The 5 worst NBA trade deadline deals ever
By Adam McGee
2. Joe Johnson, Randy Brown, Milt Palacio, 2002 first round pick to the Suns; Tony Delk, Rodney Rogers to the Celtics
The Boston Celtics are one of a handful of franchises who’ve had the luxury of not having to worry about rebuilding for too long throughout their illustrious history. One potential byproduct of that is that there hasn’t always been the need for the greatest care to be taken in team building.
Perhaps more accurately, if the Celtics feel like they’re one move away from contention, history suggests they’ll show no hesitation in making the move.
There might be no better example of this than when, only months after drafting Joe Johnson with the 10th overall pick, the Celtics decided to trade in their young work in progress for two veterans, for no greater reason than to try to turn a solid fourth placed team into a title contender.
The veterans called upon by Boston were scoring point guard Tony Delk, a player with a modest career filled with inconsistency, and Rodney Rogers, a combo forward who was well into the latter days of his career by the time the Celtics came calling.
The gamble brought Boston to the Conference Finals, but no further. Delk spent one further season as a Celtic, while Rogers signed with the Nets team who had beaten the Celtics in a six-game series as a free agent, after just 27 games wearing the famous green and white.
In exchange for a combined 116 regular season games of Delk and Rogers, Boston gave up Johnson — who would famously go on to make seven All-Star appearances — and a first round pick. Within 18 months, Johnson became a skilled volume scorer in Phoenix and maintained his performance level throughout the entirety of a seven-year spell in Atlanta.
Although the Celtics eventually got to their end goal when Paul Pierce was paired up with Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen years later, having a guy like Johnson around certainly could have accelerated the timeline and led to greater success.