The 2022 NBA Trade Deadline has come and gone, delivering on the hype that it built over the last few weeks. Superstar players swapped teams, playoff teams got better and a few teams unloaded some large, unwanted contracts.
Yet, the moves that interested me the most are the ones that didn’t happen. We saw many teams have a quiet deadline despite buzz that they were itching to mix up their rosters.
Here, we unpack those few teams that stayed put and dive into whether their decisions were good, bad, or questionable at best.
Quiet, but Good
(Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)
Golden State Warriors
There weren’t many rumors floating around the NBA circles regarding the Warriors; those were used up last offseason. Golden State is having a tremendous bounce-back year. We know how dangerous a healthy Stephen Curry-Draymond Green-Klay Thompson trio is, and the pieces around them have all been good-to-great this season.
All of their guys are healthy, Andrew Wiggins is an All-Star and the bench is revamped. Smart move to stay put.
Miami Heat
I’d heard of the Heat having interest in Christian Wood. Some people on Twitter had mentioned Duncan Robinson being a possible trade candidate. Valid or not, there were lots of rumors. At the end of the day, nothing was done because nothing needed to be done by the deadline.
Miami is the No.1 team in the East and is looking like legitimate title contenders. Any trade they would have made today would have been an overreaction. Miami probably already has everything that it needs to win any matchup, and you can trust that Erik Spoelstra—arguably the best coach in the NBA today—will have the right formula for whatever matchup Miami faces this postseason.
Memphis Grizzlies
Kudos to the Heat for staying put. The Grizzlies are one of those rare teams that really didn’t have much to gain here. They are the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference and honestly look as scary as any team in the NBA. This group is getting outstanding production from young players such as Jaren Jackson Jr., Desmond Bane and Ja Morant, who is a candidate to bring home the 2021-22 MVP award. Sure, you could question their youth and inexperience, but that hasn’t stopped them from taking the league by storm.
Quiet, but Bad
(Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports)
Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers are 26-30, losers in seven of the last 10 games and have the oldest roster in the league You really, really would have liked to see the Lakers make some kind of changes to help get things back headed down the right path. Yet, they didn’t. And I certainly don’t think it’s from a lack of effort.
The reality is that they didn’t have many tradable pieces — Talen Horton-Tucker’s value has reached an all-time low, Russell Westbrook’s contract is the hardest in the NBA to offload and mostly everyone else not named LeBron James or Anthony Davis is on a minimum deal. Still, their lack of roster improvement doesn’t change the fact that the team isn’t good and is poorly constructed. There weren’t many options, so the Lakers simply must figure out how to turn this disastrous season around with the guys they already have—or can scoop up off the buyout market.
New York Knicks
A lot of what was said about the Lakers can also be said about the Knicks. In short, they’re bad. Nothing has transferred over from their exciting 2020-21 season, and there are many people to blame. From coach Thibs not figuring out his rotations to Julius Randle regressing badly, the Knicks are a disappointment. But they had a chance at this deadline to mix things up and didn’t do it.
Not improving the roster feels like a missed opportunity.
Quiet, and Questionable
(Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports)
Atlanta Hawks
I keep going back and forth on the Hawks’ lack of movement at the deadline. On the one hand, Atlanta is having a very bad season compared to their Eastern Conference Finals appearance last year. They’re currently the East’s No. 10 seed and the playoffs look grim.
On the other hand, shaking up the roster at the expense of trading away someone like John Collins would have been a bad move. Maybe he would have netted the best return, but I just don’t think it would have been worth it in the long run.
Chicago Bulls
The more that I think about it, the Bulls probably don’t need to be in this section. It’s disappointing that they didn’t address their starting power forward issue or even the need for a more reliable backup big. But, if that meant shipping out Patrick Williams, I’m perfectly fine with Chicago staying put. The Bulls will be back in business when Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso, Derrick Jones Jr. and potentially Pat Williams get healthy.
They can get trade happy during the offseason if need be.
Los Angeles Clippers
Steve Ballmer’s LA Clippers did not have a bad trade deadline by any means. If you want to rewind about a week, you’ll actually be surprised to learn of the heist they pulled off in acquiring Norman Powell. But on this specific trade deadline day, the Clips were a bit confusing.
Serge Ibaka was traded away (as expected) for Rodney Hood and Semi Ojeleye. We assumed that these new acquisitions would be packaged and flipped for something else already with Nic Batum, Marcus Morris Sr., Robert Covington, Terance Mann, and a few other wings (including Kawhi and Paul George) on the roster. That was not the case. The Clippers still have an abundance of wings and forwards without any backup point guards. I expect them to have an eventful offseason when it comes to making trades.
