Mike Conley, who had drawn serious trade interest from the Utah Jazz and Detroit Pistons.
Toronto, perhaps motivated by what the Sixers did and by the Bucks’ move for Mirotic, packaged Jonas Valanciunas, Delon Wright, C.J. Miles and a secondround draft pick in 2024 to add Gasol to a team straining to convince the All-Star forward Kawhi Leonard to make a long-term commitment when he becomes a free agent July 1.
The Bucks, like Toronto, managed to upgrade their roster without surrendering a firstround pick. By expanding a Thon Maker-for-Stanley Johnson trade it had hashed out earlier this week into a three-team deal, Milwaukee landed Mirotic for the primary cost of four secondround draft picks, which were sent to the Pelicans, who also came away with Johnson and veteran Jason Smith.