The Los Angeles Lakers may have won the deadline, but so did the Los Angeles Clippers, their Crypto.com Arena roommates.
They addressed two of their biggest needs — a young, instant-offense point guard in Bones Hyland and a serviceable backup center in Mason Plumlee — while getting rid of players who fell out of the rotation like Reggie Jackson and John Wall.
Sure, losing an elite sharpshooter like Luke Kennard hurts, but replacing him with another quality shooter in Eric Gordon isn’t a devastating downgrade — especially considering he has much more playoff experience than Kennard. You won the deadline, Los Angeles. Both of you.
Elsewhere in California, the Golden State Warriors initiated a massive four-team trade that sent James Wiseman to the Detroit Pistons, Saddiq Bey to the Atlanta Hawks, a ton of second-round picks to the Portland Trail Blazers and Gary Payton II back to the Warriors. Payton’s failed physical with the Warriors nearly nixed this trade, but Golden State chose to stick with it, and now the rosters of each of these four teams has changed substantially.
I really like what the Warriors did here, even if Payton has health concerns. Wiseman, once a highly-touted prospect, simply did not fit in Steve Kerr’s small-ball rotation. His main skill is putting up points in the paint on a team that doesn’t prioritize interior looks.
Payton was a member of last year’s championship team and fits the Warriors’ system significantly better than Wiseman.
This move could be the missing piece needed for another playoff run.
While Wiseman was an awkward fit in Golden State, I think he fits even worse in Detroit. I have no idea why the Pistons made this trade. Wiseman to Detroit was my least favorite move of the deadline, considering there is absolutely no room for him to play.
Wiseman is a guy who needs ample NBA minutes to develop and acclimate to professional basketball — considering how much time he missed with injury — and he’s not going to get them with Jalen Duren, Isaiah Stewart and Marvin Bagley III fighting for those same minutes.
Adding Wiseman to that team gives the Pistons four big men who are really good at scoring close to the rim and can’t do much else offensively.
My guess is that Stewart and Duren share the court together as starters, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to play two bigs who don’t space the floor well. Even disregarding the fact that they gave up Bey in this deal, I’m puzzled by what the Pistons were thinking.
I’m indifferent to the Hawks’ side of this trade. I’d be a tad more receptive to it if they stopped asking teams to give them the entire United States Federal Reserve in exchange for John Collins and actually traded him for what he’s worth.
Instead, Bey will likely find himself playing behind Collins and De’Andre Hunter, despite being a serviceable NBA starter. I think he’s a little too redundant with Hunter to make that big of an impact, and I hope he doesn’t take too many minutes from rookie AJ Griffin. But adding Bey is better than nothing, and he provides forward depth, defense and quality shooting on a team that needs all three.
I’m also puzzled by what Portland is doing. I think general manager Joe Cronin believes that the trade deadline means “You must make a trade before this date,” because the Trailblazers seem to make trades for the sake of making trades.
Portland has historically been in dire need of wing protection. That’s why they got Josh Hart last year when they traded away CJ McCollum. Was that move questionable? Yes. But at least they got a good perimeter defender. They doubled down by adding Payton and Jerami Grant in the offseason.
Finally, the Trailblazers have perimeter defense. Except not anymore.
Their first move of the deadline was to trade Josh Hart for Knicks wing Cam Reddish. I like Reddish. After his outstanding high school career, so many people expected his career to soar.
He’s been flying alright, but as a passenger on Spirit Airlines — everywhere he’s gone, there’s been turbulence. He’s a nice scorer off the bench, but he thinks he’s Kevin Durant. He’s not. That’s why he didn’t fit in Atlanta or New York. Portland wants to develop him, but there’s little space for him in the rotation.
Who did they replace Hart’s defense with? Matisse Thybulle from Philadelphia. Thybulle has been one of the NBA’s best perimeter defenders over the last few years, but that comes at the cost of him being allergic to scoring.
Then they doubled down on their retooling of their wing defenders by trading Payton to the Warriors for some picks. I just don’t get it. They went from Hart, Payton and Grant to Grant, Reddish and Thybulle. That is a downgrade, and I don’t understand it, especially for a team that’s trying to make the play-in.
Those were the trades that I felt were most impactful, but by no means were these teams the only ones affected by the deadline. Some teams went in the wrong direction — Toronto adding Jakob Poeltl instead of initiating a rebuild — while others went in no direction at all despite desperately needing to, like Miami and Chicago. Other teams got slightly better, such as Philadelphia, New York and Milwaukee.
Overall, this was one of the most eventful trade deadlines in NBA history, and it will change the landscape of the league this season. The Suns could win their first NBA championship, the Mavericks could emerge as their biggest rivals or the Pistons could put out a starting lineup of four really tall guys who can’t shoot — all made possible because of this chaotic trade deadline.
