Who won the unexpectedly wild 2023 NBA trade deadline?
The run-up to Thursday's 3 p.m. ET deadline was atypically quiet, with just one trade of significance (Rui Hachimura to the Los Angeles Lakers) completed before Sunday.
Kyrie Irving's request to be traded from the Brooklyn Nets opened the floodgates, sending him to the Dallas Mavericks and MVP teammate Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns in a pair of moves that reshaped the Western Conference landscape.
The final 24 hours before the deadline saw an incredible 16 trades completed involving 49 players (nearly 10% of the league's total) and 25 teams, including the Los Angeles Lakers reshuffling the deck to support stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis and the rival LA Clippers loading up with Eric Gordon, Bones Hyland and Mason Plumlee.
With the dust still clearing, which teams did the most to improve their chances of winning a championship this season? And which will be hurt by the results of their midseason moves or non-moves?
Let's break down the winners and losers of the NBA trade deadline.
Loser: Superteams
Winner: Superteams
Like a villain in a slasher flick, superteams are hard to kill.
The eulogy for the Nets' Big Three era after Irving's trade request turned into the origin story of a new superteam in Phoenix, where Durant will team with All-Stars Devin Booker and Chris Paul to try and win the championship Brooklyn couldn't.
As ESPN's Bill Barnwell noted on Twitter, the three days Durant went without an All-NBA first team selection as a teammate were his longest stretch since his rookie season with the Seattle SuperSonics. The following year, Russell Westbrook joined him with the Oklahoma City Thunder, followed later by James Harden.
Obviously, Harden and Westbrook weren't yet All-NBA caliber but grew to that level before Durant eventually swapped Westbrook for Stephen Curry with the Golden State Warriors, Kyrie Irving and Harden again in Brooklyn before joining Paul and Booker, who have combined for five first-team selections.
The manner by which superteams come and go may continue to evolve, but as long as the NBA exists, teams will try to collect as many stars as possible, and stars will want to congregate together to maximize their title chances.
Neither Brooklyn's failure to accomplish what we expected when Harden joined Durant and Irving, nor the exorbitant number of first-round picks now required to deal for a star under contract are going to change that.
Winner: Phoenix Suns fans
Only time will tell how Mat Ishbia's stewardship of the Suns will play out, but he quickly demonstrated his difference from deposed majority owner Robert Sarver by signing off on a trade that -- even with the subsequent money-saving move of Dario Saric for Darius Bazley -- increased Phoenix's luxury-tax bill by about $16 million.
After Sarver took control of the team in 2004, the Suns paid the tax just three times in 17 seasons. The $50 million in taxes they'll pay this year are nearly four times the total under Sarver ($13.7 million) combined.
Granted, Phoenix had already pushed into the luxury tax before Sarver agreed to sell the team in the wake of his season-long suspension. Additionally, most of the lottery-bound Suns teams from the past decade-plus did not merit paying the tax. Still, shedding draft picks to mitigate tax payments was a defining feature of the "Seven Seconds or Less" Phoenix era with Steve Nash at point guard.
Already, Ishbia has signaled his tenure with the Suns will look very different.
Winner: Trading five second-round picks
Loser: Trading 2023 first-round picks
In part because so many of them have already been traded, just two first-round picks slotted for this June's draft were included in deadline deals: The Knicks sent a lottery-protected first-rounder to the Portland Trail Blazers for Josh Hart, while the Suns included theirs as part of the draft-pick haul for Durant.
With so many first-round picks encumbered, increasingly lavish totals of second-round picks became the currency of the deadline. The Milwaukee Bucks sent out five for Jae Crowder, two of them going to the Indiana Pacers in order to take on Milwaukee's matching salary, while the Blazers pocketed the same number from the Atlanta Hawks as part of a four-team deal involving Gary Payton II.
Like razor-blade technology, it seems this arms race will only escalate. I look forward to next year's deals featuring six second-round picks.
Loser: Non-taxpaying teams
At the start of the week, teams outside the luxury tax stood to get more than $17 million each in distribution of tax payments, a historic amount owing to the Clippers and Warriors going deeper into the tax than ever before, with the Warriors subject to the repeater tax.
With Golden State shaving its tax bill by swapping James Wiseman for Payton, the Philadelphia 76ers moving out of the tax entirely and the Nets paying minimal tax thanks to the Crowder deal, the 21 teams out of the tax now stand to make about $14.5 million each pending incentives. That's still the most ever, surpassing last year's $10.5 million distribution, but no longer quite such a windfall.
Winner: The East's top three
The Boston Celtics, Bucks and 76ers all have to come out of the deadline feeling better about their chances of at least reaching this year's conference finals. Not only did all three teams make moves to add to their rosters, they watched the Nets implode and the East's second tier make few win-now deals.
Among the other four East teams currently above .500, only the New York Knicks (with wing Josh Hart) loaded up for the playoffs. The Cleveland Cavaliers were one of two teams (the Chicago Bulls are the other) who did not make a single in-season trade, while the Miami Heat's lone deal sent out Dewayne Dedmon to create tax flexibility.
It's possible Cleveland and Miami could still add via the buyout market, but for now, the East's upper tier has strengthened its hold on the conference.
Loser: Denver Nuggets
By contrast, the West's crowded middle was aggressive in pursuit of upgrades. The sixth-place Clippers addressed their weakness at backup center and added another switchable wing in Gordon, while taking a shot at Hyland as a second-unit creator. The 13th-place Lakers also look like a more dangerous opponent if they can reach the playoffs with more depth and shooting around James, while the Minnesota Timberwolves will hope Mike Conley Jr. is a better fit at point guard than D'Angelo Russell.
The biggest moves, however, came from the teams dealing with Brooklyn. Having added Durant, the Suns are now the favorites to win the West at Caesars Sportsbook, while the Mavericks improved their odds by pairing Irving with Luka Doncic.
I liked Denver's move to pick up Thomas Bryant as a backup to two-time MVP center Nikola Jokic, but the return for Hyland -- a couple of Clippers' second-round picks that aren't likely to be in the top half of the round -- failed to provide the Nuggets immediate help.
Winner: Houston Rockets
The Rockets made a couple of moves, adding second-rounders in a financially motivated deal with the Hawks and gaining swap rights on a first-round pick in exchange for dealing Gordon to the Clippers.
Still, the biggest move of the week for Houston was Durant's trade request. Even if the suddenly deep Nets don't seem likely to bottom out, the first-rounders the Rockets hold from Brooklyn in 2024 and 2026 -- with swaps in 2025 and 2027 -- have less downside with Durant elsewhere.
Loser: Breanna Stewart's free agency splash
Remember when Durant publicly recruited the WNBA MVP to come to Brooklyn and play for the New York Liberty?
Hours after Stewart officially signed her Liberty contract on Wednesday, Durant got traded. Surely, Durant's vocal efforts weren't as important to Stewart as proximity to home and the Liberty ownership (Joe & Clara Tsai, who also own the Nets) supporting private charters for WNBA travel. Still, the Phoenix Mercury have to wonder what might have been had Kyrie's trade request come a month earlier.