Trade Day Breakdown: Wait, what?
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The Thunder capped an exciting trade deadline by trading guard Reggie Jackson along with center Kendrick Perkins and bringing in center Brook Lopez from the…
… wait.
What now?
That DIDN’T go down?
If you had been following trade deadline rumors up until around 1:30PM CST yesterday, then lost all Internet access, you might have expected this trade to be completed by the time service was restored. The Thunder and Nets reportedly re-ignited talks late Wednesday night and seemed to be well on the way to completing the long-rumored deal.
But with less than 20 minutes to go until the deadline, the Thunder executed an ankle-breaking maneuver that would make even Kevin Durant jealous. Jackson and Perkins would not go to Brooklyn. Thunder fans and media would not have to fret over whether Brook Lopez and his fragile feet would pass a physical exam.
First word came from Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (known henceforth and colloquially as simply “Woj”) that Jackson had been traded to the Pistons. Moments later, Woj reported that Utah was finalizing a deal to send center Enes Kanter to the Thunder, then that Kendrick Perkins was going to Utah, then that Kyle Singler was also coming to the 405. At the same time, roughly 967 other trades were going down simultaneously, so it’s understandable if you missed the details.
The final tally: Oklahoma City trades Perkins, a protected 2017 first round pick, forward Grant Jerrett and the draft rights to center Tibor Pleiss to Utah and Jackson to Detroit. The Thunder receives Kanter and forward Steve Novak from the Jazz as well as guard DJ Augustin, Singler and a future second round pick from the Pistons.
Additionally, the Thunder traded guard Ish Smith to the Pelicans in a move designed solely to open a roster spot and remove his $861,405 salary from the books. Odd as it may seem, from a salary cap standpoint, it will now appear as though Smith never played for the Thunder.
Others will write about how the players fit or don’t fit and they will do it far better than I can. But from my vantage point, there are a few items of note:
Oklahoma City winds up some $1.96 million over the luxury tax line and will pay just shy of $3 million worth of tax. Perhaps this will finally satisfy those who have mistaken willingness to pay tax with willingness to win. The Thunder are now “going for it”, which is a strange way to describe a team that has went to at least the Western Conference Finals in three of the past four seasons, and one of those years Patrick Beverley something something. In order to retain Kanter and Singler, both restricted free agents at the end of the season, the Thunder will have to dip into the tax again in 2015-16. A rapidly rising salary cap and luxury tax line in 2016 should allow the Thunder to safely retreat from tax waters. And then the whole damn agreement may change in 2017.
As strange as this may seem considering they made a trade that turns over 26.6% of the roster mid-season, the Thunder value continuity. Some players will turn over each season because that’s just the way the league works. But the Thunder places a lot of value on keeping a core of players together for a significant amount of time. They just parted with two players who had spent at least three full seasons with the Thunder. That may not sound like a long time, but under this new collective bargaining agreement it’s a significant amount of time. Contracts are shorter and there’s more churn. The new players coming in, especially Kanter and Singler, could stick for a while. The opportunity to reset some core pieces presented itself and the Thunder acted accordingly.
Making trades may address some issues while creating others. Trading Perkins creates a leadership void that was probably never fully appreciated by many fans. This comes on top of losing Derek Fisher, Caron Butler and Thabo Sefolosha this past offseason. This was one of many reasons why the Thunder locked up Nick Collison like they did. Now is the time for Durant and Westbrook to assume even more of that responsibility. Chemistry matters. One bad apple didn’t spoil this bunch, but clearly it created some toxicity within the team. The Thunder squad that squished the Mavericks last night looked like a team that actually, finally, seemed to like each other.
(As for Jerrett, he will best be remembered as the guy who jacked garbage time threes in uncomfortably short shorts. His loss will actually impact the Oklahoma City Blue more than it will the Thunder.)
In many ways, yesterday’s trades feel a lot like the 2010 deadline deals for Perkins and Nazr Mohammed. Those trades allowed the Thunder to finally play with the big boys in the west. Slowly, the league has morphed over the past few seasons. Now some of those big boys have moved on, or aren’t quite the threat that they used to be. Teams that used to win with size are now winning with team-oriented basketball. Yesterday’s deals are also a response to this. The team was built to dominate before the trades, but this new team could sustain that even longer. The new Thunder is even more versatile and adaptable. One signature in 2016 and a couple more in 2017 could give this team a Spurs-like window of excellence.
