In lite of all the super teams forming and big names forcing their way out. Do these trades ever wind up positive for the team squiring the star?

I’ll define a positive trade for a star as getting to the NBA finals in the next two seasons. Since the ultimate goal is to win a title and these teams are moving all-in, in most cases trading away a lot of future picks/assets.

Off the top of head:

  • most successful single season trade lately seems to be Kawhi to the Raptors.

  • Lebron and banana boat crew to Miami also. But already championship with Wade and it’s fucking Lebron James, not just an ordinary all star. I guess you could also include AD to the Lakers

  • of course there was also KD to the Warriors, but they were already champions. They didn’t need him. And that wasn’t a trade, it was free agency signing. (Although, it seems like in enabled the ability to force your way out or resign early.)

There’s been so many busts:

  • All of Harden’s trades
  • all of KD’s moves post Warriors
  • Beal to the Suns doesn’t look great so far
  • Damian Lillard to the Bucks doesn’t look great, when they were championship caliber before.
  • Kawhi and PG to the Clippers has been a busy so far

There seems to be too many changes needed to make a star work. Either they have to change their style, or the entire team roles need to be updated to make it work.

What type of situations does it actually make sense to go all-in? A team on the cusp that just needs that one piece, and one that fits their system perfectly.

  • NoWayNotThisAgain@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Kyrie to the Mavs is working, but I’m not sure Kyrie is still a superstar. He’s got superstar skills though.

  • seloun@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Simply comparing the number that worked with the number that didn’t doesn’t tell you much without knowing how difficult the original situation was. If a choice turns a once in a million gamble into a one in a hundred, is that really a bad choice?

  • GriffHay@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    If your only bar for success is winning a championship, then that’s always going to be the case. There’s typically like 5-10 superstars in the league, depending on how loosely you define the term, and only one teams year wins the championship. Every year, most superstars “fail” by that metric- even moreso if you narrow the pool down to ones that were recently traded.

  • ClutchGamingGuy@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Miami wasn’t really formed through trades, I mean LeBron was traded but as a sign+trade. He was going there in free agency either way.

  • MahomesMccaffrey@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I’m only gonna count superstars (all NBA second team or above) that were traded (not counting sign and trade)

    2018 Kawhi to raptors huge success

    2019 AD to Lakers huge success

    2019 PG to clippers not successful

    2020 Harden to Brooklyn, success when on the court

    2023 KD to suns, TBD

    2023 Dame to bucks, TBD

    Most of the real super star trades are still pretty successful.

    You do it every time when there’s a chance

  • gymtime69@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    How the hell were we championship-caliber when we went out in the 1st round? To an 8th seed?

    And we are 6-1 I believe with Dame… that’s really great considering we just traded for him less than 2 months ago (lack of chemistry). And before you mention defense, we’re 6th in defensive rankings. With two top-5 scorers from last year…

  • mkk4@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Yes

    Kent Benson and Kelly Tripucka for Adrian Dantley

    Caldwell Jones for Moses Malone

    Jeff Hornacek, Andre Lange and Tim Perry for Charles Barkley

  • Beffanator@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Big 3 Celtics. Without acquaint KG and Allen, Celts would not have won those rings.