With the last few draft deadlines coming and going with little more than a bunch of mediocre trades, this one seems like it had a little more substance.

Sure, we had the inconsequential trade of Chris Mihm and a swap of draft picks.

You have to expect that you’d have at least one of those.

But here is what else we were treated to.

1. Chicago Bulls and Sacramento Kings – It seems like it wasn’t too long ago that these two teams were on their way up. Lately, it hasn’t looked that way. In a move to liven things up some, Chicago traded Andres Nocioni, Drew Gooden, Michael Ruffin and Cedric Simmons to the Kings in exchange for Brad Miller and John Salmons. I’m not sure that either team gets any better in this deal. John Salmons is certainly a good player, but so is Andres Nocioni. Brad Miller and Drew Gooden seem like a wash as well. If anything, the Kings may have had second thoughts on the long term contract they had offered to Salmons, and sought to get rid of it. From news around the NBA, though, there were plenty of suitors for Salmons services including Dallas.
2. Sacramento Kings and Portland Trailblazers – The Kings traded just acquired Michael Ruffin to the Blazers for Ike Diogu. This trade might not seem too significant, but Diogu becomes yet another cog in the Kings plans to rebuild a totally new team (mostly for cost-cutting measures) almost overnight. As we will see from the next trade…
3. Minnesota Timberwolves and Sacramento Kings – The Kings traded Shelden Williams and Bobby Brown (the point guard, not the singer) to Minnesota for Rashad McCants and Calvin Booth. Shelden Williams will be stepping into the role vacated by Al Jefferson, who suffered a season-ending injury. McCants should get more playing time for the Kings than he got for the T-Wolves, and if he doesn’t cut the mustard, his contract is just about up anyways.
4. New York and Oklahoma City – Malik Rose (is he still around?) was sent to Oklahoma for Chris Wilcox. Both of these players have expiring contracts, so I’m not exactly sure why either of the teams made this trade. It was almost a “let’s make a trade because we can”. New York certainly got the better end of this deal — Chris Wilcox is quite the athletic big man, if they can keep him in New York — if they WANT to keep him in New York.
5. Houston Rockets, Orlando Magic, Memphis Grizzlies – There were other players and draft picks involved, but the crux of the deal is that Houston didn’t want Rafer Alston around any more sharing time with their top pick for point guard, Aaron Brooks. The Orlando Magic, following Jameer Nelson’s season-ending shoulder surgery, had a great need for the veteran point guard. Assuming Brooks really is ready for his role leading the Rockets, this trade was probably good for both teams. I’m not exactly sure what the Grizzlies were thinking, but I’m pretty sure that they don’t know what they’re doing either.
6. Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks – The Bulls traded oft-injured and wildly overpaid Larry Hughes to the Knicks in exchange for wildly overpaid center Jerome James, Tim Thomas, and others. Larry Hughes will likely be able to contribute in Mike D’Antoni’s up-tempo offense, assuming he can stay healthy. It’s hard to say what Chicago was thinking in this deal, except that they probably wanted to shed Hughes’ contract and figured that either Jerome James or Tim Thomas might be able to play some decent reserve minutes for them. If either of them is a possibility, Thomas is likely the guy.

I know.

I know.

You’re thinking that there were a lot of trades but they were all between about three or four teams. Can that really be called a blockbuster trade deadline?

Well, it could be if you are a glass-is-half-full kind of person, but even so, we got some movement out of teams that really needed to do something.

Not that they did anything that is really going to save them, now or in the near future.