Photo exposes big Bulls mistake; NBA’s ultimate trade ‘disaster’ laid bare: Winners and Losers

The NBA trade deadline has come and gone, with Giannis Antetokounmpo remaining on the Bucks — for now — while one of the biggest trade blunders in recent memory was laid bare.

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Here, foxsports.com.au looks at some of the winners and losers from this year’s deadline.

WINNERS

Oklahoma City Thunder

Whether the Jared McCain trade works out remains to be seen, but two other trades that didn’t even involve the Thunder put the defending NBA champions in a better position moving forward.

In case you need reminding, and if you aren’t a Thunder fan you probably don’t, the NBA’s best team also could pocket another two first-round picks in this year’s upcoming draft.

This, again, is considered an incredibly deep draft class headlined by Darryn Peterson (Kansas), AJ Dybantsa (BYU), and Cameron Boozer (Duke) and while it is unlikely the Thunder will be in a position to select any of those three standout prospects, it isn’t out of the question.

Remember, Oklahoma City owns the Los Angeles Clippers’ unprotected 2026 first-round pick.

This had the entire league panicking earlier in the season after the Clippers came out of the gates incredibly slow, but it seemed like everyone could breathe a sigh of relief after L.A. went on a winning streak and surged up the Western Conference standings.

Trading away Harden for an oft-injured Darius Garland and then Ivica Zubac, however, could see the 23-27 Clippers slip down the standings again.

They probably won’t drop much lower than 11th given the Grizzlies, Mavericks, Pelicans and Kings are either starting or in the middle of rebuilds, while there is no guarantee the Jazz, even with Jaren Jackson Jr. on the roster, will pass them given they are 16-35.

At this point, the Pelicans, Kings, Pacers, Wizards and Nets seem locked in to be the five worst teams this season, but how the records shake out beyond them is anyone’s guess and you only have to look at the way last year’s lottery unfolded to realise anything is possible.

Add in the fact Utah traded for Jackson Jr. and it is worth remembering the Jazz owe a top-eight protected pick to the Thunder as a result of the Derrick Favors trade in the summer of 2021.

Suddenly, there could be a very real chance that pick could be going to Oklahoma City given Utah currently sits sixth in the NBA draft lottery simulator.

But quickly going back to the McCain trade, it makes perfect sense for the Thunder given the absolute haul of second-round picks they have to throw around.

In fact, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported on ‘NBA Today’ that people around the league “think this is an absolute steal”.

Oklahoma City sent a 2026 Rockets first-round pick and three second-round picks to Philadelphia for McCain, who had a standout rookie season but has battled injuries and struggled to reach anywhere close to the same heights in his sophomore campaign.

Even when healthy, it was hard for McCain to carve out a consistent role behind Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe while there were defensive questions with all three on the roster given their size limitations when playing together.

Now, obviously McCain won’t get a significant role in Oklahoma City either and a first-round pick, even if late, along with three second-rounders is a lot to pay for a guy who hasn’t really produced consistently this season.

But the Thunder are making a calculated bet on McCain, who scored 20 or more points in seven-straight games in his rookie season, rediscovering his best basketball in a better environment.

For the time being, McCain offers Oklahoma City extra shooting off the bench and if he can re-emerge as a consistent all-round scorer and decent defensive piece, he gives the Thunder a younger, more affordable alternative should they need to move off of Aaron Wiggins or Isaiah Joe.

Washington Wizards

OK, so the Wizards are winners for now, but this could very quickly change if they give Anthony Davis an extension and it was widely reported that Davis would only be traded to a team who was willing to give him just that.

For context, Davis is already owed almost $63 million in for the 2027-28 season through a player option and while giving him an extension would already be a questionable move considering his injury history, it would be particularly confusing for Washington given Alex Sarr and Kyshawn George are due to start their rookie extensions around then if all goes to plan.

The Wizards were building a nice young core and the idea of adding a pure point guard like Trae Young at a low cost made sense given he can help elevate the rest of the roster.

Of course, Young will have to get healthy in the first place but the dream would have been that the four-time All-Star, who is one of the best pick-and-roll passers in the league, could unlock Sarr’s full potential in particular.

The concern now, however, is that he will understandably get his connection with Davis going first.

But for now, all we can judge the trade on is the pure facts, one of which is that Washington now boasts one of the best defensive frontcourts in the league with Sarr and Davis.

It is also hard to deny that, even if you can question the motivation in adding an older, injury-prone Davis to a young roster that isn’t close to competing, the Wizards got him at a very reasonable price.

They didn’t have to give up any of their young pieces and didn’t send out any of their first-round picks either, instead only parting ways with Oklahoma City’s 2026 first — which will be late — and a pick from Golden State in 2030, protected 1-20.

Maybe this is a case of ownership wanting to turn results around in the near-future after so many losing seasons, but either way it is a pretty small price to pay.

James Harden

Now his legacy has probably taken a hit after leaving another team, even if he is trying to spin it as some kind of selfless act.

But this is strictly related to his chances of winning an elusive ring, because while the Clippers were building momentum, it was still hard to see them going deep in the ultra-competitive Western Conference.

In the East, however, the Cavaliers — even after a slow start — were already a strong chance of progressing to the conference finals and those chances have to be even better after upgrading their roster by trading for both Harden and Keon Ellis.

Cleveland has won nine of its last 11 games to rocket up the Eastern Conference standings and currently sit fourth with a 31-21 record, just a few games back from the Knicks and Celtics.

Injuries have hurt the Cavaliers this season, with Garland in particular struggling to stay healthy, so Harden should be more dependable from that standpoint.

Even if playing with a 36-year-old Harden instead of a 26-year-old Garland significantly shortens Cleveland’s championship window, the veteran guard won’t be able to be doubled like he was in L.A. because it would mean leaving Donovan Mitchell wide-open.

That means the Cavaliers will have two dynamic scorers to go to, while Harden is also an elite playmaker out of the pick-and-roll which should work well for a Cleveland team with two bigs that he can play off.

Harden, like Garland, is far from a reliable defender but he has more length too. All things considered, at this stage of his career, he is a more dependable player on both ends of the floor and, crucially, has a better chance of staying healthy and giving the Cavaliers the best chance to go on a deep playoff run.

That, in turn, could put Harden in a position to contend for his first championship ring.

The NBA offseason news cycle

Giannis Antetokounmpo isn’t going anywhere… for now.

While ESPN’s Shams Charania reported last week that the Bucks were open to discussing a potential Antetokounmpo trade with rival teams, they clearly didn’t get the right kind of package of both young players and draft assets to move off the two-time MVP.

Instead, The Athletic’s Eric Nehm reported that the Bucks are expected to explore the possibility of a Antetokounmpo trade in the offseason.

Let the circus begin. For starters, the Bucks are incentivised to tank this season in a bid to get the highest pick possible.

They can’t get the first overall pick, because Atlanta will get the higher pick between Milwaukee and New Orleans. The Bucks will receive the lower pick, however, which means they will want to try to maximise how valuable that pick could end up being.

That would mean keeping the currently injured Antetokounmpo on the shelf, which wouldn’t necessarily go down well given the Bucks superstar has always prided himself on being competitive and playing hard every night.

If Antetokounmpo prefers to stay in Milwaukee, however, he would benefit from sitting so the Bucks can have a higher pick to build a stronger roster around him.

Anyway, all of this is to say that even before we hit the summer, there are going to be more Antetokounmpo headlines when it comes to how the Bucks handle his injury.

Once the offseason rolls around, there could be new suitors in the frame for the two-time MVP as well.

Charania previously reported that the Knicks, Heat, Warriors and Timberwolves were the most interested teams, and every one of those teams except for Golden State benefits from this saga dragging on.

Miami go from having two tradable first-round picks to four, while Minnesota has two to play with after not having a single tradable first-rounder to work with at this year’s deadline.

It is the same situation for New York, who had shown interest in Antetokounmpo since last offseason but was also hamstrung by a lack of draft capital. The Knicks will now have two tradable first-round picks after having none to include in potential trades at the deadline.

But what about the new teams that could enter the Antetokounmpo sweepstakes?

The Lakers will have three tradable picks in the summer, while there are plenty of asset-rich contenders like the Spurs, Pistons or Rockets who could flop in the playoffs and decide a big swing at Antetokounmpo is the answer.

Meanwhile, the Bucks will also have three tradable first-round picks to throw around in the summer so don’t rule out Milwaukee getting aggressive in a bid to add more players and convince Antetokounmpo to stay.

Then there is the matter of the four-year, $275 million ($A395m) extension Antetokounmpo can sign with the Bucks starting October 1, if he hasn’t been traded already by that point.

All of it makes for an intriguing wait until the offseason.

LOSERS

Ja Morant

Ja Morant is staying in Memphis, although it’s not as if the Grizzlies weren’t at least trying to trade him.

Instead, it seemed like there just wasn’t the kind of robust market for the star guard that there once would have been if he ever was made available for a trade.

The brutal reality for Morant is that from his recent run of injuries to the off-field dramas and the drop in on-court production this season, the 26-year-old’s value leaguewide has cratered.

It is hardly surprising given the limited return Atlanta got for Trae Young and in the case of Morant, ClutchPoints’ Brett Siegel reported interested teams weren’t willing to give up a first-round pick for him.

ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, meanwhile, said more broadly on ‘NBA Today’ that the market for Morant had been “rough”.

It is a stunning fall from grace for the former second overall pick, who won Rookie of the Year and then had a breakout 2021-22 season which saw him make his first All-Star game while also receiving second-team All-NBA honours.

Morant finished seventh in MVP voting that year, averaging a career-high 27.4 points per game.

There was little question at that point over his status as the face of the franchise. In fact, the conversation was more surrounding Morant’s standing in the league as a whole and whether he was the next young talent on the verge of taking the leap towards superstardom.

He made his second All-Star game the following season but it has gone downhill ever since, with Kendrick Perkins delivering a timely warning to Morant on Friday.

“Ja Morant better wake the hell up,” Perkins said on ‘NBA Today’.

“Cause in two years, after this contract, he could find himself out the league. It is disturbing to hear that a guy that went, we’re talking about former Rookie of the Year, All-NBA player, All-Stars, a guy that was on the verge of being the face of the league, and a team can’t trade you.

“They can’t trade you. Nobody wants you… If this is not a wake-up call for Ja, I don’t know what else is gonna open eyes.”

While it would be staggering for Morant to find himself out of the league in two years, Perkins’ broader point stands that there is a lot to gain — or lose — if he can’t turn his career around.

Chicago Bulls

The Bulls finally decided to sell after years of everyone else begging them to do so.

The problem? They left it too late.

Nikola Vucevic, Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu, Zach LaVine, Alex Caruso, DeMar DeRozan, Lonzo Ball. They have all been traded. The Bulls did not receive a single first-round pick in return.

Now, in their defence, they did get back Josh Giddey for Caruso while they also did get back a first-round pick for LaVine, although that was the pick they traded away to get DeRozan in the first place so realistically they didn’t actually gain an additional pick.

It is besides the point anyway, because as much as it would be relieving for Bulls fans to see the front office finally pick a direction to go in, it will at the same time haunt them to see how little all their previous assets amounted to.

Speaking to reporters on Friday after the deadline, vice president Arturas Karnisovas finally conceded the team was “not satisfied with being in the middle”.

“Being in the middle is what we don’t want to do,” Karnisovas said.

“We’ve seen that for the past four years, and we want to change that.”

He later said the play-in tournament is no longer the goal, and that a “championship is” instead.

The Bulls are far away from that, however, and left the deadline with a confusing mix of guards, even after trading both White and Dosunmu.

They have clear building blocks in Josh Giddey and Matas Buzelis, but beyond that Chicago’s moves at the deadline left ESPN analyst Brian Windhorst incredibly confused.

“With all due respect, I’ve got no idea what they’re doing,” he said on ‘NBA Today’.

“They traded for guys who are free agents. Are they going to sign Jaden Ivey? I assume they’re going to sign him. They traded for Anfernee Simons, are they going to sign him? I don’t know.

“It’s a good time to tank. But they’re too far away from the big-time tankers, so they can’t really get down and this team isn’t built to win short-term.

“If they’re not built to win short term, and they’re not in position to tank, and they traded for a bunch of guards, all of whom can’t play, I don’t know what they’re doing.”

Dallas Mavericks

If it is possible, the Luka Doncic trade has aged even worse than first thought.

Look, clearly the Anthony Davis experiment in Dallas wasn’t going to work out so you have to give the Mavericks some credit for at least moving on this soon rather than digging their heels in and stubbornly pretending like the Doncic trade was the right move.

It wasn’t. It cost Nico Harrison his job, and the key word of emphasis from that earlier sentence is ‘some’, because most people were sceptical of the move from the start.

This isn’t a case of the benefit of hindsight. It wasn’t even just that the Mavericks traded the face of the franchise. It was that they did so, reportedly concerned about how Doncic’s body would hold up over time and whether they would regret giving him a lucrative contract extension, before then trading him for an oft-injured Davis.

All the Mavericks ended up getting from Davis was 29 games.

Meanwhile, they also shipped off D’Angelo Russell, Jaden Hardy and Dante Exum to Washington along with Davis for Khris Middleton, AJ Johnson, Malaki Branham, Marvin Bagley III, two first-round picks and three second-round picks.

Remember from earlier, neither of those first-rounders look like they will be particularly valuable.

So, in summary now that this is all over, Dallas shipped away Doncic along with Maxi Kleber, Markieff Morris, Hardy, Russell and Exum for Max Christie, Middleton, Johnson, Branaham, Bagley, three first-round picks (two of which are really fake first-rounders because of how late they will fall), three second-round picks and 29 games of Davis.

If they didn’t stumble into the first overall pick and Cooper Flagg, this would have been an even bigger nightmare. But even still, it is hard not to look back at this and wonder what the Mavericks front office, and Harrison specifically, were thinking.

ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said it was a “disaster” for Dallas, calling the Davis trade a “glorified salary dump”.