By Cameron Heffernan
We take a look at the absolutely terrible trade deadline. Oh, and we crown the Pacers right now as the smartest team in the league.
1. The Nothingness of The Trade Deadline – We look at the trade deadline in the NBA the same way we look at Christmas morning: We can’t sleep the night before, constantly hitting some form of refresh – whether in our brains or on a computer – and when it finally comes, with jubilation, we scamper down to the beauty that is presents under the tree. In the NBA it’s the prospect of your favorite teams making that one move to put them over the top. This year, one team made that move. The rest did things for either salary reason, or “who the hell knows reasons”.
Let’s run down some of these trades and give them a pseudo-grade. Not F-A, but something else. We’ll figure it out as we go along:
Trade 1: The Brooklyn Nets acquire Marcus Thornton from the Sacramento Kings, for Jason Terry and Reggie Evans: Although a good move (Thornton is a two-way player with range, and isn’t a washed up midget like Terry), It’s more of a salary dump come next year for the Kings. They aren’t making the playoffs and at this point they may as well be looking to get as much money off the books to accommodate Boogie Cousins and Rudy Gay.
Trade Grade: This is the same as people trading their trash at home. Only to just throw out each others trash. It makes no sense but you do it anyway.
Trade 2: The Golden State Warriors acquire Steve Blake from the L.A. Lakers for Kent Bazemore and MarShon Brooks: The Warriors add another guard and three specialist to their roster teeming with three specialist guards. The Lakers add to the hodgepodge mess of a team they have right now with guys who may have been applying for full time jobs at Bank of America before this trade.
Trade Grade: This is the mutual separation divorce; with the angry kid who doesn’t want two Christmases.
Trade 3: The Cleveland Cavaliers acquire Spencer Hawes from the Philadelphia 76ers for Earl Clark, Henry Sims and two second-round draft picks: This does nothing for either team except some salary to cut at the end of the season. Both teams are awful and Hawes deserved to go somewhere where he could’ve been a contender. Instead it’ station to station from Shitsville.
Trade Grade: When a bear shits in the woods, does anyone hear it? This trade is that bear shit.
Trade 4: The Charlotte Bobcats acquire Luke Ridnour and Gary Neal from the Milwaukee Bucks for Ramon Sessions and Jeff Adrien: Look at the big brain on Jordan. Replace your tiresome and inconsistent back up PG with two not as tiresome and mildly inconsistent PGs with Neal and Ridnour. The old adage of two is better than one definitely applies here. This is a great move, for once by Charlotte, and actually creates for play calls to be executed with precision by Ridnour who is a great floor general. He’s another one who deserved to not toil in obscurity, and in Charlotte, it’s like well known obscurity.
Trade Grade: You know in movies about prison when they get out of the hole and go back to normal jail? Well, Luke and Gary just went back to normal prison.
Trade 5 – 9: These are the bottom of the barrel, “we’re tanking and/or need some cash relief” teams, that made deals to help them in the smallest of ways which we don’t feel like getting into. But, we’ll happily make fun of these teams, either way:
– The Heat acquired a second-round pick for Roger Mason Jr. and some cash: What and why? is all we can say. Either way, Miami got a little extra stripper money in the deal.
– The Sixers acquired Byron Mullens from the L.A. Clippers: This is the equivalent of when parents abandon their baby on a church doorstep. Not the ones that can’t afford it, but the ones that do it out of spite towards babies. That’s what the Clippers did.
– The Clippers also traded Antawn Jamison to the Atlanta Hawks: This is so Atlanta has some veteran leadership behind Paul Millsap. It’s also to further solidify the never-ending quest of not getting past the second round of the playoffs for eternity. Atlanta is in a perpetual cycle of failure till they reach Cleveland, Buffalo and Cleveland status. (Cleveland is terrible and it should be noted twice how bad they are.)
– The Spurs acquire Austin Daye from the Toronto Raptors for Nando de Colo: Nothing to make fun of here. If the gods of basketball think Daye will help with another run at the title; then so be it. Questioning a Greg Popovich move is to question your life.
– The Houston Rockets traded Aaron Brooks to the Denver Nuggets for Jordan Hamilton: The undersized Rockets could always use an undersized forward, right? Cause the small-ball strategy without LeBron James on your team has gotten teams oh so very far before. Not.
Trade Grades: These trades are John Carter of trade day. They happened, but did anyone notice?
Trade 10: The Washington Wizards acquire the professor Andre Miller from the Nuggets who receive Jan Vesely from the Wizards. The Sixers acquired Eric Maynor from the Wizards along with a second-round pick, to even things out salary-wise: The Wizards needed someone who could come off the bench; not take shit form anyone; post-up anyone at 6’2″ and destroy your heart and soul with his old-man game. This move may pan out in the best way for Washington seeing as they could use a little veteran influence on a team of 20-somethings. Miller has the ability to take over games, as well as John Wall. With these two in the back court, the Wiz could actually be a playoff team and not jut chance into a spot for being, “not that terrible”.
Trade Grade: That feeling you get when you bang an exes friend after the breakup.
Trade 11: The granddaddy of them all on this deadline. The Indiana Pacers acquire Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen from the Philadelphia 76ers for Danny Granger: Granger started his career with Indiana and was a solid player for the last eight years in Indiana. Granger’s last two years with the team were marred with injury, it’s time for a change of scenery, unfortunately it’s Philly, but hey, they got good food there. Turner and Allen on the other hand are young players who have the ability to make an instant impact. Turner, more of the two, will bring a secondary option off the bench for Indiana, that they’ve craved like a fat kid (like myself) craves a bag of french fries covered in chili and cheese. With Luis Scola, they had the bare minimum for a decent bench. Now, with Scola, Turner, Allen, and a secondary leader in Lance “The Eighth Grader” Stephenson, the Pacers really might have a chance at Miami’s crown.
Trade Grade: You know the scene where Indiana Jones chooses wisely ? Yeah, exactly like that.
2. LeBron Hurt himself last night. Also, I guess robots bleed?:
LeBron didn’t return to the game, causing memes like this:
Which is funny, but usually at the end of the game, when someone is bleeding and that team is up by 16, it’s alright to not play hero and make sure you’re okay. It’s cool to think that everyone should be able to play through injury. Sometimes though, it’s just safer to be sure. Per say Bron got a concussion; wasn’t diagnosed; went back onto the court; was hit in the head again and ended up dead. Then the NBA doesn’t have it’s best player and we’re all a little less entertained with basketball. Then again, it was little droplets of blood and I’ve finished a pick up game with a nearly separated ankle (that was when I was 20 though, five years later I’m a gelatinous mess sprawled across the floor in agony of I come down from a layup weird.
HefferBrew 
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