Another crazy NBA trade deadline has passed, and as the ink dries on some of the moves, it’s not too early to start grading the teams who made the best moves this week.
New York Knicks - The Knicks were able to acquire the services of Tracy McGrady, which will be an open audition for a (hopefully) motivated T-Mac to show NYC and the rest of the league what he can still do. If T-Mac doesn’t pan out, the Knicks don’t have to worry about being on the hook for any money past this season. The Knicks saw forwards Jared Jeffries, Jordan Hill, Darko Millicic, along with guards Larry Hughes and Nate Robinson all depart from their team this week, which is a complete overhaul in the locker room. Clearly focused on this summer, New York is now roughly $30 million dollars under the cap, and in good position to land potentially two marquee names this summer.
Dallas Mavericks – The Mavs went from fighting for a playoff spot in the West with the underachieving Josh Howard, to contending for one of the top 3 seeds and home court. While the verdict is still out whether the addition of Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood will give Dallas enough to overtake the Lakers in the postseason, things certainly got much more interesting.
Los Angeles Clippers – The Clippers, much like the Knicks, were in desperate need to get under the cap as much as possible, and get ready for the summer. L.A’s other team will also be in great shape to make a strong run at the big name free agents, and with a core of Baron Davis, Blake Griffin, and Eric Gordon to build around, they are not that far off from being a contender out West.
Houston Rockets – While Houston was able to finally close the chapter on the Tracy Mcgrady era, they did addition by subtraction. Losing Carl Landry is tough for any Rockets fan to swallow, however getting Kings scoring machine Kevin Martin will help ease that pain.
Phoenix Suns – The best thing they did this week was not trade Amare Stoudemire. The Suns could not get what they saw as fair market value in return for Stoudemire from the Cavs or any other suitor, and now hope to come to terms with the All-Star for a long term deal.
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