The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
NBA trade deadline: The winners and losers
The NBA trade deadline has come and gone, with more than 20 teams swinging deals and more than 20 draft picks changing hands in the days leading up to the closing of the window at 3 p.m. Thursday.
Some of those draft picks extend until 2024.
And that means there are players perhaps in eighth or ninth grade right now who essentially have gotten traded in the past couple days — because the draft slots they’ll fill five years from now have changed hands already. So nobody will know with absolute certainly what the full impact of Trade Deadline 2019 will have on the NBA, but in the short term, there’s some clear teams that did really well and others who didn’t come away happy from trade season.
The on-court breakdown:
The winners
■ Philadelphia 76ers: The Tobias Harris trade from the Clippers says the 76ers are all-in, right now, on trying to win the Eastern Conference. Best starting five in the East, arguably.
■ Washington Wizards: John Wall’s Achilles tear changes everything for Washington, which managed to deal Markieff Morris and Otto Porter Jr. to escape the luxury tax.
■ Milwaukee Bucks: Team with NBA’s best record adds Nikola Mirotic, who gives Mike Budenholzer so many new options with the big-man lineup. The Bucks got better.
■ Toronto Raptors: Marc Gasol will fit perfectly with this roster, and although the Raptors were fond of Jonas Valanciunias this one is unquestionably an upgrade.
■ Houston Rockets: They got better with the Iman Shumpert addition, and escaped the luxury tax.
Jury still out
■ Sacramento Kings: Give the Kings credit. They’re all-in on winning now. By getting Harrison Barnes from Dallas and adding him to their young core, the Kings are saying they have a plan not only for their playoff push this year but — since Barnes has a $25.1 million option for next season — they obviously have a plan for 2019-20 as well. There is a playoff spot to be had in the Western Conference, and the Kings haven’t been to the postseason since 2006. That’s the longest current streak of futility in the NBA, and it might be ending in a couple months.
■ Boston Celtics: Toronto, Philadelphia and Milwaukee all made significant moves. The Celtics stood pat. Clearly, the plan is to get Anthony Davis.
■ Golden State Warriors: They were not expected to be a major player in the trade market. But now they can survey the landscape, look at who’s out there on a loaded buyout market, and finetune their roster. Which, one would expect, they will.
Special recognition: Nik Stauskas and Wade Baldwin IV started the week in Portland. Then they got traded to Cleveland. Then Houston. Then Indiana. And they’ll be waived by the Pacers. By the weekend, they could each be on their fifth team in about seven days. They didn’t win or lose. They probably just feel dizzy.
The losers
■ Los Angeles Lakers: It’s really by no fault of their own but the Lakers wound up being the unintended consequence of the Anthony Davis situation. Davis and his agent — Rich Paul, who also happens to be LeBron James’ agent — asked for a trade, and all the attention immediately went on the Lakers when that happened. New Orleans didn’t move Davis, half the Lakers’ roster now knows they were on the trading block, and it’s going to be very tough for the Lakers to right the ship now as they try to get a Western Conference playoff spot.
■ New Orleans Pelicans: Speaking of Davis, the Pelicans lost this trade season because now they know that the miracle isn’t happening. Davis is gone, either this summer in a trade, next season in a trade, or in the summer of 2020 as a free agent. How that will affect attendance, morale, winning, the job security of coach Alvin Gentry and general manager Dell Demps all remains to be seen. It’s not going to be a lot of fun.
■ Mike Conley: He stayed in Memphis, and lost his wingman in Marc Gasol. Conley has faced one challenge after another in recent years, and this is going to be another one for one of the league’s most-respected players.
The games: Trade Season has seemed to overshadow everything on the court for the last few days. Golden State had a 15-minute stretch against San Antonio on Wednesday night where it shot 24 for 25 — 96 percent! — from the field and scored 65 points in barely over a quarter. All that was overshadowed by Kevin Durant’s postgame comments where he blasted reporters for what he considers to be unfair reports about his future.