Everyone's got different goals in mind, and it's hard to compare this team's goal to that team's goal. It's massively overpaid apples and rapidly expiring oranges. No one knows what's what.
That said, there are a few teams that did very well at the deadline, and a few that did … well, not so well. In an attempt to find some semblance of order in the mess that was Thursday's dealings, here's the breakdown on a few key teams:
Winners:
Houston Rockets
Rockets GM Daryl Morey is nothing short of a magician. Tracy McGrady had to be traded. He'd been asking for weeks, and everyone knew it. It boggles the mind how, even when the entire NBA knew he was desperate, Morey still managed to turn T-Mac's expiring contract into Kevin Martin, his shooting guard of the future without a doubt, and two perfectly serviceable former Knicks in Jared Jeffries and lottery pick Jordan Hill. Even when he's desperate, Morey manages to hit the jackpot.
Los Angeles Clippers
The Clippers may not be winning right now, but their future is bright as ever. Looking at next season and beyond, that team is ready to be a winner. With a nucleus of Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, Baron Davis and Chris Kaman, the Clips are already a playoff team next season — but now they have salary cap relief, too.
The Clips unloaded Marcus Camby and Sebastian Telfair this week for expiring contracts, meaning they'll have about $16 million more in space under the cap than they had originally thought. Now they can make a serious run at signing a free agent to a max contract. You think LeBron James might want to play with that nucleus of young talent? It's not out of the question.
Chicago Bulls
What the Bulls have done is just as impressive. They, too, cleared out a lot of room under the cap to make a deal this summer — with John Salmons headed to Milwaukee and Tyrus Thomas going to Charlotte, that's a hefty load of next year's payroll lifted from Chicago. But what they managed to get back is just as impressive — in getting Hakim Warrick and Joe Alexander from the Bucks, as well as Acie Law and Flip Murray from the Bobcats, the Bulls still have enough talent to make a playoff run right now. What if Chicago turns some heads in the East playoffs this spring — and ends up landing James, Dwyane Wade or perhaps the most realistic scenario, Chris Bosh, this summer? Talk about win-win.
Losers:
Sacramento Kings
Yes, Tyreke Evans and Martin are difficult to fit together on the same court. Yes, they both want to take their shots and do their part to lead the offense. And yes, for these reasons, it made sense for the Kings to look into trading Martin. But to give him up for Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey, who are two decent undersized forwards but nowhere near equal value for Martin? Hard to defend that. The Kings had no need to rush things — they weren't desperate to get a deal done right now, as they had no chance of making a serious run this season. The important thing is to build for the future, and the Kings' move to ditch Martin didn't do nearly enough of that.
Miami Heat
Simply put, the Heat's job over these next few months is to convince D-Wade to stay. It's not rocket science — whatever you can do to keep Wade happy, you do it. End of story. And in this case, it looks like the key to keeping Wade was to add another piece to Miami's rotation, a big one, to convince Wade that the team was seriously committed to winning a championship. That would have been huge, and Amare Stoudemire definitely would have done the trick. So, too, would Carlos Boozer. But instead, the Heat ended up doing nothing at all — and you have to wonder whether the team's last-second attempts at the two players were serious, or whether it was all talk. Either the team tried to get a big-name trade chip and failed, or this was all just a transparent PR move.
New York Knicks
This is what's referred to in gambling parlance as being "all-in." Going for broke. Betting it all on one hand. The Knicks finally found a way to unload the Jeffries contract, getting in return a McGrady deal that expires this summer and leaves them with a ton of cap space to wheel and deal with. But they also gave up Hill in the process, and to ensure that they can sign two max contracts this summer, they'll probably also end up renouncing their rights to David Lee. What if this backfires? What if LeBron and Bosh don't flock to the Big Apple? Then what's the backup plan? You've got to spend all that money on someone, and even if a max-caliber player isn't really out there, they're still going to spend max cash. Welcome aboard, Boozer and Rudy Gay. Enjoy the next five years.
But these are the pitfalls of every trading deadline. You're not just rolling the dice on this season — you're making moves that can set you up for years of glory … or, on the flip side, years of misery.
