We saw plenty of trades go down before the deadline and Yannis Koutroupis of Basketball Insiders looked at the winners and losers. The Pacers top the list of winners for their acquisition of former No. 2 overall pick Evan Turner. While the Wizards and Warriors also get nods, Koutroupis says that the Lakers and Knicks should have done more. Here’s tonight’s look around the league..
- Joel Brigham of Basketball Insiders has six trades that should have happened at the deadline. Among Brigham’s more interesting proposals: a hypothetical swap that would have sent Josh Smith from the Pistons to the Cavs in exchange for Luol Deng.
- Kyle Lowry wasn’t moved at the deadline today and Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun takes that as a sign that Raptors GM Masai Ujiri believes that he will re-sign him after this season.
- The trade deadline didn’t have a lot of stars changing uniforms in part because teams are zeroed in on the summer of 2015, writes Sean Deveney of the Sporting News. “More and more you have teams that are already looking ahead to (the summer of 2015),” one GM said. “You are going to see teams really be reluctant to give out long-term deals going forward, and it is because everyone wants to keep their cap flexible to see if they can shake something out next year.”
- Josh Akognon is headed to the Delaware 87ers of the D-League, according to Gino Pilato of D-League Digest.
- Kobe Bryant was sad to see Steve Blake go, writes Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times.