Second Worst Trade of last Decade?

[yoyoboy]

In three years it will be this order

1. Brooklyn/Celtics trade
2. Harden Deal
3. Celtics/Cleveland deal
4. Nash Trade then subsequently MCW/Knight trade
5. Lillard deal

Why the dame deal at 5? Actually simple. Despite the context of the original deal making no sense the Nets have actually made worse moves since then which started a chain reaction around the league because of the Celtics. Between the trade exceptions moved around to get IT which set up the Kyrie deal and Brown/Tatum hitting as picks it’s really shaped the league a different way. Lakers trading the pick for Nash is defensible however trading it in the MCW isn’t. That pick once again could end up being a part of Boston’s core because of the Tatum for Fultz trade. Which again the genesis of it all is the BRK/BOS deal. The fact that this deal in 3 years probably doesn’t even crack the top 5 shows how bad Billy King screwed up the league.

If you want to say Boston/Cavs, then Cavs/Clippers should be above that.

We traded Mo Williams and Jamario Moon for Baron Davis and the pick that turned into Kyrie Irving.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Instead of drafting Steph Curry (or Ricky Rubio), the Wizards General Manager traded the lottery pick for the rights to Mike Miller and Randy Foye. Both players were in their contract years.

That Wizards team won less than 30 games. Mike Miller and Foye both left after one season.

Steph Curry...

He should have known just based on draft evaluation alone that Curry was (significantly) better than Randy Foye. I hated that deal the millisecond the same guy who is STILL the Wizards' GM made it.

[Doctor MJ]

We all know the Bos-BRK trade was the worst of the last decade. Which was the 2nd worst?

I got 5 below, but my vote is for the Knight/MCW/Laker pick one-just because 2 teams screwed up big time in one deal


Am I leaving any off?

I said Harden. I actually assumed the only reason you made the thread title be what it was was that we all knew the Harden trade was the worst.

Boston-Brooklyn deal turned out incredibly painful but when the deal happened it was seen as something not entirely crazy. This was a franchise without any real direction trying to put together a team that would be good for at least a while. It was never the best move in the long term, but it hurts so much because those guys seemed to fall off a cliff when they Massachusetts.

With Harden, it was just a shockingly bad move right from the moment they did it. Every part of it. While people didn't know he'd be as good as he became, Presti basically did everything he could to make clear to the world that he despite watching Harden for 3 years, he didn't think Harden was someone worth a max deal.

Worse, they traded Harden a year before they had to. This was someone who might've been able to help you win a title that year while still earning only a rookie salary, and you traded that potential value for nothing worth mentioning.

I'm not someone who thinks Presti should be fired. I think that if he's fired, he'll get another GM gig if he wants one. But man, did he screw that up.

[SF_Warriors]

Potentially could be the Kings trading Jason Thompson, Carl Landry and Nik Stauskas to the 76ers in a cap dump in exchange for a 2017 pick swap, 2018 2nd rounder and 2019 unprotected 1st.

That 2019 unprotected 1st is looking very Brooklyn like right now.

They literally traded an unprotected first rounder for cap space, and used said cap space to sign two bench players... and rondo to a one yr contract.

[giberish]

There have been 3 trades that IMO were completely indefensible, right from the moment they happened.

The worst was the Wallace to the Nets deal. There was no point in trading for Wallace. He was good enough to help them win an extra game or two that season - hurting their chances at Anthony Davis. Then he was an UFA, while already declining with a game likely to drop off fast. There was no value in having his Bird rights - all it gave the Nets was the opportunity to overpay him. Which they did (moving Wallace's contract was the reason for most of the picks in the KG/Pierce deal). Even if the Nets had just dealt a top-55 protected 2nd it would have been a bad deal - to move a lottery pick was insane.

The next worst was the Kings salary dump. Not only did they badly overpay (unprotected 2019 1st + pick swaps one of which did hurt the Kings) but it just didn't make sense. Just what did the Kings think they were getting with their extra short-term cap space? The master plan was to overpay Wes Matthews recovering from a major Achillies injury. Just no awareness of where the team was.

The final one was the Baron Davis salary dump. That's just because if the Clippers cared, they could have spent 15 minutes to work out putting top-3 protection on the pick (it would have had to be contingent on getting a Minnesota pick the right year - but by the trade deadline that was essentially assured of happening).

The Harden deal looks bad now, but there was enough doubt that Harden would be a 'bargain on a 25% max deal' level stud that there was some justification at the time.

[rocketsfan100]

The Harden trade- only cause they were only a few million off from an extension but ended up trading a superstar for Steven Adams basically.

it was over 4 million. gave up the best scorer and always a top 3 assists getter in the nba for nothing.

[Antinomy]

We all know the Bos-BRK trade was the worst of the last decade. Which was the 2nd worst?

I got 5 below, but my vote is for the Knight/MCW/Laker pick one-just because 2 teams screwed up big time in one deal


Am I leaving any off?

I said Harden. I actually assumed the only reason you made the thread title be what it was was that we all knew the Harden trade was the worst.

Boston-Brooklyn deal turned out incredibly painful but when the deal happened it was seen as something not entirely crazy. This was a franchise without any real direction trying to put together a team that would be good for at least a while. It was never the best move in the long term, but it hurts so much because those guys seemed to fall off a cliff when they Massachusetts.

With Harden, it was just a shockingly bad move right from the moment they did it. Every part of it. While people didn't know he'd be as good as he became, Presti basically did everything he could to make clear to the world that he despite watching Harden for 3 years, he didn't think Harden was someone worth a max deal.

Worse, they traded Harden a year before they had to. This was someone who might've been able to help you win a title that year while still earning only a rookie salary, and you traded that potential value for nothing worth mentioning.

I'm not someone who thinks Presti should be fired. I think that if he's fired, he'll get another GM gig if he wants one. But man, did he screw that up.

This was always the biggest part of the trade to me.

Trading Harden wasn’t a bad idea in theory because he could’ve netted a complete haul & you could potentially dump salary too but the timing of the trade was so dumb to me. Trading him for one year of Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb who they dispatched & chose Roberson instead and Steven Adams who isn’t a bad player but not worth Harden. I remember there being rumors of Bradley Beal being an option. That would’ve made way more sense & nobody would be talking about it still..

They traded him 2 years before the end of his contract coming off of a 6MOY award & finals appearance.

Why not just wait til RFA? And over a 4 mil difference.

They tried to play hardball imo. Whole situation was poorly handled.

[ChiTownHero1992]

Tough for me but its between Wallace/Lillard deal and Houston/Harden deal. No one had a clue what Lillard would be honestly. All the others are still fresh deals, Heild could become really good for Sac, the other two were bad but not on the same level. I'd say Harden deal is it...he was a top 3 pick and going to be great.

[Monky15]

I hated the Redick to Clippers deal. I can't believe that the Bucks passed him up for 2 2nds.

[batmana]

The thing with all those bad deals is that if you remember some of the details, they become even worse.

1. The Harden trade: like someone posted on page 1 or 2, the worst move by the OKC front office was that they put a deadline for Harden to sign a smaller contract that he wanted, and that deadline was like too unreasonable (think hours, not even days or weeks). Harden gave the vibe that he would have taken a less-than-max deal and that he wanted to stay in OKC, he just needed some time to accept the lesser deal. He was a young dude who was about to decline millions of dollars when he knew he could get a max elsewhere, and on top of that, they were like "either agree now, or we'll trade you".
The worst comeout for OKC was not just the fact that Harden turned into a superstar MVP-caliber player but also that the cap spike would have meant they wouldn't have to pay the repeater tax they were so afraid of, and that was the reason they "couldn't afford" to max Harden. And on top of that, Perkins became obsolete/useless in the new environment (pace and space) almost as immediately as Harden blew up in Houston but they had already signed him to that bloated contract with the thought that they'd need him against the Lakers (who were no longer factors almost as soon as OKC traded for Perkins).

And because it was discussed by several posters, the return OKC got for Harden was not the worst but there was the feeling that they gave away an All-Star for lesser players, and that they broke up a young nucleus that got to the Finals immediately, and had the entire future ahead of them, and were all drafted by them, and loved playing together, and actually fit well... I remember my immediate instinct when that Harden trade broke was "OKC will never win a title". And even though they were certainly contenders in their healthy seasons afterwards (before Durant left), that gut feeling was right.

2. The Cousins trade was only last season so I'm sure people haven't forgotten this but just to remind everyone, after taking this bad trade getting them almost nothing in return for an All-Star player drawing interest from multiple teams, Divac confesses "there was a better trade that he turned down a day or two before agreeing to this one" but somehow he didn't turn down the worse one and wait a couple more days for something more adequate because... no, I can't give you an explanation, really...

3. All of those trades of unprotected picks for some months of an expiring has-been (Gerald Wallace, the pick that became Kyrie, etc.) are absolutely awful, makes you wonder how those GMs didn't get fired on the spot.

[Jadoogar]

Kings' are the masters of the horrible trade.

2011: Kings trade 7th pick in the draft (Bismack Biyombo) and Beno Udrih for John Salmons and the 10th pick (Jimmer Fredette)

So the Kings traded down and gave up the best player in the deal just to draft Jimmer? Kwahi, Klay, and Kemba Walker were available at these spots.

2014: Kings trade Isaiah Thomas to the Phoenix Suns for a Traded Player Exception and the rights to Alex Oriakhi

Who?

Kings trade Nik Stauskas, Carl Landry, Jason Thompson, 2019 Unprotected first round pick, and two pick swap options for rights to Lithuanian prospect Arturas Gudaitis and Serbian prospect Luka Mitrovic, and a future second round pick.

This is the one listed in the poll. It's incredible. An unprotected pick AND pick swaps for essentially capspace?

Kings trade Omri Casspi and protected first round pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers for JJ Hickson

Hickson played 35 games for the Kings

[giberish]

We all know the Bos-BRK trade was the worst of the last decade. Which was the 2nd worst?

I got 5 below, but my vote is for the Knight/MCW/Laker pick one-just because 2 teams screwed up big time in one deal


Am I leaving any off?

I said Harden. I actually assumed the only reason you made the thread title be what it was was that we all knew the Harden trade was the worst.

Boston-Brooklyn deal turned out incredibly painful but when the deal happened it was seen as something not entirely crazy. This was a franchise without any real direction trying to put together a team that would be good for at least a while. It was never the best move in the long term, but it hurts so much because those guys seemed to fall off a cliff when they Massachusetts.

With Harden, it was just a shockingly bad move right from the moment they did it. Every part of it. While people didn't know he'd be as good as he became, Presti basically did everything he could to make clear to the world that he despite watching Harden for 3 years, he didn't think Harden was someone worth a max deal.

Worse, they traded Harden a year before they had to. This was someone who might've been able to help you win a title that year while still earning only a rookie salary, and you traded that potential value for nothing worth mentioning.

I'm not someone who thinks Presti should be fired. I think that if he's fired, he'll get another GM gig if he wants one. But man, did he screw that up.

This was always the biggest part of the trade to me.

Trading Harden wasn’t a bad idea in theory because he could’ve netted a complete haul & you could potentially dump salary too but the timing of the trade was so dumb to me. Trading him for one year of Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb who they dispatched & chose Roberson instead and Steven Adams who isn’t a bad player but not worth Harden. I remember there being rumors of Bradley Beal being an option. That would’ve made way more sense & nobody would be talking about it still..

They traded him 2 years before the end of his contract coming off of a 6MOY award & finals appearance.

Why not just wait til RFA? And over a 4 mil difference.

They tried to play hardball imo. Whole situation was poorly handled.

I'd disagree with some of this. Look at the situation at the time, without the knowledge of how good Harden became. Harden only had 1 year left on his contract when traded, not 2. Also, at the time there were significant questions around the league about how good Harden was and would be. If you know that he'll be good enough to be a bargain on a max deal then you can wait until he's an RFA and get value. Otherwise - if he's just acceptable value on a max deal - then teams will just offer him a 25% max 2nd deal and say match (and have a luxury tax problem with cheap owners) or let him walk for nothing.

Secondly, OKC's first choice was something like a straight Harden for Beal trade. However neither Washington nor Charlotte was interested in making that deal. Which shows that Harden's trade value league-wide wasn't that high (certainly not as high as if people knew how good he'd become).

Finally, the year that OKC lost of Harden from trading him too early they were the best team in the league, but lost in the playoffs because Westbrook got injured. Keep Harden and it's tough to see any better result.

It looks bad now, but there was at least some justification for the deal at the time. Some of these other deals were completely incompetent even at the time without the need of hindsight.

[UcanUwill]

When I saw this thread, I honestly thought its implied James Harden trade is the worst. Completely forgot Boston-Nets trade for a second, that is definitely the worst, but Harden has to be second now. Those two are the most infamous trades in recent NBA history by far, for damn good reason.

[DanTown8587]

The thing about the Harden trade is that the financial desires of the owner dictated the trade and the time of it made it that the Thunder couldn't get value. That wasn't so much a bad trade because of the GM but because the owner meddled in the team and even if Harden for Stephen Adams is an awful deal, they at least got something of value in the trade.

What the **** did the Nets get for 16 games of Gerald Wallace when they were already 15-30? His bird rights, which they didn't need? Which was made worse when they traded a first to take on Joe Johnson's contract? Even if you want to say that the Pocherov meddled with directions for Billy King, King turned the assets he had in to the worst possible talent he could have.

[Doctor MJ]

I said Harden. I actually assumed the only reason you made the thread title be what it was was that we all knew the Harden trade was the worst.

Boston-Brooklyn deal turned out incredibly painful but when the deal happened it was seen as something not entirely crazy. This was a franchise without any real direction trying to put together a team that would be good for at least a while. It was never the best move in the long term, but it hurts so much because those guys seemed to fall off a cliff when they Massachusetts.

With Harden, it was just a shockingly bad move right from the moment they did it. Every part of it. While people didn't know he'd be as good as he became, Presti basically did everything he could to make clear to the world that he despite watching Harden for 3 years, he didn't think Harden was someone worth a max deal.

Worse, they traded Harden a year before they had to. This was someone who might've been able to help you win a title that year while still earning only a rookie salary, and you traded that potential value for nothing worth mentioning.

I'm not someone who thinks Presti should be fired. I think that if he's fired, he'll get another GM gig if he wants one. But man, did he screw that up.

This was always the biggest part of the trade to me.

Trading Harden wasn’t a bad idea in theory because he could’ve netted a complete haul & you could potentially dump salary too but the timing of the trade was so dumb to me. Trading him for one year of Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb who they dispatched & chose Roberson instead and Steven Adams who isn’t a bad player but not worth Harden. I remember there being rumors of Bradley Beal being an option. That would’ve made way more sense & nobody would be talking about it still..

They traded him 2 years before the end of his contract coming off of a 6MOY award & finals appearance.

Why not just wait til RFA? And over a 4 mil difference.

They tried to play hardball imo. Whole situation was poorly handled.

I'd disagree with some of this. Look at the situation at the time, without the knowledge of how good Harden became. Harden only had 1 year left on his contract when traded, not 2. Also, at the time there were significant questions around the league about how good Harden was and would be. If you know that he'll be good enough to be a bargain on a max deal then you can wait until he's an RFA and get value. Otherwise - if he's just acceptable value on a max deal - then teams will just offer him a 25% max 2nd deal and say match (and have a luxury tax problem with cheap owners) or let him walk for nothing.

Secondly, OKC's first choice was something like a straight Harden for Beal trade. However neither Washington nor Charlotte was interested in making that deal. Which shows that Harden's trade value league-wide wasn't that high (certainly not as high as if people knew how good he'd become).

Finally, the year that OKC lost of Harden from trading him too early they were the best team in the league, but lost in the playoffs because Westbrook got injured. Keep Harden and it's tough to see any better result.

It looks bad now, but there was at least some justification for the deal at the time. Some of these other deals were completely incompetent even at the time without the need of hindsight.

There are some good points here. It is indeed worth noting how well OKC's stars continued to develop and yeah, they could have won a title...

But whenever you have a player for 3 years and you clearly massively underrate how good the player is, you deserve to be bashed, and while it was "debatable" back then, it wasn't debatable among any of the people I seriously respect. Presti & Brooks missed something here that they shouldn't have, and while they could have won a title any way, they seriously undermined their efforts by screwing this up.

In general, the worst sin you can commit as a GM is screwing up with a star, and OKC did that. In their defense, it wasn't Kahn level bad where they purposefully antagonized a star (Love) in favor of a never-star (Rubio) because the star had been drafted by the prior regime. That's why Presti deserves a job and Kahn shouldn't be hired for any job anywhere, basketball or otherwise.

[Doctor MJ]

The thing about the Harden trade is that the financial desires of the owner dictated the trade and the time of it made it that the Thunder couldn't get value. That wasn't so much a bad trade because of the GM but because the owner meddled in the team and even if Harden for Stephen Adams is an awful deal, they at least got something of value in the trade.
.

Right but the team was only in that position because they'd decided prematurely that Harden wasn't going to be anything more than a role player deferring to Durant & Westbrook. Had they groomed Harden properly, they wouldn't have been confused about they were giving up.