With the trade deadline now over and McGrady actually moving to the Knicks, which sounded like a joke a few months ago, lets take a look at the bigger moving and shipping that went down this past week –
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Saturday, February 13 – The Washington Wizards began taking apart their disappointing team by sending Caron Butler to the Dallas Mavericks, along with Brendan Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson, just so the Mavs have players to piss of LeBron next time the two teams meet. Washington got back Josh Howard, with the Mavs finally giving up on him and his off court problems, along with Quinton Ross, James Singleton and Drew Gooden who got shipped again four days later to the Clippers. Dallas got the most out of this trade no doubt, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough to take them all the way, as usual, but it certainly makes the team better and deeper.
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Tuesday, February 16 – Portland decided it can’t go on without a center in their chase for the playoff spot in the West and dealt Travis Outlaw and Steve Blake to the Clippers for Marcus Camby, who won’t add too many points but will surely help the teams rebounding and defending. Clippers? Going nowhere as usual, although Blake and Outlaw are decent players. If Blake Griffin makes it back in good shape next season, it could turn out not too bad. Thornton getting shipped to the Cavs a day later made me feel differently.
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Wednesday, February 17 – The Cavs decide that more scoring is what they need so they can get an NBA title, and went for Antawn Jamison. Big Z was the price to pay, getting shipped to Washington after so many years with Cleveland, with Drew Gooden getting shipped again to the Clippers and Al Thornton moving to Washington. Bottom line, Cleveland decided that Shaq and Varejao are enough for them in the paint. Good gamble? I’m not too sure. I really like Jamison, but more beef in the paint was the thing missing last season against the Magic, and things were going so well this year…
Thursday, February 18, trade deadline – The Bulls were busy, shipping John Salmons to the Bucks for Hakim Warrick and Joe Alexander and also dealt with the Bobcats, finally ending the Tyrus Thomas rumors and shipping the troubled forward to Charlotte for Acie Law and Flip Murray plus a first round draft pick in 2010. The bottom line? The Bulls have around 18 million dollars to spend in the off season on a big name. Bosh?
The Celtics couldn’t find a deal they really wanted, so settled for one that doesn’t seem to effective, getting Krypto-Nate for Eddie House and some change. He’s going to be better than Marbury was last season, but this won’t be the trade that recharges the C’s season, pushing them and the aging trio towards another title.
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The final big trade of the day was the three team trade between the Rockets, Knicks and Kings, as T-Mac landed with the Knicks along with Sergio Rodriguez, Sacramento got Larry Hughes, Carl Landry (Great pickup) and Joey Dorsey and the Rockets wound up with Kevin Martin, Jared Jeffries, Jordan Hill and Hilton Armstrong. The Knicks will get the cap space, the Rockets, despite giving up on Landry get a solid scorer (Martin) and the Kings finally got rid of Martin, who just seemed to be ruining it for them since returning from injury plus getting the fantastic Landry.