NBA Trade Deadline’s Biggest Winner and Loser

The trade deadline has come and gone in the beautiful world of basketball, with most teams making moves to improve (and in some cases just get worse). I believe I’ve found the two teams that fit both Biggest Winner and Biggest Loser. I won’t waste your time.

Biggest Loser: Milwaukee Bucks

I should hope this is to nobody’s surprise, but the team that refused to sell high on their best player and didn’t attempt to appease him with supplemental pieces, and didn’t add any draft capital to an anemic draft pick pool. Of course it’s Milwaukee. You could argue for Miami, who didn’t do any moves at the deadline despite a stagnant stature, or maybe teams like Memphis and Dallas who’ve done nothing but move closer to a rebuild, but a team that only got worse while refusing to commit to a rebuild is diabolical. Though I can’t be too mean, I can only guess how much it would hurt to lose a franchise player the magnitude of Giannis Antetokounmpo. The scale of what they’d want from an incoming team would break the bank for most teams, but now they’re going to lose him for less next year. The only trade they made saw them lose Cole Anthony and Amir Coffey to add Ousmane Dieng, who hasn’t exactly looked like a world beater in his time in the league.

Biggest Winner: Washington Wizards OR Utah Jazz

This entirely depends. Washington have taken a massive gamble on trading for All-Star level talents Anthony Davis and Trae Young, both late in their careers on massive contracts and riddled with injury. However, if they can do all of this and get a strong first round pick by using the dark art of tanking, they may have pulled of the coup of the century. However, if by some Adam Silver-tainted miracle they don’t have a top eight pick, the best trade deadline easily goes to Utah. A four-for-four trade that saw Utah offload some deadwood and some draft picks to acquire a defensive player that elevates them to a borderline playoff contender. They’re also out here using the dark arts of tanking, so who knows? Maybe Utah can add somebody like Boozer to an already quickly developing young core.

(cover photo credit https://unsplash.com/@17thcw)

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