NBA Trade Rumors: Recapping the 20 Biggest Trade Developments of the Season
Before the trade deadline this Thursday, Carmelo Anthony was traded from the Denver Nuggets to the New York Knicks.
Finally!
You heard it here 456,783rd folks. Nobody else on the internet is giving you this type of quick turnaround on trades. Nobody.
Excuse me for about five minutes while I dance merrily around the room for the mere fact that I no longer have to A) hear about any more Carmelo Anthony trade rumors, speculations, ideas, musings, rumblings, grumblings, bumblings or stumblings, and B) I don't have to be the one writing any of the aforementioned rumors, speculations, etc.
Ok...ahem, I'm back.
So, with all of that business out of the way, there is still a trade deadline looming just a day away, and there are an array of different things that could happen in the next day-and-a-half.
It is anybody's guess as to what is going to happen, what could happen, what should happen, what might happen or what isn't going to happen, and to tell you the truth, that's what a lot of it out there is. Guesses.
So, instead of throwing out a list of 20 guesses as to what is going to happen over the next 30 hours, I'll take you on a little trip down memory lane and recap the biggest developments of the season.
So here we go—each twist and turn that the insane trade train has taken us (with only four deals actually being made, mind you) since the beginning of this NBA season.
20. The Relatively Silent Detriot Pistons
1 of 20
It has been nearly seven years since the Detroit Pistons won the NBA championship and it has been two years since they fell off the top of the NBA mountain and became just another bad team.
They won around 55 games for seven years before turning in 39- and 27-win seasons in the past two, but they have done very little to turn around their trend besides drafting players.
Detroit has pieces that some teams would seemingly want. Ben Gordon, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Charlie Villanueva are all players who could help teams now, but not necessarily help the Pistons in, say, five to six years when they are back up to their old tricks.
They need to get young, just like many of the other teams in their geographical region, otherwise they will flounder as a poor or mediocre team for the next decade, fans will lose interest, and whispers about contraction will come around.
Detroit has done some puzzling things in the past few years, the most of which bringing in Tracy McGrady's 31-year-old knees so he can churn out eight points a night and no defense for a team that needs youth and not flashy stars of the past.
Bringing Ben Wallace back was a nice homage to a true Detroit star, a hard-working, undersized scrapper who exemplifies their city, but it isn't bringing them any wins when they lean on him for nearly 25 minutes a night.
I'm quite surprised that I haven't heard the Detroit Pistons' name thrown around as much as Minnesota, Cleveland or Toronto in legitimate trade rumors, and I think they need to get on it before they fall into an abyss of mediocrity.
19. Might the Lakers Miss Sasha Vujacic?
2 of 20
Back in the middle of December, the first domino in the line of trades was knocked over, although it didn't seem to trigger anybody else doing anything but double-taking at the headline and thinking to themselves, "What?"
Los Angeles sent Sasha Vujacic to the New Jersey Nets in exchange for Joe Smith and a trade exception. Houtson was involved in the deal as well, but nothing they did with it was of much importance.
The biggest thing that this trade did was take a guy that was once a spark of energy off the bench for the Lakers and turn him into a old, big guy who has played in five games for the Lake Show this year.
Nice.
I'm not saying that Sasha Vujacic's departure is the reason why the Lakers seem to be struggling. That would be blasphemy, terrible basketball knowledge and a bit of idiocy all rolled into one. I'm merely pointing out their mentality over the past year.
It's just to say that the Lakers' strategy has been to pick up older players to play a young man's game.
This offseason they added Steve Blake and Matt Barnes, both of whom are over 30 years old.
Los Angeles has two players on its roster that are under 30 and play more than five minutes a game. That is what I'm saying their problem might be.
Some teams don't need the young'uns to provide a spark—just look at the Spurs. However, some teams really need a young player to come in and work their butt off for the right to play on a championship-caliber team.
That may be why they are struggling.
18. Miami Heat Look for a Big Man
3 of 20
There are three reasons I have this ranked as low as it is.
First, Carmelo hijacked all of the trade headlines for the past year, so really not much has been heard about Miami looking for a big, but it is happening, and it is slowly picking up steam.
Second, they don't exactly have much to offer another team in terms of a trade.
And third, there is a lack of big men around the league that are both available and worth looking in to.
Hasheem Thabeet is out there and so might be Nazr Mohammed. That's pretty much it.
Neither of those names would strike fear into the heart of Shaquille O'Neal or Dwight Howard, I can promise you that much.
Miami has, however, been on the lookout for what seems to be their weak link, and are looking for a player who can give them 25-30 minutes a night banging bodies and taking up space.
They have been outworked and outplayed in the post by better big men so frequently that they are starting to realize that an upgrade is needed, but it might not be available.
17. Phoenix's Half of the Carter-Richardson Deal
4 of 20
After the Lakers started off the trading season, the other elite teams thought that they should keep up, so Phoenix promptly traded Jason Richardson (their leading scorer) and Hedo Turkoglu (a guy who can only play in a powder blue uniform, I guess) for Vince Carter, Marcin Gortat, Mikael Pietrus and a first-round pick.
This trade gave me a range of emotions on the Phoenix side (Orlando side to come later).
I started with befuddlement. Why would you trade your leading scorer, and the second-biggest reason as to why your team is afloat, for Vince Carter's knees and a couple of defensive minds?
Then I tried to make terms with it. Gortat is a good center when given enough minutes, I thought, and Pietrus isn't terrible. And hey, maybe Carter can semi-revive what is left of his career.
From there I went to denial. There is no way NBA general managers can be this stupid. Phoenix is a team that is about to need to be restructured, and they started that process by grabbing Vince Carter?
At this point I have accepted it. Carter is doing fine, but he still plays defense like a nine-year-old girl. Gortat has been good enough when splitting minutes with Channing Frye, and well, Pietrus is there.
Those, I suppose, are the four stages of accepting an NBA trade that seems too strange to be true.
16. Andre Iguodala, Stay or Go?
5 of 20
A little over four years ago, Philadelphia abruptly traded A.I. (Allen Iverson) to the Denver Nuggets, citing his continued erratic behavior as the reason.
This year, Philadelphia has stubbornly clung to A.I. 2.0 (Andre Iguodala), even as trade rumors to what seems like every basketball team on the planet have been circulating.
Back when Cleveland looked like they could grab a bottom seed in the playoffs (remember those days?), he was linked to the Cavs.
A little further along he was linked to the Knicks, Nets and Nuggets, followed by the Warriors, Clippers and Rockets.
Everybody seemed to have wanted a piece of the pseudo-star.
Now, the rumors have all but died, and with the Sixers looking like a team that could grab a playoff spot, maybe it's for the best.
But who knows, there is still a wealth of time left before the fat lady sings and closes the door on this year's round of trades, and Iggy could be in a new uni by Thursday afternoon.
15. Peja Stojakovic's Roller Coaster Ride
6 of 20
Peja Stojakovic is averaging a new team about every five games he plays.
To start out the season, Peja was wearing the creole blue and mardi gras gold, then he was shipped out and was outfitted in Canadian red and black, now, on his third team of the season, he is in a much more flattering navy blue and silver.
After having played only six games for the Hornets, New Orleans flipped him to Toronto for Jarret Jack. After playing only two games for Toronto in nearly two months, they placed him on waivers, where he was promptly picked up by Dallas.
There once was a time where Stojakovic was one of the deadliest three-point shooters in the league. My brother swore that he was going to break Reggie Miller's record one day (he is fourth on the list behind now-teammate Jason Kidd).
This year, Peja seemed to have fallen into disrepair. In his waning days in New Orleans he looked slow, uninspired and tired. In Toronto I don't have a clue how he looked, because I never saw him in a game, but my guess is depressed.
Now that he is back on a contender, however, he looks alive, and he is hustling during every minute of playing time he gets (although his defense is still quite terrible).
This could be a guy that helps Dallas more than they could have imagined.
14. Charlotte Bobcats: What Will Happen With Their Two Best Players?
7 of 20
Since 2004, Gerald Wallace has more or less been the biggest player on the Charlotte Bobcats, and looked like he could lead this team to the playoffs.
Since the beginning of last season Stephen Jackson has looked like he could possibly be the guy that would keep them fighting for the playoffs for the next few years.
Now that the playoffs seem to be a pipe dream for this team, both of these guys are being shopped around, as Michael Jordan has become fed up with the feeling of mediocrity about his team.
He fired/let Larry Brown resign a few months back, and now he is ready to clean house and rebuild his team.
Gerald Wallace seems most likely to move, as he is younger than Jackson and has fewer personality issues, but both could be out of town in the next few days...or neither, it's quite cloudy at this point.
Everyone from Houston to Portland and now Dallas has been linked to rumors about one or both of the players, and it looks like at least one could be on the move.
It will definitely be an interesting development to watch over the next day.
13. Will Yao Ming Move?
8 of 20
Since about two years before the Summer of LeBron, all the talk in the NBA trade deadline world was about expiring contracts.
Everyone wanted to clear space in order to sign the big free agents that were to come.
Well, if the Knicks or Heat would have seen this contract laying around ready to come off the books, they would have traded their souls for it.
Yao Ming has a contract worth nearly $18 million, and would clear enough cap space to fit Eddy Curry's ever-expanding waistline in.
Teams have been clamoring to get a piece of the Yao contract, and for most of the season Houston has stood strong in their belief that a team would have to bowl them over to get it out of their clutches.
There have been reports recently, however, that nobody on Houston is untouchable, and that includes Yao Ming's enormous contract.
12. Which Way Will OJ Point His Bronco? (Wrong OJ? My Bad)
9 of 20
OJ Mayo has had quite the season, has he not?
Unfortunately, when I say that it is for all the wrong reasons.
He started off the year by getting into a fight with Tony Allen on the team plane over a card game, then he got suspended for violating the NBAs drug policy, all while losing his starting spot and playing 10 fewer minutes a game.
Needless to say, the Grizzlies are ready to move forward without the troubled guard out of USC.
I would be surprised to see Mayo in a Memphis uniform after the trade deadline passes tomorrow.
11. The Celtics Look for a 3
10 of 20
Paul Pierce is the only real small forward on the roster that doesn't currently have a bruised spinal cord, something which I wasn't even aware was possible.
Marquis Daniels did just that last Sunday, leaving the Celtics looking for a forward to pick up that can take some of the load off Pierce.
One of the players they have inquired about is Houston's Shane Battier, one of the best defensive minds in the league, a player that has to be measured beyond his statistical output.
Battier would bring terrific defense to the Celtics, and his contract expires at the end of this season, so there is not an extended commitment they need to make to him.
They have also inquired about Cleveland's Anthony Parker, who can either play as an oversized 2-guard or an undersized 3.
Parker would bring a three-point shot that is one of the best in the NBA, but his defense would be suspect on a team that allows the fewest points in the league.
10. What Will Be Made of Denver's Scraps?
11 of 20
Denver has (or will, once the deal is finalized) received most of the New York Knicks starting lineup, but there are still those out there talking that they may not hang on to most of it.
The Nuggets could end up flipping a few of the players they just got for more future draft picks, or a more lucrative young player.
Danilo Gallinari has already garnered interest throughout the league, but there is no word of whether Denver will part with him yet.
Denver also received Raymond Felton, Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mozgov and Kosta Kufos (via Minnesota), along with a few future draft picks.
They could go one of three directions.
Denver could keep it all, and hope for the best, they could trade as much as they can and look for players that could help fix their team immediately, or they could piece it out, and trade some of their pieces while keeping the rest, which is most likely.
9. Ron Artest Whispers, Shouts and Hyperbole
12 of 20
In the wake of a three-game losing streak that involved losses to the Charlotte Bobcats and the Cleveland Cavaliers, people started to freak out about the Lakers.
What is wrong with them? Have they contracted polio? Can they still win a title after losing three games in February? Does Phil Jackson have dementia? Is it a slump? Is it the end of the world?
Well, amidst the complete breakdown of the world after a few losses by a team in the middle of the long NBA season, the idea was put out there that trading Ron Artest would fix the problem.
There was even a report that Artest had requested a trade.
He hasn't been as good this season as he was last season, that is for sure, but it is easy to believe that he will pick up his production in the playoffs.
Once the Lakers start to win again, and all of this dies down, I'm sure that many of the overreactors will be happy that they decided to keep Ron-Ron; after all, he is a constant supply of entertainment.
8. Steve Nash Politely Stays With the Suns
13 of 20
Steve Nash has had every right to request a trade from the Suns.
Any other superstar would have done it if they had to endure what he has gone through with this team.
Amar'e Stoudemire bolted for New York at the beginning of the season, the team struggled, and then to ease the struggles, they traded away their leading scorer for Vince Carter, a complete nancy-boy.
Nash continued to be a completely brilliant point guard, is the only reason the Suns are staying afloat, and is the only thing keeping them from rivaling the Cavs for ineptitude.
He could request a trade (his contract only runs through next season after all), end up back in Dallas (they would jump on him as soon as they heard he was available), and go on to compete for a title this year.
Nope, Nash is too good a guy. The fans would have to watch a team that wouldn't know a high-screen from a high-five, an outlet pass from an outlet mall, a pick-and-roll from a...well, you get the point.
He signed the contract with Phoenix, and he is living up to that contract and will play for that team until they decide to trade him or his contract runs out. He is too classy a guy to run out to the media and tell them that he wants out, and for that, he deserves our love.
Much love, Stevie.
7. Will Toronto Burn Down Its Team?
14 of 20
Toronto has just about 30 hours to finalize whether it will trade away its best assets or cling to them in hopes that it grabs a savior in the draft or free agency.
They have many players who would bring interest throughout the league, from Jose Calderon and Reggie Evans to Jerryd Bayless and Leandro Barbosa, along with a few younger players.
Toronto, however, has yet to make any move except for waiving Peja Stojakovic, for whom they received Alexis Ajinca. Not exactly a blockbuster.
Nonetheless, the trade rumors abound, and they did just trade for D-Leaguer James Johnson from Chicago, giving up their first-round pick (via Miami) in this year's draft.
Brian Colangelo is trying to get anything he can done, and still has a huge trade exception to use that he received in the Chris Bosh "sign-and-trade," so there is still a lot to be done in Toronto.
6. Will Cleveland End Up Doing Much of Anything?
15 of 20
Ahem...speaking of teams that need to burn down their team and start over, we now have the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Cleveland has many players that teams are interested in, but they all either have terrible contracts or asking prices that are too high.
They are asking for a first-round pick or a young big man (i.e Omer Asik or Semih Erden) in exchange for Anthony Parker.
Mo Williams is owed $17 million over the next two years and Antawn Jamison is owed an astonishing $15 million next season (no wonder the league is going broke).
With the amount these players are to be payed, Cleveland will either have to lower their asking price or wait until the offseason or next year's trade deadline to deal some of their players.
They also have their trade exception from Miami that they are using to try to steal away a first-round pick, but they were hoping to use that as a part of the Carmelo Anthony deal, which they were left out of.
I expect the trade exception to be used, but other than that, Anthony Parker will probably be the only other player that Cleveland deals.
5. The Orlando Side of the December Trade
16 of 20
In December, Orlando completed the aforementioned trade with Phoenix, in which they gave up Vince Carter, Marcin Gortat and Mikael Pietrus for Jason Richardson and Hedo Turkoglu.
At the time it seemed like a bad trade on both ends, as Turkoglu had fallen off from his production by a mile since he left Orlando for Toronto and then Phoenix, and Jason Richardson offers very little defensively, while they had to give up two defensive stalwarts in Pietrus and Gortat.
Then they ended up trading Rashard Lewis for Gilbert Arenas a day later, a trade that weakened them even more defensively.
Lo and behold, everybody who analyzed the trade was pretty much wrong; they have played good basketball as of late, have gone 20-10 since the trade, and were 16-11 prior to the trade, so there is some improvement that came of it.
It just goes to show how little we can really predict about basketball until the players are actually on the court together.
Still, I think it was a bad trade, and it will come back to haunt them in the playoffs, but they weren't going to win a championship anyway, so I guess it doesn't really matter.
Now, however, there are reports flying around saying that Orlando could end up flipping Richardson to Memphis as part of a trade for Zach Randolph.
4. Trade Exceptions
17 of 20
In the past, the cool thing to trade was expiring contracts; now the thing to do is get a trade exception from a team that you just traded a player to and use that in a future trade.
It used to be that just a few teams would have trade exceptions lying around, and they would be in pretty small amounts.
But this year, there is a completely different story.
Toronto has a $16 million trade exception from the "trade" they made with Miami for Chris Bosh and Cleveland has a $14.5 million exception from the LeBron "trade" back in July.
There are many people saying that Cleveland is trying to get a first-round pick out of their exception, but due to the saturated market, that seems unlikely.
Both teams should end up using all or a portion of their exceptions, though, as they expire a year after the trade in which they received them, and with no collective bargaining agreement in place, they could end up expiring before teams are able to make moves this summer, or later.
So be on the lookout for teams using their trade exceptions to deal with money issues that need to be worked out in a trade, because there are quite a few smaller ones out there, along with these two huge examples.
3. Where Do the Nets Go Now?
18 of 20
The New Jersey Nets missed out on Carmelo Anthony, big surprise right? Well, not exactly.
It seemed to be predetermined that 'Melo would end up a Knickerbocker, and it shouldn't be too upsetting to Nets fans, as they didn't have to give up their whole team for a guy who has been past the first round of the playoffs only once.
That doesn't mean the Nets are done with trade rumors, however. They are far from done.
The team still wants to get rid of the under-preforming Devin Harris, and there are a few teams interested, namely Atlanta, Portland and Dallas.
New Jersey also wants to ship off Troy Murphy, who was sent home by the team a few weeks ago.
Then they are still after some pieces from the Anthony trade, as they have shown legitimate interest in Danilo Galinari and Timofey Mozgov, but it remains to be seen whether Denver wants to part with them or keep them around for the time being.
They are also interested in Aaron Brooks, and with Mikhail Prokorhov seemingly embarrassed at how the Anthony negotiations went, you had better believe they'll be active over the next day.
2. Oh, the Names That Could Go
19 of 20
The whole Carmelo Anthony strife over the past six months only seems like a precursor to what is to come at this point.
Anthony is just one star with one expiring contract, but next year there could likely be three stars with three expiring contracts looking for a trade.
After next season (if there is one) Dwight Howard, Deron Williams, Chris Paul and Steve Nash will all become free agents.
I shudder to think of how much speculation we will end up hearing about this quartet of superstars and where they could end up.
However, the reality is that after LeBron James and Chris Bosh wriggled their way out of their cities in July for nickles and dimes in return, teams are concerned about losing their big names, and they will trade them for as much as they can if need be.
Dwight Howard has already expressed his desire to play for the Lakers, who could include Andrew Bynum in a package for Howard and get the big man in purple and gold by this time next year.
Chris Paul will probably end up leaving the Hornets, who may not even be the New Orleans Hornets by the beginning of the 2012-13 season.
Then I would have to assume that Steve Nash would want to end his career on a contender, and possibly reunite with Dirk Nowitzki in Dallas, or any team threatening for a title, really.
That leaves only Deron Williams who may end up staying put, and even that is uncertain.
Oh boy...so...Carmelo was just a warm up, then? Oh boy.
1. Carmelo Anthony
20 of 20
Fine! I'll write about it one more time and that's it. I promise, no more after this. (Who am I kidding? I'm stuck.)
The Carmelo Anthony Saga (yes I'm capitalizing it, it was its own unique entity, and it deserves to be capitalized) took may twists and turns along the way, but ended up with no surprises, really—it just took a while to get where we all assumed it would end up.
Back in October, before the season started, it was pretty much a done deal that 'Melo would be a Knick. We knew New Jersey would try to persuade him, but we also knew that they would probably fail.
So New Jersey went on throughout most of January offering this and that for Carmelo, but they wanted an extension out of him before bringing him to the Nets, so the negotiations were slow.
New Jersey started to look more and more lucrative to 'Melo, as he would be guaranteed that big extension and New York seemed keen to wait until free agency to pick him up, which would mean less money after the new collective bargaining agreement was signed.
It plodded along until Mikhail Prokhorov stopped the talks, as he was tired of how public it became, at which point all hell broke loose.
Carmelo talks were linked to Houston and Los Angeles after that, as Denver was looking to get the best deal for 'Melo and New York was offering pennies for a Porsche.
Wait...what? Carmelo, Kobe and Pau Gasol. End the season now. Game over, that's it. Thankfully that trade never really grew legs.
They looked desperate, and then right before the All-Star break last week, New Jersey started talking again, and 'Melo started to look as if he might sign an extension, just so he could get a few million more than he would have gotten with New York.
At that point, New York decided enough was enough, went and talked to both Denver and Carmelo in Los Angeles over the break and got the deal done, as was reported yesterday.
And so it was, and so it is. Carmelo is a Knick, along with Chauncey Billups and a few other table scraps to fill out the roster.
And it's over...until something else becomes just as big a year from now.
