The main reason that many of us love sports is for the action that happens in the game, but many times what happens off the court is just as good.
This past Thursday was the NBA trade deadline and it was absolutely bonkers with 11 trades going down on the day. Now do not get me wrong the NBA season this year has been great, with ups and downs of the Cavaliers and the powerhouse of the West, San Antonio. I have had a blast with what I can watch, but I am a poor college student and do not get to watch much other than the pitiful Nuggets. The trade deadline really gets my juices going, so let us go over a couple of the trades.
The first trade I want to highlight is JaVale McGee and a 2016 Oklahoma City first round pick to Philadelphia in exchange for the rights to Cenk Akyol to Denver. This trade is funny because Akyol was drafted in 2005 and has not played one NBA game and it does not look like he’s going to anytime soon. That means that the Nuggets were so desperate to get rid of McGee they gave the 76ers a first round pick to take him.
You can count this as a win for the Nuggets though because they cleared about 12 million dollars in cap space. I do not get this trade for the 76ers though. JaVale is a meathead and I would not want him anywhere near my young two centers teaching them bad talents. I could see Sam Hinkie spitting out his drink when he sees JaVale, Nerlens Noel and Joel Emiid hanging out in an Instagram post. Hinkie would whisper to himself, “What have I done?”
The second trade to look at is Goran Dragic to Miami in exchange for a bunch of Miami junk. I want to know what black magic Pat Riley does that allows him to take advantage of these other general managers. He was able to get arguably the third best point guard in the NBA for some junk that he had lying around.
Before Bosh went, Riley had arguably the best starting line up in the NBA or at least one that could scare the hell out of playoff teams as a low seed. The best part about this trade for the Heat is Dragic wants to stay there long term and he is in his prime. For the Suns it looks like they have just given up on the year and have gone full tank mode.
The final trade I want to look at is Thaddeus Young heading to Brooklyn for Kevin Garnett to Minnesota. For the Nets they just want to clear some cap space by getting rid of KG’s massive contract, pretty cut and dry for them. Minnesota on the other hand is bringing KG over to help groom their budding new star Andrew Wiggins. The minute that trade happened the internet exploded with KG being JK Simmons character in Whiplash and Wiggins being the poor student. So much screaming.
Those are just three trades that happened on an insane day. There are still eight other trades that went down! Now it is time to see if any of these trades will work out. Let the drama unfold.
