By Jared Williams
Here’s a sample of the NBA craziness that transpired last Thursday from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. PST: 39 players traded (15 more than the average of the past five deadline days), 14 future draft picks swapped, 1 Adrian Wojnarowski (the czar of reporting deadline deals) tweet reading “good lord”, and 10 minutes of having no idea who the guards were on Philadelphia, Phoenix, Boston and Detroit. So yes, outside of George Karl trading for his beloved Andre Miller, this trade deadline was utterly unpredictable and simply bonkers.
Now that we’ve had the weekend to process a 90-minute span that had Twitter approaching a level of “what is happening?!” that we haven’t seen since Tim Howard’s World Cup saves, let’s analyze what all of this means. But we’re not Heat fans or 76ers fans (if they aren’t already in a Sam Hinkie induced 5 year hibernation), this is DubNation, so let’s evaluate what all of this madness means through the lens of the Warriors. Since four quality Western Conference teams made significant moves, we’ll rank each franchise’s haul from least threatening (4) to most threatening (1).
4) The Phoenix Suns – Shocker: Having 5 Point Guards Doesn’t Create Good Team Chemistry
Last season the Suns seemed new age with their terrorizing point guard combo of Bledsoe and Dragic. Then, even though they already had Archie Goodwin (more point than shooting guard), they spent the off-season drafting Tyler Ennis (a point guard) and signing Isaiah Thomas (you guessed it). Essentially, the Suns did to their roster what superhero movies are doing to the movie industry over the next 5 years -over-saturating it with one thing that was once unique and great and now is becoming redundant (seriously, 30 superhero movies over the next 5 years). As punishment the Suns were dealt a dreadful trade deadline hand when the best of their point guards, Goran Dragic, proclaimed “I don’t trust them anymore” in reference to the team’s management. It’s good to know other teams experience dysfunction comparable to the past 30 years of the Warriors!
Warriors fans should love every move the Suns made. They traded a 3rd Team All-NBA player from last season (Dragic), perhaps the league’s best backup point guard (Thomas) and most importantly the Lakers’ 1st Round Draft Pick (top 5 protected this season) in exchange for the opportunity to overpay Brandon Knight when he’s a restricted free agent after this season and three 1st round picks which shouldn’t sniff the lottery. For Warriors fans, the Suns’ trade deadline deals were equivalent to how I imagine it would be to meet Brian Scalabrine or Bill Nye the Science Guy -not threatening or intimidating in the slightest.
3) The Houston Rockets – A Sneaky Trade Deadline Winner
Charles Barkley’s antagonist Daryl Morey quietly turned three 2nd round draft picks and the magnificently named Isaiah Canaan into a hyper athlete/defensive freak (KJ McDaniels) and a point guard (Pablo Prigioni) whose career 41.4 three point percentage can space the floor for James Harden.
Last Friday on his podcast Bill Simmons declared that during the playoffs “he (KJ McDaniels) will have one twitter night”. Meaning during the playoffs he’ll emerge from relative media obscurity, win the Rockets a playoff game, and #KJsavestheday will be trending for an hour. I couldn’t agree more. The Warriors’ offensive strength is the scoring supernovas the Splash Brothers provide. With the addition of McDaniels the Rockets have 4.5 exceptional perimeter defenders: Patrick Beverly, Corey Brewer, Trevor Ariza, the added KJ McDaniels, and sometimes James Harden. I’m a stout believer that the Warriors would smash the Rockets in a playoff series, but these moves undeniably improved Texas’ most unlikable team.