Blink and you miss it and many people blinked and missed a furious flurry of trades in the NBA as the clock ticks towards the trade deadline. While there were a ton of shock trades delivered in brutal fashion only the NBA can pull off, other trades were quite straight forward and expected.
Cam Reddish’s trade from New York Knicks to Portland Trailblazers falls in the expected trade category same as Russell Westbrook trade from Los Angeles Lakers to Utah Jazz. Subsequently, Westbrook is a huge candidate to get bought out from his contract by the rebuilding Utah Jazz and land with the Los Angeles Clippers.
While trying to find a way out of Oklahoma City Thunder, Westbrook courted the chance to play with Kawhi Leonard or Paul George; he played with George for two seasons but wanted to do same but this time in Los Angeles.
LeBron James is still riding high after breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s NBA All Time scoring record, the Lakers management has several trades to reshape the roster around King James who is still producing at an elite level to spearhead another championship run.
After getting D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt and Mohammed Bamba, the Lakers are younger, deeper, versatile and faster to have a good shot at going the whole way. As crazy as it sounds, the Lakers do have a good chance to make a deep run in the West even if after Dallas Mavericks added Kyrie Irving to Luka Doncic in its back court.
Phoenix Suns have laid all of its chips on the table by trading Cameron Johnson, Mikal Bridges, Jae Crowder and four first round draft picks for Kevin Durant. The Suns now have the NBA’s biggest Super Team with Durant, Devin Booker, Chris Paul and Deandre Ayton in its starting lineup with a brilliant scorer in TJ Warren.
Like the Lakers, teams out in the East have a legitimate shot at winning it all particularly those in the top tier column and it’s all down to Defense. The newly constructed rosters out West have a ton of name brands particularly those teams who made splash trades these past few hours but such franchises have done trades that hurt them defensively; well at least on paper.
Compared to East Kings like Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia Sixers and Cleveland Cavaliers, the top teams in the West fall behind defensively. Milwaukee traded for Jae Crowder to beef up its defense same as New York Knicks who traded defensively weak Reddish to Portland for Josh Hart. Sacramento Kings have been brilliant this season and coach Mike Brown’s appointment has definitely made the team’s trade for Domantas Sabonis at the expense of fast rising Guard Tyrese Haliburton a shrewd move.
While the Kings are set to end their playoff drought this season, their playoff ceiling is quite low. Memphis Grizzlies are beyond sold defensively but are too caught up in making themselves the third coming of the Detroit Pistons Bad Boys to take them seriously as a contender considering they haven’t won anything. Denver’s shot creation off the bench is virtually gone with Bones Hyland traded to the LA Clippers.
So the focus in this piece is the Los Angeles Clippers, Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns.
LA Clippers
While the Clippers have two of the best two way wing defenders of this generation in Kawhi and Paul George, they are yet to have either player dominate that side of the court since getting them on board. Injuries have made it tough to have both players line up next to each other on the court consistently in a situation akin to what Brooklyn Nets went through when it put together its superstar combo.
James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant played just 16 games together through two and a half years before moving to different destinations. More worrying for the Clippers is that when George and Kawhi have been on the court in the playoffs, they have shrunk and not stepped up enough to trust them to do same this season even with Bones and Mason Plumlee joining the team.
Phoenix Suns
The Suns news starting lineup has Durant, Booker, Chris Paul, Ayton and Torrey Craig in it. Like Dallas Mavericks, the unit has just one player committed to the defensive side of the court in Craig. For the Suns to get the best out of this group and return to the NBA finals, Ayton needs to play his way into Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) conversations the way former teammate Mikal Bridges did.
For all the great defensive work Dillon Brooks does on the wings, it is Jaren Jackson’s leading DPOY performances this season that continues to gloss Ja Morant’s defensive weaknesses to the tune of a second seed in the standings.
Dallas Mavericks
Dallas worsened its defensive standing by trading for Kyrie to pair with Luka Doncic in its back court losing solid wing defender Dorian Finney-Smith in the process. A new look starting lineup has Doncic, Kyrie, Tim Hardaway Jr., Christian Wood and Dwight Powell/ Thomas Bryant.
Such a lineup has just one player committed to play defense in Powell or Bryant and in the case of Powell and Bryant, both players are solid but not great defenders to make up for the porous back court lined up behind them.
