It’s another edition of Trade Spin, where we try to sort out the fantasy implications of yesterday’s deadline deals. Tomorrow, the Spin will return to our usual around-the-league format as we catch up on who’s hot and who’s not. The biggest news of a busy Thursday was the three-way swap that sends JaVale McGee to Denver, Nene to Washington and Nick Young to the Clippers. It’s a homecoming of sorts for Young, the former USC star, and means Randy Foye has
Thursday’s 3 p.m. EST trade deadline has com and gone, and here is what went down for each of the 30 NBA teams. As a courtesy to your eyes, all trades that were made are in boldface. ATLANTA HAWKS — Hawks co-owner Bruce Levenson told the Associated Press that there are no plans to trade Josh Smith, who said the talk was just rumors. On another front, Kirk Hinrich said he would like to stay put at the deadline for a change.
Nate McMillan is out of a job. The Portland Trail Blazers fired their head coach today, one day after his team lost by 42 points to the reeling New York Knicks, and on the same day the team traded away Gerald Wallace and Marcus Camby. The interim head coach is Kaleb Canales, who has been with the Blazers for seven seasons, starting as a video intern, and had a 4-1 record as coach of the Blazers’s summer league team in Las Vegas
Despite suffering a slew of injuries to key players throughout the season, the Denver Nuggets have been deep enough at just about every position to stay afloat in the playoff race. With just about every player back to full strength, the Nuggets may be hitting their stride just in time to fight for home court advantage in the Western Conference. They look to avenge their previous loss to Oklahoma City as Kevin Durant and the Thunder visit in Thursday’s best game. Both
In last year’s draft there were only two legitimate shooting guard prospects that I counted taken in the first round, Klay Thompson of Washington State, who went to Golden State 11th overall, and Colorado’s Alec Burks, who went immediately after to Utah. With the rise in athletic ballhandling guards dominating drafts over the past decade, shooting has become a commodity. Guys who fight to work off screens the way Reggie Miller, Allan Houston and Richard Hamilton made a living on is
// Now that the New Jersey Nets know they have no shot at getting Dwight Howard, will they attempt to trade Deron Williams instead of being at risk of losing him with nothing in return when he opts out of his contract this summer? ESPN.com is reporting that the Nets would say no to a Pau Gasol-for-Williams swap, and a source told SheridanHoops.com that the only thing that would make the Nets move Williams would be a clear message from him
Last week’s winner was Brendan Hoover, who correctly identified The Bernucca List as “active second-round picks who have made an All-Star team.” Brendan answered correctly within 10 minutes of the post in the middle of a weekday morning, which makes one wonder what his PER is at his job. That can be explored at another time. We have a new list below, which has three common denominators. First entirely correct answer gets a mention next week. You can answer
