Looking at the Trades; Apologizing to the Thunder

One hell of a trade deadline for the NBA. I'll go through these roughly as the appear on NBA.com, while ignoring the trades that really mean nothing like the Cavs picking up Luke Harangody and Semih Erden.

-The Blazers getting Gerald Wallace was a coup. God, I hate to write this but really, it's a shame Roy and Oden aren't healthy, or else this might be the favorite in the West. They gave up two players who are pretty insignificant to their playoff run, and they got somebody who rebounds like hell, plays defense like hell, and has a a pretty solid offensive game. They might make a little noise, even if they aren't with the top teams. Also, I'll use this space to say good job to LaMarcus Aldridge, who finally got his shit together and turned into a really good Power Forward.

For the Bobcats? What can you do? They're a middling team that needed to shed salary. They'll be trying to restart with a slashed payroll, but the draft picks they got were very poor, with limited talent in return.

- The Dragic/Brooks swap means nothing to nobody. Two volume point guards with dubious passing instincts.

- Battier/Thabeet is interesting if nothing else. Battier returns to Memphis to beef up the Grizzlies' improved defense, and the Rockets add a 7 footer for a guy they weren't keeping anyway. Don't expect out of Thabeet, though.

- Bibby/Jo. Crawford for Hinrich. Basically the Hawks looked to improve their perimeter defense by adding Hinrich. Bibby is 2 points worse in PER and worlds worse defending, so the Hawks did okay there, but it won't win them anything against MIA/BOS/ORL/CHI. Giving up on Jordan Crawford's potential was maybe a little dumb, but the hell knows what he'll become. An inefficient gunner, perhaps? Who cares.

- Baron for Mo/Moon. This is a good trade for the Clippers. Mo will stretch the floor and play a complementary role to Blake and Gordon. Moon will add some perimeter defense. They also shed Baron's awful contract and lose a lottery pick, which the Clippers didn't value. Who cares about picking 10th in a weak draft? The Cavs do. Baron's contract is almost irrelevant. If things go well for the Cavs, they wouldn't be viable by the time his contract ran out, anyway. They won't sign anybody in that time. They're going to use the lottery picks, including their potential #1 to mine for a hidden superstar. There's so much uncertainty in the draft, but who knows, maybe something special is there. It's really all they can do, especially since they'll likely be a very high lottery pick again next year.

- Landry for Thornton. I love this trade for NO. Chris Paul should be able to reenergize the former per-minute god, who was mired in Sacramento's awful coaching and rotations. I like Marcus Thornton a lot, but his shot has been terrible this season and it was getting excruciating trying to play him alongside Trevor Ariza. Thornton probably has a 6th man trophy in his future ala Jason Terry, which the Kings should be hopeful for. The Hornets, when Emeka Okafor gets back, shouldn't be slept on, due to an effective frontcourt trio, and of course Paul. The Hornet's bench has been terrible, so Landry will fill in very nicely.

- Perkins/Robinson for Green/Krstic + Mohammad. Good for the Thunder! Last week, I wrote an article basically laying it to the Thunder for sitting back and doing nothing while Jeff Green obliterated their interior defense. This is a brilliant trade, coupled with the addition of Nazr Mohammad, and basically Sam Presti was who he thought he was. I won't rehash old material, but with Green, the Thunder had an undersized, middling defensive frontcourt. With Perkins and Mohammad, coupled with sliding Ibaka and Collison to the 4 permanently, the Thunder have inexplicably become arguably the best defensive frontcourt. Skeptics claim they lose Green's spacing on offense, but I say fuck that. Now Harden should be able to fully absorb the #3 role, instead of splitting shots with the inaccurate Green. If anything, it might help the offense! Ibaka has more capacity to put up 10 points than people think. The Thunder needed defense way more than they needed Green clanking 3s, and now I think they're a legitimate title threat. Post scoring is overrated when your three top perimeter scorers all attack and get to the free throw line.

For the Celtics, I don't know what to make of it, mainly because I don't know what Jeff Green is capable of in his true small forward role. Maybe he flourishes and gives the Celtics another wrinkle and gear offensively. Maybe he stays below average and all they did was downgrade interior defense. It doesn't break this team, but it's not exactly a positive to be losing Perkin's D, especially on Dwight Howard and potentially the Lakers. Green is really going to decide this deal, from the Celtics perspective.

- Deron for Favors/Harris+Melo/Billups for Gallinari, Chandler, Mozgov, Felton. I combine these because both the Nets and the Knicks are in similar positions, with both sides arguing the same points. One side says you gotta have stars, the other side says, now the teams are hamstrung. I do know that the Nets weren't doing a damn thing with Harris/Lopez/Favors. Ditto for Stoudemire and the benevolent role players. We saw this with the Cavs the past few years, and I've seen LeBron James, and Amare Stoudemire is no LeBron James. If LeBron was going to war with a handful of 15-17 PER role players and coming up short, how the hell were the Knicks going to build with Amare and change? Signing him this summer wasn't viable because Melo wanted an extension now, and Melo was available. If they waited two more years, just to see what Deron/CP3/Howard were going to do, there's still no guarantee that they could get those guys. Melo was a guarantee that he wanted to be a Knick. Melo may not be the transcendent player that CP3 or Howard are, but he's a top 20 player--a 21 PER guy. Combined with Stoudemire, that's something. That doesn't win you a title, but now the Knicks have 2 top 20 guys, which increases the chances of luring talent in the future. They may not win a championship but Melo/Stoudemire and scraps is still better than Stoudemire and role players. In addition to that, Billups is still a top 10 point guard. Landry Fields is an impressive and integral role playing rookie, and Ronny Turiaf is solid. That's actually a really good starting lineup, it's just that the bench is so bad. It's up to them to wisely build around these guys, but they absolutely had to land Melo, because the league is too good not to have true stars.

The same thing goes for New Jersey, even if it's bleaker because Lopez is no Stoudemire. You have to get stars, because they can carry you, even with a shoddy roster. No damage is going to be done with Lopez/Harris/Favors. Again, it's up to the Nets to be savvy enough to add players around Deron, but the star power is in place, at the very least. Had to do that deal.

For Denver and Utah, these were necessary moves to retool on the fly. Denver slashed its salary, added young potential in Gallo, a solid veteran in Felton, and got added some draft choices. Utah got a young big in Favors, who has potential, added draft picks as well. The problem is the Jazz are trying to retool through the draft and they just drafted Gordon Hayward, so am I supposed to be excited about 2 lottery picks? There's buzz about them taking Jimmer Fredette, because Utah loves white guys, and I'm sure they'll work him to one of those picks. That'd be a disaster. I fully expect the Jazz to encounter the dark ages, while I'm more hopeful the Nuggets will stay relevant.

All around, great trade deadline. I have to say the Thunder are the big winners for immediately becoming a contender, but kudos to the Nets and Knicks for brightening their future, even if a lot of work is still to be done.