28/2/19
Deadline wrap: Lakers make drastic moves as they eye 2019 free agency
With the excitement of the all-star weekend over for another year, the focus of NBA fans turned to the looking trade deadline. There was the usual speculation about which players were going to be traded and who could be working on a mega deal to land a franchise-changing piece.
But in the end, the few days before the deadline passed went by relatively quietly. Apart from the frantic dealing of Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers.
-----The first of three deals completed by the Lakers saw them dump the salaries of Jordan Clarkson and Festus Ezeli to the Utah Jazz in exchange for the expiring contracts of George Hill, Alex Burks and Jeff Withey. Young shooting guard LiAngelo Ball was also sent to the Jazz as part of the deal. Much to the probable dismay of his outspoken father.
Shedding the salaries of Clarkson and Ezeli saves the Lakers $26 million next year and $40 million overall. Their goal was to free up as much cap space for next season as possible so that they can target top tier free agents such as LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Klay Thompson.
By doing this trade Utah commit pretty heavily to a championship push. They upgrade their bench with Clarkson and Ezeli, who are both solid role players. This move may have come too late to save their playoff hopes for this season though as they sit thirteenth in the western conference, eight games behind eighth seeded San Antonio.
They will be expecting to do better next season with stars Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert leading the way. A supporting cast of Rodney Hood, Dante Exum, Joe Ingles, Jordan Clarkson and Festus Ezeli should have them at least fighting for a playoff spot.
Another year of NBA basketball will do wonders for the development of youngsters Domantas Sabonis and Miles Bridges as well.
-----A day after the Utah trade, the Lakers agreed another deal with the Detroit Pistons which saw them acquire more expiring contracts. They had to send fan favourite Larry Nance Jr to the Pistons in order to dump the huge contract of Luol Deng.
This deal saved the Lakers a further $29 million in cap space for next season.
Detroit take on Deng's contract in order to secure a solid frontcourt partner for Andre Drummond. Larry Nance Jr is known for his high-flying dunking and should be a welcome addition of excitement for fans of the struggling team.
The decision to trade Tobias Harris comes after they handed Stanley Johnson a $62 million extension last month. Clearly they felt that Johnson was the better piece to build around. Although aging, Deng should provide solid backup at small forward.
-----To round out their cap clearout, the Lakers completed a deal with Louisville that saw them offload Timofey Mozgov.
This final trade removes a further $17 million from their cap. They now only have Julius Randle and rookie John Petty contracted beyond this season. In total the three trades opened up a massive $74 million in cap room. Clearly Magic Johnson is confident of being able to lure at least one superstar free agent.
LeBron James has been linked with a move to Los Angeles for the past decade, whilst Westbrook, Harden and Klay all have the hometown factor after growing up around the Los Angeles area. It is interesting to note however that the Lakers haven't signed a big name free agent since Shaquille O'Neal in 1996.
Louisville basically do a like-for-like swap of Marcin Gortat for Timofey Mozgov, whilst only adding a further year of salary. The real prize for them is the addition of 2018 ninth overall pick Dzanan Musa. The sharpshooting Bosnian joins fellow young guns Lonzo Ball and Luka Doncic in Louisville. Along with Noah Vonleh, the Lions look to have an exciting future.
This trade was a clever way for the Lions to add another young piece to their roster, as their 2019 first round pick is owned by Denver. It was traded to the Nuggets in the deal to land the 2018 first overall pick and select Luka Doncic. It currently projects to be the eighth overall pick.
-----After all the wheeling and dealing by the Lakers, this move by the Cavaliers almost went under the radar. They acquired all-star center Marc Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies.
Cleveland had to give up Tristan Thompson and send the Grizzlies' 2019 first round pick back to them to get the deal done. With the Cavs appearing to have lost their dominance of the eastern conference and the recent freeing up of cap room by the Lakers, the possibility of LeBron jumping ship to Los Angeles at the end of the season seemed increasingly realistic.
The Cavs felt that they needed to make a significant move in order to both improve their championship chances and also convince LeBron to remain with the team beyond this season. Despite his age, Gasol is a definite upgrade on Thompson at both ends of the floor. He will be especially vital in the playoffs against Joel Embiid and Al Horford.
After acquiring Gasol, Cleveland waived both Kay Felder and Wenyen Gabriel. They then signed veterans Corey Brewer and James Johnson for the remainder of the season to give their bench more experience and depth.
Memphis announced a few weeks ago that they were looking to trade away their franchise centerpiece. After lots of deliberation, their front office finally settled on this deal with Cleveland. Their main priority in this trade was to regain control of their first round pick again. It did have a top five protection on it, but it was projecting between third and seventh.
The Grizzlies are set for a big rebuild through the draft now as the monster contracts they gave to Mike Conley and Chandler Parsons prevent them from doing anything significant in the free agency market.
-----Memphis further committed to their rebuild by trading the other long-standing face of their franchise, Zach Randolph. He headed to Brooklyn in exchange for David West and a lottery protected first round pick.
As soon as the Grizzlies traded Gasol they no longer needed 37 year old Randolph. So they got a decent return for him and handed over the starting power forward role to Deyonta Davis. The new-look pairing of Davis and Tristan Thompson is a combined 22 years younger than the Gasol-Randolph partnership.
Memphis now has two first round picks heading into the 2019 draft. Their own looks likely to be a top five selection, whilst the Nets pick is currently projected to be sixteenth overall. It could end up falling in the 18-22 range if Brooklyn improve as expected.
Brooklyn are right on the edge of the race for the playoff seeds with a 27-27 record. Adding Randolph to partner Mason Plumlee could give them the boost that they need to catch Washington and Miami, who are both just a half a game in front of them in the finals two playoff spots currently.
This wasn't a massive gamble for the Nets because the lottery protection on the pick means that if they fail to improve, they will likely end up getting the pick back anyway.
-----The final deal of a hectic few days was completed by San Diego, as they acquired center Nikola Vucevic from the Orlando Magic.
Orlando had been looking to offload Vucevic after failing to agree an extension with him. His departure will see Bismack Biyombo promoted to the starting role and Serbian giant Boban Marjanovic fill in the backup role. The Magic also received Jonathan Simmons and a top ten protected first round pick in 2020.
It's an interesting move for a team that has unexpectedly emerged as a real contender in the eastern conference this season. The stellar play of Evan Fournier, Mario Hezonja and Aaron Gordon has seen them rise rapidly to third in the standings in the past month or two. They could be the wildcard in the playoffs.
San Diego look to solve their problem at center by landing the talented Vucevic. Duties had been shared between Marjanovic, veteran Andrew Bogut and youngster Omer Yurtseven for most of the season. It was clearly a weak point of their team and they will be hoping that Vucevic can form a solid partnership with Greg Monroe.
They currently sit in seventh place in the ultra-competitive western conference in only their second season in existence. A veteran core of Greg Monroe, TJ Warren and Norman Powell have been supporting young star Dennis Smith Jr, who is averaging an impressive 22 points, 4 rebounds, 8 assists and 2 steals per game in his sophomore campaign.
He also won the 2018 Rookie of the Year award.