Every year, it seems, the advance reporting suggests that it’s going to be a pretty quiet NBA trade deadline. And every year, it seems, everything goes completely bat-guano like 16 hours ahead of the 3 p.m. ET deadline. Last year, it was the James Harden-for-Ben Simmons staredown; this year, it was Kevin Durant moving to finally get himself .
(Well, maybe “like a lasagna that had loudly and publicly lodged a request to move into a different pan like six months ago.” But even Mixtape-Era Wayne probably would’ve had a hard time making that sound good.)
By the time the final buzzer sounded, the West had a new contender, the competition for top-six and play-in spots in both conferences got even tighter, and the race to build the biggest draft-pick war chest grew all the more ferocious. As the rumors rolled in and the deals got done, I sat here, like Frank T.J. Mackey, . What follows are my first-draft-of-history impressions of which teams scored and which ones stumbled in this season’s grand NBA roster reshuffling:
Here’s what I wrote about the Suns in Wednesday’s :
In a recent conversation with , general manager James Jones said that what he’d most like to add at the trade deadline is shooting — in King’s words, “a guy who can get his shot no matter the situation, no matter who’s defending them, no matter how high-leverage the situation is.” Unless KD rekindles his offseason interest in a trip to the desert, I’m not sure who else who could hit the market fits that description.
Narrator: “KD did, in fact, .”
Mere hours after his introductory news conference as the , Mat Ishbia, general manager James Jones to reach out to Nets GM Sean Marks in a about the kind of big-splash deal that he’d . It’s an awfully big friggin’ splash.
Out go Phoenix’s unprotected first-round picks in 2023, 2025, 2027 and 2029, plus swap rights on the Suns’ 2028 first-rounder, along with wings Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson and Jae Crowder — effectively the entire wing rotation with which the Suns won the Western Conference two seasons ago and a league-best 64 games last season. In comes Durant: eighth in the NBA in , one of only averaging better than 27-5-5, and a bona fide MVP candidate who was arguably playing as well as he ever had before spraining his MCL last month.
Durant, Devin Booker, Chris Paul and Deandre Ayton are an absolutely devastating foursome, built to punish postseason defenses, inside and out. Durant, Booker and Paul can all carve you up in the pick-and-roll and pull up from anywhere; defenses designed to take away 3-pointers and keep drivers away from the rim now have to worry about three of the best midrange shooters in the world setting fire to their preferred coverage. Durant can also get to the line, averaging 7.3 free-throw attempts per game this season — more than Bridges and Johnson combined — which could prove to be an important source of supplemental offense for a Suns team that ranks , according to Cleaning the Glass.
KD and Booker are both canny off-ball movers, too, dangerous sprinting off weak-side screens and firing off the catch. They’re also willing screeners who understand how to force defenses to switch into the kind of isolation matchups they really don’t want — the lifeblood of the lion’s share of modern playoff offense in the season’s biggest moments. Spot any of them up opposite an Ayton pick-and-roll, and help defenders find themselves in an impossible position: Stay at home on your assignment and let Ayton have a free run to the rim, or sink in to tag the roller and risk giving one of the best shooters in the world a clean look at a catch-and-shoot triple.
Losing an All-Defense-caliber wing stopper like Bridges (plus two other solid perimeter defenders) hurts, but the quartet ought to be pretty excellent defensively, too. Ayton’s ability to hold up in space and clear the defensive glass should pair well with Durant’s length, shot-blocking, positional versatility and passing-lane cluttering, all while backstopping Paul’s persistent larceny and Booker’s steady on-ball improvement. It remains to be seen who’ll round out the starting five — I’d bet on Torrey Craig getting first crack as a low-usage 3-and-D point of attack defender, though maybe the returning T.J. Warren or defensive stalwart Josh Okogie gets a look — but this has a chance to be the best lineup in the league.
The Suns had already started to climb out of the hole they’d dug in December while ravaged by injuries, winning nine of their last 11 games with the NBA’s to move within two games of third place in the heavily congested West. They just added the best player who will move at this deadline — one of the five best players in the league, when healthy — and now have KD, Booker and Ayton all , potentially extending a title window that seemed like it might’ve been shut last spring by a .
Reasonable people can argue whether this makes Phoenix the favorites to come out of the West, whether you’d pick the Suns over the Celtics or Bucks in a hypothetical Finals matchup, etc. What’s inarguable, though, is that nobody is going to be particularly excited by the prospect of dealing with Durant, Booker and CP3 in a seven-game series. A month ago, the Suns were reeling. Not anymore.
The Most Important People in the NBA Right Now: The Suns’ Training Staff
And now, the “caveat emptor” zag:
On paper, the Suns have the firepower to incinerate any defense they’ll face in the postseason. In practice, doing so will require keeping Durant (currently out with an MCL sprain, the fourth straight season he’s missed significant time with a leg injury), Paul (a 37-year-old 6-foot point guard with more than 46,000 minutes on his odometer and a haunting medical history in the postseason) and Booker (who just missed nearly two months with groin and hamstring issues) upright, ambulatory and in working order for the next four months.
That’s the rub in these sorts of “four quarters for a dollar” trades: It’s obviously great to get the premier transcendent talent, but now you’ve got precious little depth behind your stars if something goes awry. (I do kind of like the to add Oklahoma City’s Darius Bazley — an athletic 6-foot-8 combo forward who’s not as skilled as the outgoing Dario Saric, but who might be able to defend a bit more on the perimeter.) The Suns might be a little over three months away from a return to the Finals; they also might be a couple of false steps away from relying more on Cam Payne and Landry Shamet than you’d like after trading away your entire draft future.
Loser: The Nets’ Attempt to Be a Superteam
In their bid to take over the New York market, to return to the top of the East for the first time since Jason Kidd was throwing alley-oops to Kenyon Martin, and to try to win the franchise’s first championship , the Nets chased superstars … and once they got them, they struggled at seemingly every turn to manage them in ways that elevate an organization rather than keep it constantly scuffling through the mud. For that brief moment when Durant, Harden and Irving were healthy, it looked like Brooklyn would thrive anyway. But the powers that be couldn’t make that moment last; when Durant asked out, Irving started looking for sign-and-trades, and owner Joe Tsai made it clear he wanted to put his foot down in a power struggle, the dream was dead. It just kept toddling around for a few months before Phoenix pronounced it.
Who deserves what share of the blame for the way things in Brooklyn imploded is something that’ll be debated for ages. What this four-year episode makes clear, though, is that while it’s hard to get superstars, it can be even harder to have superstars. And now, the Nets are back where they started: without any.
Winner: Devin Booker’s Ability to Manifest a Superteam with Intention
Booker, to Yahoo Sports’ Vincent Goodwill, in :
The way Booker sees it, the Suns aren’t in any position to take down the defending champion Golden State Warriors or even the next tier of contenders. But he knows the path to greatness — look at [Draymond] Green’s recruitment of [Kevin] Durant in 2016 — is possible and can change the league forever.
“… Dynasties only last for so long,” Booker said. “I’m not wishing trades upon any of the superteams.”
But …
“I’d like to build a superteam. I’d like the superteam to come to me.”
Four and a half years later, Booker’s a three-time All-Star and an All-NBA First Teamer who gets to run the wing with Durant while Paul runs point. This is a level of speaking it into existence that would make LaVar Ball so proud he’d .
Winner, Kind of: Jae Crowder
After sitting out the entire season to date looking for a trade because the Suns wanted to play Cam Johnson over him, Crowder finally got traded … and, thankfully, , this time to a team that didn’t still have Johnson there, ready to play over him.
It took , but Crowder will wake up Friday where he wants to be — a Marquette product back in Milwaukee, yet again the potential missing piece on the wing for a team with championship aspirations. He sounds stoked.
(You can tell he’s stoked because of the capital letters.)
Loser: The 2022-23 Brooklyn Nets’ Championship Hopes
In the long, long ago of Tuesday afternoon, that Brooklyn’s decision to take the Mavericks’ offer for Kyrie, which prioritized starting-level veteran players over future draft considerations, suggested that the Nets planned to try to remain competitive right now, which suggested that KD would be sticking around. Welp!
Maybe the Nets were operating under the assumption that Durant was sticking around. (The initial reporting seemed to indicate they were.) But you know what happens when you assume; if they didn’t expect Durant to ask out again in the wake of Irving’s exit, just months after he told them he didn’t like the way things were working and he wanted to leave, well, then, shame on them.
Now the Nets find themselves somewhat stuck between stations, with no incentive to tank (Houston still controls every Nets draft through 2027, thanks to the first Harden trade) but also no real shot at the brass ring. This looks like a roster in transition — a bunch of pretty good players, but no great ones; plenty of interchangeable quality wings, but no top-flight offensive engine to consistently create high-value shots for them; the bones of what should be an excellent defense, but not enough oomph to reach the heights that Boston, Milwaukee, Philly and full-throttle Cleveland can.
That’s not bad; it’s just also not what anyone in Brooklyn’s braintrust thought they were signing up for. Then again, there’s been a lot of that going around at Barclays Center over the past four years.
Winner, Potentially: The Nets of a Couple of Years From Now
The glass-half-full take, from Brooklyn’s perspective:
While the Rockets own their draft future, the Nets now own Phoenix’s, plus Philly’s 2027 first (from the Harden-for-Ben Simmons deal) and Dallas’ 2029 first (from the Kyrie trade), and a boatload of . Brooklyn now has one massive long-term salary commitment — the $113.9 million owed to Simmons — and an otherwise reasonably cap sheet , and in Bridges, Johnson, Dorian Finney-Smith and Royce O’Neale, all of whom are signed beyond this season, it’s got a ton of the kind of multi-positional 3-and-D wings that contenders crave. (Bridges, who’s got the highest offensive upside of the bunch, reportedly .)
That, plus rising young center Nic Claxton, provides plenty of raw material for the Nets’ front office to work with in trying to find a new path forward after their failed attempt to build around the superstar talent that vaults you into championship contention — the kind of mix that should allow Brooklyn to stay respectable and competitive enough to avoid handing the Rockets premium draft picks for the rest of the decade and could allow Sean Marks and Co. to rebuild the roster in comparatively short order.
Loser: The Conceit That Maybe The Sixers and Nets Both Won and/or Lost the Harden-Simmons Trade?
Philly actually won a playoff series last season, which Brooklyn didn’t. Daryl Morey got Harden back on a sub-max deal and used the savings to add several key rotation pieces. They’re no longer on the hook for Simmons’ contract, still actually have their MVP centerpiece and All-Star-caliber table-setter, and look likely to have home-court in Round 1, with a legit shot to advance further.
The Nets, on the other hand, just watched their expected empire crumble before their very eyes. Simmons has rarely looked comfortable on the court this season, only showing brief flashes of realizing the “he can be our Draymond Green!” pipe dream while spending a far greater share of his time seemingly unwilling to look at the rim and disinterested in being fouled; Brooklyn now has to either pay Simmons nine figures over the next three years in hopes he figures it all out, or add sweeteners to pay his freight to put a final period at the end of the disappointing sentence of the last few years.
Winner: Robin Lopez
Tweet of the deadline:
If only was still around for Robin to , too.
Winner: Cam Thomas
I don’t think he’s going to continue averaging . (I don’t think.) But while Spencer Dinwiddie and Bridges will take their share of shots, there shouldn’t be any reason why the Nets’ current in-between roster construction can’t afford the scorching-hot LSU product the opportunity to cook plenty for the next two months … and all available evidence suggests that, if this dude takes a bunch of shots, he’s going to score a bunch of points. It remains to be seen whether that’ll translate to many wins. If nothing else, though, it might offer a reason to .
Winners: Chaos as a Constant, and the Inescapability of Impermanence
Dog, the Nets looked like a championship contender .
A butterfly , and in Central Park, you get rain instead of sunshine. Jimmy Butler turns as he falls, the Celtics deliver a decisive , and the fates of a handful of franchises change forever.
I will grant that the fact that we’re all just building sand castles on the shore, waiting for the tide to come in, isn’t necessarily actionable information. Still: Man, what a reminder of how fleeting all of this really is.
Losers: Dan and Jake
The week before the deadline, we really wanted to see John Collins and O.G. Anunoby move to new destinations:
Alas: Neither nor found a new home. Oh, well. See you guys back at the rumor mill this summer — say, around the draft?
Winner: Shifting Around Piles Upon Piles of Second-Round Draft Picks
The Nets got in the Kyrie trade; the Thunder got for Mike Muscala. The Nuggets got for Bones Hyland, and to Lakers for Thomas Bryant. The Wolves got , plus Mike Conley, in Wednesday’s three-team deal. The Spurs got a for Jakob Poeltl, and for Josh Richardson. The Bucks paid for Crowder; the Hawks sent to get Saddiq Bey from the Warriors … who then turned around and to Portland for Gary Payton II.
I’m sure there were other multi-second deals I missed while jacked into the Matrix, but the point is this: The next time someone handwaves the inclusion of a second-round pick in a deal, just remember that while one second-round pick might not get much done, a whole bunch can help grease the skids on all kinds of deals.
Loser: The Grind
Damian Lillard is still not running from you.
That said …
, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie, and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose: The Portland Trail Blazers
The Blazers made several trades on Thursday, shipping two players out, bringing four players in, and adding a bunch of draft capital …
… and at the end, I’m kind of just scrunching my face up and tilting my head at it, like a dog who’s not entirely sure what you’re trying to say to him, because it isn’t about food. (I also might just be a little hungry.)
Turning Josh Hart (who has a player option for next summer) into a flier on Cam Reddish and a that turns into four seconds if not conveyed (again with the seconds!) is fine. If Reddish pops on his third team, the Blazers can keep him around in restricted free agency; if not, well, he got them some picks.
Ditto for Payton, whom they effectively replaced with another defensive demon in Thybulle — himself a restricted free agent this summer — after injuries scuttled his first season in Portland. Thybulle’s averaging nearly and per 36 minutes of floor time and sits near the top of the league in several advanced ; he hardly ever shoots the ball, but his frenetic activity and off-ball cutting might play up on a team with as much shooting as the Lillard-and-Anfernee Simons-led Blazers.
There is a bit of an element of swapping deck chairs, though — like a team committed to trying to compete for a postseason berth, but that still sits under .500 and is clinging to a play-in spot by half a game, might have missed an opportunity to fortify itself rather than just once again rely on Dame to put everybody on his back. Then again, cross-training workouts with weight that heavy probably gets you, like, super ready to run to the grind, instead of away from it.
Winner: Reunions!
A lot!
GPII’s back in the Bay. Eric Gordon the Clippers, who drafted him all the way back in 2008. George Hill’s back in . John Wall — somewhat , you’d imagine — is in Houston. Patrick Beverley, dealt to Orlando for Mo Bamba, might soon be on , where he thrived last year. ( …)
Add in the pre-deadline-day returns — D’Angelo Russell back to the Lakers, Poeltl back to the Raptors, Warren back in Phoenix, Dinwiddie back in Brooklyn — and there’s a real “Maybe this time we can make it work” vibe. And just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Loser: The State of Ja Morant’s Worrying Union
Seven weeks ago, Ja was already looking ahead to the Finals:
Now, he’s looking at a Nuggets team with the best offense in the NBA, the newly terrifying Suns and a Mavericks squad that can run out Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving in a seven-game series, all while the physically and emotionally wounded Grizz have lost eight of 10. Mock not the basketball gods; they will give you something to worry about.
