The Hawks and Hornets made the most depressing trade of the offseason

We don’t have to wait to see what else happens. The Hawks and Hornets engaged in what is sure to be the most depressing trade of the 2017 offseason on Tuesday.

The deal, according to The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski:

Let’s rewind a minute, because the Hawks and Hornets accidentally foreshadowed this thing going down.

We all know that social media managers don’t actually partake in trade discussions, so let’s back up a bit more.

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The Hawks acquired Howard last summer, signing him to a three-year, $70.5 million deal in the hopes of pairing him with Al Horford on the front line, and then presumably trading Paul Millsap. Horford spurned the Hawks, though, and Atlanta paired Howard and Millsap instead. Howard helped alleviate some of Atlanta’s perennial defensive rebounding issues, but just barely; and he exacerbated some new spacing problems that cropped up after Horford and Jeff Teague moved on from Atlanta.

The Hawks got off to a scorching 9-2 start with Howard in the mix, but (predictably, to those paying attention to the peripheral signs) stumbled to the point that they eventually traded Kyle Korver to the Cavaliers for little return and dangled Millsap on the market as well. A weirdly-timed run of good play led them to stand pat with Millsap and make the playoffs as the No. 5 seed, but ultimately they were knocked out of the playoffs with relative ease by the Wizards, with Howard himself getting played off the floor in a couple games and experiencing whiplash at the hands of John Wall several times.

Apparently, that traumatic memory was enough for the Hawks to cut bait after just one year in a salary dump that doesn’t actually amount to all that much dumping of salary.

Now, the Hawks have to send out a better draft pick just to flip his large salary into two more manageable contracts attached to lesser players. (Plumlee scored all of 113 points last season.) If this isn’t a sign that the small-market Hawks are finally leaning into a rebuild, I’m not sure what is.

What might that entail? Letting Millsap walk? Losing him and Horford in consecutive summers with nothing in return would be a major blow. But are they prepared to pony up a max deal for a 32-year-old that, while still a wonderful player, has seen meaningful declines in shooting and figures to see similar declines in his defense as he ages? And if they let Millsap go, are they going to retain Thabo Sefolosha? And do they really want to pay Tim Hardaway Jr. double-digit millions per year? If they’re committing to the kids, does Dennis Schroder lead that group or does he hit the trade block, too?

Or were they really just this desperate to deal Howard, and they’re planning on running it back with everyone else? If so, that would be just about as steep a fall as possible for Howard, who around this time five years ago was the most coveted superstar in the league. (He’s fallen even farther since the 2009-2011 range, when he was probably the second-best player in the league. He arguably should have won the 2011 MVP.) He netted the Magic the cap relief — young players with potential — future draft picks combo when they sent him to the Lakers back in 2012. The following summer, he was the most coveted free agent on the market and the Rockets gave him a max deal.

Now, life’s coming at Howard incredibly fast.

Let’s rewind and look at this from the Hornets’ perspective as well.

Charlotte dealt for Plumlee midway through last season, in a deal that saw them send Roy Hibbert and Spencer Hawes to the Bucks. Hibbert had been signed the previous offseason and the Hornets saw fit to give up on him after just a few months. Hawes had been acquired, along with Matt Barnes, in exchange for Lance Stephenson (who himself was traded away just three months into a three-year contract with the Hornets) back in 2015. Belinelli was acquired last summer in exchange for Charlotte’s first-round pick, for some reason. (Because the Hornets desperately needed shooters.)

None of those moves helped them return to the playoffs. The franchise still hasn’t made it to the postseason in consecutive years since returning to the NBA in 2004. Howard’s teams have made the playoffs in 11 straight seasons, so if the Hornets are lucky, maybe that streak will end in the final two years of his deal.

This deal reunites Howard with Steve Clifford, who was an assistant in Orlando from 2007-12 and is now the Hornets’ head coach. Though he’s lost a lot of the athleticism that made him a dominant force when they were last together, it should help him to be back with a coach that knows how to use him to bring the best out of his talents. He’s still a useful player in the right contexts; he just needs to be pushed to know what those contexts are. As a screener/roller working with Kemba Walker, he could do some nice things. If he starts demanding the ball on the block several times a game, well, not so much. Given how things have gone for him over the last few years, maybe expecting anything to be different is unwise.

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Whether this deal works or doesn’t, for the Hornets or the Hawks, is almost beside the point, though. We’re now in a world where Dwight Howard gets salary-dumped in a deal where the best asset is the first pick in the second round. That’s why this is the most depressing trade of the offseason.