Steve Nash to Lakers and Most Surprising NBA Offseason Trades of the Decade

The NBA's summer of 2012 has seen more than enough action so far to lend credence to the notion that tracking how and why organizations swap assets can be a source of intrigue, surprise and excitement.

For basketball diehards anyway.

It's practically an annual rite of the season for general managers and front office folks to swing trades out of left field, be it around the draft, during free agency or even once training camps are right around the corner. The last decade alone has given birth to plenty of blockbuster deals that left more than a few observers slack-jawed, if not downright flabbergasted and/or enraged.

Heck, even the Orlando Magic sending Dwight Howard to the Brooklyn Nets might qualify as a shocker if the teams, players and picks involved are the same ones that've been reported.

Here, for your reading pleasure, are eight such deals, listed in reverse chronological order.

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Lakers Steal Steve Nash

Forget fireworks. The Los Angeles Lakers gave their fans plenty to celebrate—and folks in Arizona reason for indignation—on the Fourth of July when they swung a sign-and-trade with the Phoenix Suns for Steve Nash.

As ESPN's Marc Stein recounts in spectacular detail, the Lakers were something of a long shot at the outset of free agency. The Toronto Raptors and the New York Knicks had the inside track at the outset, even though Nash would've preferred a way to stay closer to his kids in Phoenix.

Even when the Lakers emerged as a serious suitor, there were still the issues of Nash's experience in the Phoenix-LA rivalry and Suns owner Robert Sarver's own reluctance to doing business with the Purple and Gold that had to be overcome.

But with some sweet talk from Bill Duffy, Nash's agent, and an even sweeter pot of cash and draft picks from the Lakers, Sarver gave the go-ahead, helping Nash to stay close to his family and compete for a title while granting the Lakers the top-flight point guard they'd long coveted.

Clippers Swoop in for Chris Paul

The top-flight point guard, mind you, that the Lakers thought they had in hand last December before NBA commissioner David Stern stepped in and nixed Chris Paul's initial sojourn to LA.

The Lakers had been slated to send Pau Gasol to the Houston Rockets and Lamar Odom to the New Orleans Hornets, with Houston shipping Goran Dragic, Luis Scola and picks to NOLA and the Hornets letting CP3 join forces with Kobe Bryant way out west.

Instead, the commish redirected discussions about Paul's future to the Lakers' Staples Center co-tenants—the Clippers—in search of a deal more to his liking.

And well, he found one: Eric Gordon, Al-Farouq Aminu, the expiring contract of Chris Kaman and the Minnesota Timberwolves' unprotected pick in the 2012 draft, which turned into Austin Rivers.

Strangely enough, CP3 was OK with it, at least to the extent that he agreed not to opt out of his deal after the 2011-12 season. He saw promise in a team that, at the time, included Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Chauncey Billups, Caron Butler and Mo Williams and subsequently gave the green light.

Most surprising of all, though, was that the Clippers actually did something right. They managed to swing a trade for the best point guard on the planet without screwing themselves over in some tragically unforeseen way.

And if the Clips play their cards right, they just might convince CP3 to sign a massive extension during the season that'll keep him in LA for the foreseeable future.

LeBron's Sign-and-Trade to South Beach

Technically speaking, LeBron James took his talents to South Beach as part of a monumental sign-and-trade between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Miami Heat.

The Heat didn't have to give up much for the best player in basketball—two first-rounders and two second-rounders to be exact—but there was a price nonetheless, and LeBron's move to Florida was consummated as a swap of assets.

It was a surprise to many to see James spurn his "hometown" team for the chance to team up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, his buddies from the draft class of 2003. The fact that he pulled the trigger on national TV, with a one-hour special on ESPN, only added to the shock value.

But in all reality, there was a strong sense that LeBron was prepared to dash off to greener pastures anyway. The Cavs had failed time and again to build a legitimate contender around LeBron, leaving him to seriously consider the much more attractive choice of playing with two perennial All-Stars in a much glitzier locale.

And, as much vitriol as LeBron deserves for announcing his "Decision" in the chosen manner, can anyone really fault a guy for taking less money in pursuit of victory?

Grizzlies Add a Z (and a Bo)

At the time, the Memphis Grizzlies' acquisition of Zach Randolph from the Clippers in exchange for Quentin Richardson in July of 2009 wasn't so much a surprise as it was a non-story. After all, Z-Bo was a productive-but-poisonous power forward who seemed destined to bounce around the NBA after being booted out of Portland, while Q was a well-traveled sniper who was traded twice more that same summer before eventually landing in Miami.

Looking back on it now, though, it's clear that the Grizz wound up with an absolute steal, one that would wipe away the sorrows of the post-Pau Gasol era in much shorter order than anyone expected. Randolph was selected to his first All-Star Game that season and, in 2011, helped propel Memphis back into the playoff picture, wherein the Grizz earned their first-ever series victory by shocking the top-seed San Antonio Spurs.

Richardson, on the other hand, has since gone on to needlessly soak up cap space with the Orlando Magic, which—to be clear—is not a surprise in any sense of the word.

Magic Move for Vince Carter

It was the summer of 2009. The sun was shining on central Florida, the Orlando Magic had just been ousted from the NBA Finals after shocking LeBron's Cavs in the Eastern Conference and Dwight Howard was looking forward to another season of playing alongside Courtney Lee and a healthy Jameer Nelson.

That is, until Magic GM Otis Smith got a bit panicky after seeing Hedo Turkoglu opt out of the final year of his contract and somehow decided it was prudent to trade for Vince Carter.

Even though Hedo merely hit the market because he wanted to get the most long-term bang for his buck and the Magic probably could've paid him to stay.

In any case, Orlando sent Lee, Tony Battie and Rafer Alston to New Jersey and got Carter and Ryan Anderson in return. In retrospect, the Magic didn't make out all that poorly, considering that Lee will soon join his fourth team in five seasons and Anderson, albeit now a member of the New Orleans Hornets, developed into a solid "stretch four."

More surprising still (or not) was Smith's big move the following season, when he sent Vinsanity—along with Marcin Gortat, Mickael Pietrus, a first-round pick and $3 million—to the Phoenix Suns in a deal for Hedo, Jason Richardson and Earl Clark.

And, in a separate trade, swapped out Rashard Lewis for Gilbert Arenas.

Have I mentioned that Otis Smith is no longer the GM of the Orlando Magic?

Celtics Snag Ray Allen on Draft Day

The Boston Celtics did everything they could to tank the 2006-07 and still missed out on Greg Oden and Kevin Durant when the ping-pong balls dealt them the fifth pick in the lottery.

And yet the 2007 NBA Draft turned out just fine for the C's, thanks to a stroke of genius from GM Danny Ainge. That night, Boston shipped Jeff Green (the fifth pick), Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak to the Seattle SuperSonics in exchange for Ray Allen and Glen Davis (the 35th pick).

The pairing of Allen and Paul Pierce was enough to convince Kevin Garnett to not opt out of his contract the following summer if he were traded. That allowed Ainge and former C's teammate Kevin McHale, then the GM of the Minnesota Timberwolves, to consummate a trade that would land the Big Ticket in Boston and put the C's on the fast-track to their first NBA title since the Larry Bird-Robert Parrish-McHale era of the 1980s.

In essence, then, landing Ray allowed the Celtics to go from hoping for last one season to finishing first the very next.

Not bad for what originally had the makings of a disappointing offseason in Beantown.

Shaq Goes Back to Florida

The end of the Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O'Neal era in LA was hardly a surprise; those two superstars had been butting heads for years, with the afterglow of three NBA titles serving to mask the friction between them enough to make the situation workable.

Neither was the fact that Shaq ended up with the Miami Heat. To be sure, few in Lakerland (if any) were thrilled by the prospect of giving away one of the best big men in NBA history for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Brian Grant and a first-round pick, all while essentially handing over the reigns of the franchise to the petulant Kobe Bryant.

What would've been astonishing to think back then, though, is that both teams would benefit so handsomely from the trade in the end and, even more so, that the Lakers would have more to show for it. To be sure, Miami did remarkably well, with the subsequent acquisitions of Antoine Walker, James Posey and Jason Williams providing Shaq and Dwyane Wade with a supporting cast strong enough to make the Heat NBA champions in 2006.

The Lakers, on the other hand, endured three years of mediocrity, but came out the other end with two titles in three trips to the NBA Finals. A terrible 2004-05 campaign put the Lakers in position to pick up Andrew Bynum, and an abominable trade for Kwame Brown (with Caron Butler bound for Washington) gave the Purple and Gold a key component—along with Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie, the rights to Marc Gasol and two first-round picks—that would land Pau Gasol in a Lakers uniform in 2008.  

So really, all's well that ends well.