The NBA trade deadline is almost always entertaining, and this year was no exception, with 28 teams making deals in the month leading up to Thursday’s cutoff. (Sorry, Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers fans, who watched every other team have fun like they’re reenacting the Squidward meme.)
The NBA trade deadline is not, however, typically a difference maker in the title race. This century, only four of 23 championship teams (17 percent) have added a player via in-season trade who went on to average at least 20 minutes per playoff game:
- 2021 Bucks, with P.J. Tucker
- 2019 Raptors, with Marc Gasol
- 2005 Spurs, with Nazr Mohammed
- 2004 Pistons, with Rasheed Wallace
So as the dust settles on yet another busy deadline, let’s rank the trades from least to most likely to influence the 2023 title race. These rankings don’t care about the future, or picks, or offseason contract negotiations. They care only about this season, and whether the trades might affect who raises the trophy this June.
(Note: While some of the trades listed below are technically complicated four-team affairs, we’ve tried to break them up into their component pieces for smoother analysis.)
Tier 5: Salary Dumps and Luxury Tax Ducks
21. Rockets receive Frank Kaminsky, Justin Holiday, and two second-round picks; Hawks receive Garrison Mathews and Bruno Fernando.
Be honest: You didn’t even know Kaminsky (A former lottery pick! Never forget that the Hornets turned down a Danny Ainge trade offer that reportedly included four firsts to take him!) was on the Hawks this year.
20. Spurs receive Dewayne Dedmon and a second-round pick; Heat receive cash considerations.
Dedmon’s days with the Heat were surely numbered after he was suspended for a game last month following an outburst on the sideline.
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19. Kings receive Kessler Edwards and cash considerations; Nets receive draft rights to David Michineau.
This trade was one of four the Nets completed this week. The others, suffice it to say, rank a lot higher on the list.
Tier 4: More Likely to Influence the Play-In Race
18. Lakers receive Rui Hachimura; Wizards receive Kendrick Nunn and three second-round picks.
When I wrote about the Hachimura trade, the piece was headlined “The Rui Hachimura Trade Doesn’t Move the Needle for the Lakers”—so I can’t in good faith rank it any higher here. Plus, after the Lakers subsequently added D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Mo Bamba, and Davon Reed, is Hachimura even one of the three most important players L.A. brought in?
17. Lakers receive Mo Bamba; Magic receive Patrick Beverley, a second-round pick, and cash considerations.
Because of their other moves leading up to the deadline, the Lakers were down a center and up a guard, so this positional swap made all sorts of sense. But seeing as it involves role players from two teams with losing records, it’s more likely to rearrange The Ringer’s podcast rotation than the title race.
16. Pistons receive James Wiseman; Hawks receive Saddiq Bey; Warriors receive Kevin Knox and five second-round picks.
Losing Wiseman doesn’t hurt the Warriors’ 2022-23 fortunes at all because the 2020 no. 2 pick could barely find the court in Steve Kerr’s rotation. Rather, Bey is the best player involved in this trade—but like the other players in this trade tier, he’s going to a likely play-in team, and he’s likely the Hawks’ fourth-best wing, so despite his scoring potential, it’s hard to push him any higher here.
15. Raptors receive Jakob Poeltl; Spurs receive Khem Birch, a top-six protected first-round pick, and two second-round picks.
Poeltl is one of the sturdiest players traded at the deadline, and this deal is one of just a handful to involve a first-round pick. But the Raptors are Finals long shots even after they added Poeltl and kept their entire core intact, so Poeltl probably won’t make a meaningful impact until next season, assuming he sticks with the team past this summer.
14. Knicks receive Josh Hart; Trail Blazers receive Cam Reddish, Ryan Arcidiacono, Svi Mykhailiuk, and a lottery-protected first-round pick.
Take the previous paragraph; replace “Poeltl” with “Hart” and “Raptors” with “Knicks”; voilà.
13. Lakers receive D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, and Jarred Vanderbilt; Timberwolves receive Mike Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and three second-round picks; Jazz receive Russell Westbrook, Juan Toscano-Anderson, Damian Jones, and a top-four protected first-round pick.
Outside of the Durant blockbuster, this three-teamer probably involves more interesting players than any other deadline deal—so much so that we covered it at The Ringer in multiple posts. But it ties together three teams that are average at best, and the team that improved the most (the Lakers) is the furthest down in the standings. It’s less likely to shake up the championship picture than the presence of so many former All-Stars would suggest.
Tier 3: Depth for True Contenders
12. Suns receive Darius Bazley; Thunder receive Dario Saric, a second-round pick, and cash considerations.
Now we’re moving on to the teams with a real chance to win the championship this season, who almost all made fringe upgrades to fill bench holes Thursday. It’s probable that someone from this group will make a contribution to the title winner, but it’s hard to identify exactly which lucky player that will be.
It’s safe to say Bazley’s the least likely option, however; the chance seems so remote that this deal could have been placed in the luxury tax tier. The Suns desperately need depth because their current roster consists of four foundational players and a bunch of question marks—hello, buyout market—but it’s hard to imagine that a non-shooting wing who lost minutes in Oklahoma City will make a difference in Phoenix.
11. Pelicans receive Josh Richardson; Spurs receive Devonte’ Graham and four second-round picks.
I’m done believing in Richardson’s ability to boost a prospective contender. I thought he’d help the 76ers overcome the loss of Jimmy Butler when he was part of that sign and trade in 2019; then he floundered in Philly. I thought he’d make the Seth Curry swap a win-win when the 76ers flipped him to Dallas a year later; instead, he essentially fell out of the Mavericks’ rotation by the playoffs. And I thought he’d be a useful backup in Boston when Dallas continued the Richardson trade chain; the Celtics tired of him by midseason.
10. Celtics receive Mike Muscala; Thunder receive Justin Jackson and two second-round picks.
In an ideal scenario, Muscala will barely play in the postseason for the league-leading Celtics, who already have the formidable frontcourt trio of Robert Williams III, Al Horford, and Grant Williams. But Muscala adds depth in case of a Time Lord injury, and he fits Boston’s preference as a capable stretch big, with a career 38 percent 3-point mark.
Most of all, Muscala is a plus-minus maestro. This season, the Thunder were 11.8 points better with him on the floor versus off, per NBA Advanced Stats; last season, the margin was plus-11.4; and the season before, the margin was plus-13.4. Just imagine if he has that sort of impact on the Celtics’ point differential!
9. Nuggets receive Thomas Bryant; Lakers receive Davon Reed and three second-round picks.
When Nikola Jokic is on the court, the Nuggets outscore their opponents by 14.7 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass. Yet when Jokic is off the court, the Nuggets lose by 11.5 points per 100. That’s an on-off difference of 26.2 points, which is almost twice as large as the biggest mark for a non-Nugget, Kawhi Leonard’s 13.7.
Biggest On-Off Differentials
The Nuggets aren’t quite as disastrous with Zeke Nnaji at center (minus-8.5 points per 100) as they are with DeAndre Jordan (minus-11.3), but they still needed significant assistance to survive the 12 minutes a night that Jokic doesn’t play. As a multilevel scorer with shooting range (44 percent on light volume from 3 this season) and soft touch around the rim, Bryant can theoretically help. He’s not nearly as valuable defensively, but he only has to be better than the 34-year-old Jordan on that end, which is not a huge hurdle to clear.
8. 76ers receive Jalen McDaniels and two second-round picks; Trail Blazers receive Matisse Thybulle; Hornets receive Svi Mykhailiuk and two second-round picks.
McDaniels isn’t Thybulle’s equal as a defender—perhaps no other wing in the NBA is—but the latter had clearly lost Doc Rivers’s trust. Thybulle has fallen from 25.5 minutes per game last season to just 12.1 in 2022-23. So it behooved the 76ers to find a big, athletic bench option who might actually play in important games this spring.
7. Clippers receive Mason Plumlee; Hornets receive Reggie Jackson and a second-round pick.
This is damning with faint praise, but Plumlee was the most consistent player on the Hornets this season—a reliable two-way player who can do a little bit of everything, including switch shooting hands and dish (3.7 assists per game!) within the flow of the offense. And although the Clippers under Tyronn Lue have preferred to play small in the playoffs, they needed to add another big, both in advance of potential playoff matchups against the likes of Jokic and Domantas Sabonis and because of incumbent center Ivica Zubac’s fatigue-induced slump.
“I think he’s getting worn down a little bit with the overuse,” Lue said of Zubac last month. “He’s a guy that plays every single night and we just can’t run him into the ground, which I have, I think early on. But I mean, I really don’t have a choice.”
He’s right; he didn’t have a choice. Before Plumlee was acquired, the only other Clippers taller than 6-foot-8 were Moses Brown and Moussa Diabaté, both on two-way contracts. Fixing that issue meant parting ways with Jackson, a hero of the Clippers’ 2021 playoff run, but the veteran point guard had already fallen out of the starting rotation.
6. Clippers receive Bones Hyland; Nuggets receive two second-round picks.
This is the rare trade that could swing the title race for both participants. For the Clippers, who traded almost all their other guards on Thursday, Hyland adds ballhandling verve and potential bench production; if they advance far in this postseason, there’ll probably be a “26 points in 22 minutes” Hyland outburst along the way.
On the other end of the deal, the Nuggets dealt a rotation player and no longer have a backup point guard on the roster (at least before perusing the buyout market). It’s not often that a conference-leading team trades its fifth-leading scorer in the middle of the season, so Denver could rue this swap if its bench flounders this spring. But the very fact that the Nuggets decided to trade their second-year player for such a light return suggests Hyland had sufficiently worn out his welcome.
5. Warriors receive Gary Payton II; Trail Blazers receive Kevin Knox and five second-round picks.
Thanks to offseason abdominal surgery, the Young Glove barely played for Portland, where he signed in free agency, and he’s nowhere near the scorer that Hyland, Plumlee, and even McDaniels are. But the Warriors just won a title with Payton playing a key role, and they clearly know how to optimize his talents, so by default, he has to jump to the top of this tier.
Tier 2: Actual Difference Makers
4. Grizzlies receive Luke Kennard; Clippers receive Eric Gordon and three second-round picks; Rockets receive John Wall, Danny Green, and pick swap rights.
Here’s the downside for Memphis, which retained every future first-round pick in its arsenal instead of completing a blockbuster deal at the deadline: Without adding the likes of Toronto’s OG Anunoby, the Grizzlies will enter this postseason still relying on the rather unreliable Dillon Brooks, who ranks 192nd out of 193 qualifying players in true shooting percentage, ahead of only Detroit’s Killian Hayes. (For context, Westbrook ranks 190th and Wall 189th; both players were unceremoniously dumped at the deadline.)
If anything, Brooks might be even more important to Memphis’s chances now than he was a few days ago because he will presumably be the lead defender against Kevin Durant in a potential playoff clash.
But Memphis wasn’t fully silent on deadline day, instead choosing to address another weakness. Entering Thursday, the Grizzlies ranked 24th in 3-point percentage and 20th in made 3s, but now they can pair two of the league’s best shooters: Since the start of last season, Kennard has led all high-volume shooters with a 44.9 percent 3-point stroke, while new teammate Desmond Bane ranks second, at 43.6 percent.
This deal could also swing the race for the Clippers, who accepted a shooting downgrade to add a more rugged, switchable defender with plenty of playoff experience. Of course, Gordon is also 34 years old, hasn’t played a meaningful game in years, and isn’t actually as potent a shooter as his reputation suggests, with just one season above 36 percent from distance since 2016-17. But maybe he’ll be rejuvenated after leaving the Rockets’ morass, much like P.J. Tucker was in Milwaukee two seasons ago.
3. Bucks receive Jae Crowder; Nets receive two second-round picks; Pacers receive George Hill, Serge Ibaka, Jordan Nwora, three second-round picks, and cash considerations.
Ever since he demanded a trade last fall, Crowder has seemed an obvious fit for the Bucks as the exact sort of player they’d want to fill Tucker’s role for the 2020-21 champions. More than any player listed thus far, Crowder is guaranteed to receive a heavy workload on a top team, and he offers the Bucks 3-and-D bona fides, positional versatility, and another wing to use in potential Giannis-at-center lineups.
Yet numerous questions remain. What kind of shape is Crowder in, after not playing any NBA ball since last spring? At age 32, is he still suited to defend the Jayson Tatums of the sport? Will he shoot like he did in Miami and his first season in Phoenix (39 percent combined 3-point mark, regular season and playoffs) or like he did in 2021-22 (34 percent between regular season and playoffs)?
This trade also has a fun wrinkle entirely disconnected from its effect on the title race, which is that it provides a kind of déjà vu for Hill. And the first time the Bucks traded Hill, they landed Jrue Holiday; the first time the Pacers traded for Hill, they sent the Spurs a new draftee named Kawhi Leonard.
2. Mavericks receive Kyrie Irving and Markieff Morris; Nets receive Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, unprotected first-round pick, and two second-round picks.
We’re all the way into the top two trades on this list, and nobody mentioned until now will serve as one of their new team’s most important players. Even the other players in this tier—Kennard and Gordon and Crowder—are more like fifth and sixth men rather than core contributors. As I said at the top, very few true contenders undergo massive overhauls at the deadline.
Yet that’s not the case for the final two exchanges on this list. The range of potential outcomes for Dallas’s desperate deal for Irving is massive: He could propel the Mavericks to a championship, antagonize Luka Doncic and turn the young superstar against the franchise, or anything in between.
Tier 1: Kevin Durant
1. Suns receive Kevin Durant and T.J. Warren; Nets receive Mikal Bridges, Cameron Johnson, Jae Crowder, Juan Pablo Vaulet, four unprotected first-round picks, and a pick swap.
Of course, you knew from the beginning that Durant would be no. 1. He’s one of the best players ever traded for one of the priciest trade packages ever dealt. And he shifts the league landscape at a level even Kyrie can’t hope to match.
Stats through Wednesday’s games.
