NBA Trade Deadline Winners/Losers

Another NBA Trade Deadline passes and many moves are made. Some moves are made to help teams improve for this season and make a run at a championship, some are made to clear cap space to move under the salary tax and some are made to set up big moves in the offseason. All of these moves came to fruition this year, some just were a little more successful than others.

Winners

Dallas Mavericks- Adding Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood to an already potent lineup makes them a scary team come playoff time. Haywood is the center that Erik Dampier was never able to be, and Caron Butler gives them a legit scoring option beside Dirk in crunch time. A crunch time lineup of Haywood, Dirk, Caron, Terry/Marion and Kidd is mighty dangerous. DeShawn Stevenson off the bench along with Jason Terry gives them more outside shooting.

Cleveland Cavaliers- Antawn Jamison is the perfect person to add to this team, more than Amare Stoudemire, in my opinion. Jamison doesn't need to have plays ran for him to score. He hustles, grabs rebounds, and can stretch the floor unlike the other Cavalier big men. He will be a great matchup for Rashard Lewis in the Eastern Conference Finals, and Lamar Odom if they meet in the Finals. Those were two players who would give them fits before the acquisition of Jamison. Also, they traded Big Z, but there is a possibility that he can return after a buyout from Washington after 30 days.

Houston Rockets- In my opinion, T-Mac is one of the best scorers and perimeter players in the NBA in the last decade. Is he often injured, Yes. Has he ever made it past the first round of the playoffs, No. But he is one of the few people in the league who can dominate a game from the wing and can get off his own shot at will. He isn't the same scorer he was in Orlando, but he still has some juice left. However, he had an expiring contract and the Rockets parlayed that into Kevin Martin who can provide some offense from the wing which Houston desperately needs. Great move by them, although I'm sure they wish they could have kept Carl Landry.

New York Knicks- The Knicks won't do anything this year. They know it and they don't care. However, with the moves the Knicks made today, particularly shedding Jared Jeffries' contract in the T-Mac deal, they are now able to offer TWO max free agent contracts to the plethora of available talent this summer. So if they go into training camp with a combo of LeBron/Wade/Bosh/Amare, then they are definitely the winners of this trade deadline.

Chicago Bulls- Shedding the salary of John Salmons and Tyrus Thomas allows them to offer a max free agent deal, preferably to hometown hero Dwyane Wade. If they can land Wade, huge win for the Bulls. If not, they will definitely be able to sign a big-time post presence, a la Carlos Boozer/Amare Stoudemire/Chris Bosh.

Other Winners by shedding salary for the summer of 2010: LA Clippers, Washington Wizards.

Other Winners by acquiring players for a playoff run in 2009: Milwaukee Bucks (John Salmons), Portland Trailblazers (Marcus Camby), Boston Celtics (Nate Robinson) & Charlotte Bobcats (Tyrus Thomas)

Losers

Miami Heat- The Heat failed to land either Amare Stoudemire or Carlos Boozer to play alongside D-Wade, assuring them of a first round sweep out of the playoffs this year. This doesn't mean they can't sign one of them in the offseason, however it does increase the chances that another first round exit will also mean the exit of the franchise's best player, Dwyane Wade.

Philadelphia 76ers- No one expected the Sixers to actually land Amare Stoudemire, and unless Elton Brand was traded (which he wouldn't have been), then it wouldn't have made much basketball sense. Why they are on this list is because they failed to unload any of the MANY bad contracts they have (Iguodala, Dalembert, Brand).

Washington Wizards- Sure the Wizards dumped a ton of salary, but they also dumped every talented player on their team. Josh Howard was the only legit player they got in return and the Wizards are going to need plenty of pieces if they ever want to be relevant anytime soon.

No one really got roped into a bad deal, most teams just did nothing. The next step of course is to see which players get bought out and what teams add veterans for the playoff stretch run. A ton of teams will be able to offer max free agent deals in the offseason so the summer of 2010 is setting up to live up to the hype.