Hardwood Paroxysm presents: NBA trade deadline’s most memorable trades
It’s been over a week since the NBA’s whirlwind trade deadline, in which a record thirty-seven players were involved in deals. There’s already plenty of reactions and analyses out there, but most of those have to do with what the trades mean for the teams this season.
We’re going to take the analysis to the next level and ask “which of these trades will we remember most ten years from now?”
Enjoy.
Arron Afflalo to the Newly-Dynastic Portland Trail Blazers
By Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)
A decade is an eternity in the NBA. Full and meaningful careers can begin and end in the time. Teams change names, cities and jerseys. Although, there are some constants at the top and bottom ends of the spectrum, a decade is also length of time in which the fortunes of a franchise can rise or fall.
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In the next ten years, I expect the Trail Blazers to float towards the top, and stay there.
It feels like Arron Afflalo has been hovering on the edge of something special for his entire career. He possesses a rare combination of three-and-D magic, with the potential to be just a little bit more. However, he has been cursed with a succession of often meaningless situations that have asked a too much or too little from him. The Portland Trail Blazers are not that kind of situation. They are a legit championship contender this season—sixth in Basketball-Reference’s SRS with a top-three defense and an offense capable of explosion. Afflalo helps in both areas and, perhaps most importantly, he is not Dorrell Wright or Allen Crabbe or Will Barton.
Afflalo doesn’t definitively put the Trail Blazers over the top, but he moves the championship needle more than anything else that shook out on Deadline Day. One of the league’s best starting fives — Lopez, Aldridge, Batum, Matthews, Lillard — becomes a sexy, sexy sextet, all of whom are between the ages of 24 and 29 — old enough to be peaking not peaked. They may not stay together for a decade, but this group is going to do something special with Afflalo at their backs and that’s what we’ll remember ten years from now.
That, or JaVale McGee winning a scoring title for the 76ers.
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