It's trade deadline day, and you know what that means!
1. The sim will be later tonight and at least one person will confuse the 8:00 and 8:15 pm deadlines and get salty about it.
2. Doug will message you about offloading Enes Kanter to your team.
3. There will be barely enough trades to write an article about, but just enough that someone will be able to stretch it into 5 points by promising running analysis as the day goes on or some bullshit like that.
Anyway, let's look at the transactions that have happened so far. Keep a close eye on this post because I will edit it as deadline day goes by!
Wolves/Bobcats -- ALTERNATE DIMENSION TIME: Tue May 08, 2018 4:26 pm
This is the first big trade as evidenced by the "WHOA" reaction from Doug on the boards, and while it's a big trade with a lot of movement, I'm not sure how much impact it will have. Inside scoop from the Twin Cities is that Griffin was brought in to get some quick and dirty wins in a season where the T-Wolves forgot that they needed their own pick to perform a successful tank. However, giving up Schroeder, Gallinari, and McCall is probably consolidating an equal amount of points into one position. Still, the pickup of a distributor like Rondo should do nicely with scoring options like Wiggins and Blake together. I think the Wolves will get some more wins out of this move, but the end-game here was never a complete turnaround.Wolves send
Melvin McCall
Danilo Gallinari
Dennis Schroeder
10 points
Bobcats send
Blake Griffin
For the Bobcats, however, this officially tucks their asses under the apron and gets them 10 points closer to paying back their gigantic tax bill. McCall also projects to be a solid offensive-only player.
Pelicans/Heat -- ALTERNATE DIMENSION TIME: Tue May 08, 2018 5:42 pm
The Heat save everyone from a mass-BCC-PM about Ed Davis, and to be honest, I'm not sure why. Points are nice and maybe a late 1st next year has a good TC, but the Heat have been disinterested in better young players (like Keith Pfeffer and Tim Pulley), letting them go for future gambles. Doug McDermott was thrown in for salary, and though he's not the greatest green player, his contract isn't expensive, and he is a solid roleplayer that should be in higher demand than Ed Davis. I think the Pelicans made out like bandits in this trade as this is easily a better haul than they should've gotten for what went out. The Heat seem to be spinning their wheels looking for a direction to take until World B. Free is ready to go. Perhaps this helps them tank a little harder into another solid draft pick, but I think giving up Pulley was too much. At least go for 10 points.Pelicans send: Ed Davis, Ellsworth Gallo, Wilson Chandler, Kings 2021 First, and 5 points
for
Heat Send: Doug McDermott & Timothy Pulley.
Suns/Nets -- ALTERNATE DIMENSION TIME: Tue May 08, 2018 7:37 pm
The Nets are finally making some moves, and I really like this one for them. Their biggest problem has historically been depth, and playing with less than 10 players on their roster is an old Brooklyn standby at this point. Ish and Brandon are past their primes, and Dieng is pretty much a trade-off for Bedard, but now they have options! I think this move makes the Nets better as the team roles are now more clearly defined. All three players have team options next year, so Ed can see if it works and bring whoever back (Dieng is a no brainer on a nice contract). I know there's another move coming soon at the time of this writing, which takes the Nets in the opposite direction, but really helps alleviate their tax bill.Suns send Ish Smith, Brandon Jennings, and Gorgui Dieng
Nets send Victor Oladipo and William Paschal
The Suns, meanwhile, combine their assets and also benefit from this trade. Dipo should work well there as he's used to replacing holes left by James Harden. The Suns, who also have Kyle Lowry, did well at getting rid of 2/3 of the almost identical players that signed with the defending champs in the offseason.
Nets/Spurs -- ALTERNATE DIMENSION TIME: Wed May 09, 2018 9:56 am
Nets send Tyreke Evans and 10 points
Spurs send 2023 2nd round pick
- Screen Shot 2018-05-09 at 3.20.46 PM.png (103.17 KiB) Viewed 1038 times
The important part is, though, that I called it weeks ago.
Nets/Spurs -- ALTERNATE DIMENSION TIME: Wed May 09, 2018 1:09 pm
I'm not sure how Skype chat reacted to this, but welcome to the league, Clippers GM. It's good to see you make a trade, and could've done a lot worse than Chet Dooley. I'm sure there weren't a lot of places that could take a 44 million dollar contract on. I hope there's someone out there working on a Kemba deal with you because you've got 2 PGs and a whole lot of imbalance, and that's going to continue unless you can spread Kemba's contract out. You should be able to because it's not as massive as KD's and still has some years on it. Take as much as you can get for him in the offseason if there's nothing in the works now. People are going to lowball you because 1. Kemba is old and 2. You're new. But the longer you keep him, the less he'll actually be worth to you. Don't hesitate to get 2nd and 3rd impartial opinions on any deals to start out.Nuggets send:
Chet Dooley
Evan Turner
Chris Bosh
Clippers send:
Kevin Durant
10 points
Undoubtedly, this is a huge move for the Nuggets, who look to bolster their position at the top of the West by trading in any semblance of depth for one of the league's all time premiere players and scorers while he still has plenty of juice left. They're going to have a big team, and swapping Dooley for Durant definitely changes their game plan. Giannis could wreak havoc at the scoring guard spot, but expect the team to move the ball a lot less and put it in the hands of one of several capable scorers. It makes the Nuggets scarier, but it should be very interesting to watch.
