The Philadelphia 76ers trade PG Jrue Holiday and a 2nd round pick to the New Orleans Pelicans for Nerlens Noel and next year's (protected) first round pick
Translation: The Sixers have decided to blow the whole thing up and start over with Noel and a couple of probable lottery picks next year. To get a good lottery pick, it helps if you don't have a lot of good players, so they ditched their best one on a them that's in a hurry to win now. When people say hopefully "build around Evan Turner and Thaddeus Young", you know you're going to have a lot of ping pong balls next year.
As for the Pelicans, they need to win now. A can't score center with a bum knee and a draft pick won't help them this year. Jrue Holiday will. Long-term, they may regret the deal, but these days only Galapagos tortoises get to plan for the long term.
The Boston Celtics trade Jason Terry, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Gerald Wallace, Kim Kardashian's ex, some contracts, 3 first round picks, the cast and crew of Girls, a couple of Chuck Klosterman essay collections, and a fixed-gear bike.
Another "let's blow it up"/"We need to win now" deal. The Celtics were going nowhere expensively with their aging stars, and moving them while they still had some value was the best they could hope for - no matter what Sully from the Cape says on WEEI tomorrow morning. That they got back as much as they did - and I'm talking about the picks here, as the only way any of the players see the next winning Celtics franchise is on TV - is a minor miracle. The Nets, on the other hand, have apparently filled out their Russian billionaire owner's fantasy basketball team, and are in line to jump in the TARDIS and win the 2007 NBA title.
The Utah Jazz trade 2 first round picks to the Minnesota Timberwolves for the 9th overall pick, Trey Burke.
Because there's nothing worse than having lots of middle-of-the-round picks in a draft that really doesn't even have top of the round talent. Not that Minnesota knows that.
Golden State sends Malcolm Lee and the # 29 pick to Phoenix for the #30 pick
I'm guessing that the Warriors initially proposed sending Phoenix Lee in exchange for two Lady Gaga concert tickets and an autographed calendar was rejected as too expensive, and they went to the nonsensical draft slot swap instead.
The Cleveland Cavaliers send Allen Crabbe to the Portland Trailblazers for a couple of indeterminate second round picks.
Crabbe is valuable because he was the 31st overall pick, i.e. the first pick of the second round, i.e. "not a guy they have to give a guaranteed contract to". If he's any good, he's at Portland's mercy, contractually speaking. If he's not, they can dump him on the cheap. And the second round picks Cleveland got back are the equivalent of scratch-off tickets, and about as likely to be useful.
The 76ers trade a whole bunch of second round picks but still end up with the guy they want at #54
New GM Sam Hinkle is almost certainly a dangerous poker player. He figured Arselan Kazemi was still going to be there at the end of the second round, so there was no sense picking the guy earlier and paying him more. Which resulted in the Sixers selecting and then trading roughly a dozen guys, trading them for other guys, getting rid of those guys, and finally ending up with their guy.
The Memphis Grizzlies send Darrell Arthur and the #55 pick to the Denver Nuggets in exchange for lumbering man-mountain Kosta Koufos
Koufos was a favorite of NBA Coach of the year George Karl. That would be the "George Karl who got fired from his job coaching the Nuggets". And once Dad is out of the house, the favorite son's not going to be sticking around long. Which is a shame, as Koufos can actually play a bit and isn't expensive, but, what the hell. Of perhaps more interest is the fact that this is about the only trade apart from the Boston-Brooklyn monster where someone who has actually played professional basketball got traded for someone else who has actually played professional basketball.
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