It's easy to know which 2022 NBA trade deadline deal deserves first position here, but it isn't so simple to label winners and losers in the blockbuster move that sent James Harden and Paul Millsap to the Philadelphia 76ers for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond and a pair of first-round picks.
There's a lot to unpack, and we're going to dig through all of it.
After that, we'll get to the rest of the action on deadline day, assigning winners and losers in the wake of the whirlwind.
It's a close call, as the Sixers are getting the best player in the deal, assuming Harden is content and performs more like the Houston Rockets version of himself. But in the end, the Nets are the big winners here for a few reasons.
First, Brooklyn shed a player in Harden whom pre-deadline reports indicated was unhappy. Whether his declining performance was tied to his attitude or age/injury (or both), it seemed unlikely that he'd regain his old form in Brooklyn.
In return, the reeling Nets get Simmons, a top-notch, versatile defender who provides value in all of the areas Harden did not. Simmons can guard the opposition's most threatening scorer, regardless of position. He'll push the pace, move the rock and makes more sense as a gap-filler in support of two front-line scorers in Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving (assuming he returns to the floor this season).
Maybe he's overpaid if that's going to be his role, but the Nets also have the security of three more guaranteed seasons on Simmons' deal after this one. If things don't work out, we just got a taste of what Simmons' trade value is. Even after sitting out most of the season, he was still worth plenty.
Curry is no throw-in. He and Patty Mills will give Brooklyn two dead-eye shooters to space the floor for Brooklyn's superstars. Drummond is a cheap depth piece at a position of need, and those two first-rounders will help replenish the trove of picks that the Nets surrendered to acquire Harden in the first place.
You can't call the Sixers losers here because they offloaded Simmons, who seemingly was never going to play for them again. They'll have to contend with Harden's contractual demands and figure out how to integrate a ball-dominant force with Joel Embiid, who absolutely should not sacrifice touches in an MVP-caliber season.
Daryl Morey and the Sixers got their guy. On balance, though, Brooklyn made out the best in this high-profile exchange.
With his own free agency looming and the possibility that the Nets would have to shell out up to $275 million over five post-prime years to keep Harden, there were some serious downsides to retaining the 2017-18 MVP.
Those downsides now belong to the 76ers.
Maybe this will be controversial, but I wouldn't have wanted anything to do with Harden's age-33-to-37 seasons at an average of $55 million a pop. That's exactly what Philly appears to be in for, as The Athletic's Shams Charania reported that Harden will agree to pick up his $47.4 million player option for 2022-23. That sets him up to sign a four-year extension this summer worth around $227 million.
The Sixers are presumably going to offer Harden that extension. Otherwise, he could hit free agency after next year and potentially leave for nothing. It would be naive to think those discussions have yet to take place, and the Sixers can't negotiate from a position of strength after they just gave up so much to get him.
We've seen superstars buck the aging curve with increasing regularity over the last several years. LeBron James, Chris Paul and even Stephen Curry are headline names sustaining their play later into their careers than used to be typical.
Is Harden going to go plant-based like Paul or spend millions per year on his body like James? Nagging injuries over the last two seasons, a reputation for enjoying extracurriculars and declining athleticism suggest Father Time already has Harden in his grasp. That's a grip that rarely loosens.
Maybe Harden will help the Sixers win a title before the financial pain really hits in the last few years of his potential max extension. If that's the case, Philadelphia will probably take it. But there's a real risk that Harden's next deal is an albatross from the moment he signs it.
It took several months and cost him tens of millions in fines, but Ben Simmons got what he wanted: a trade away from the Philadelphia 76ers.
I'm not sure we're appreciating how unlikely that outcome was.
Simmons isn't the first star to stop reporting for work because he was no longer happy with his employer. Plenty of players have held out before in hopes of forcing their way off a team.
But he did it with four years left on his contract, a position almost totally devoid of leverage. Stars typically use the threat of leaving in free agency to force their team's hand: Move me now for something, or lose me for nothing.
There have been exceptions. In January 2019, Simmons' fellow Klutch client, Anthony Davis, told the New Orleans Pelicans that he wouldn't sign an extension after the 2019-20 season. He sat out games and ultimately forced a deal with a full year left on his contract.
That Simmons managed to get moved with three-and-a-half seasons of team control remaining should stand out as a shock. It just never happens.
Better yet for Simmons, he lands on a Nets team that badly needs what he provides and should never have to ask him to assume a high-scoring role in clutch situations. There may not be a perfect team for someone whose career is currently defined by wilting in big moments, but the Nets come pretty close.
The question mark above is meant to suggest Joel Embiid might be a loser here.
You could also certainly frame the potential MVP as a winner. Instead of his top running mate sitting at home, he'll have one on the court. Credit the Sixers for doing something that they felt gives Embiid a better chance to conclude his dominant season with a ring.
But does anyone have a memory of Harden coexisting well with another superstar?
Exclude his early-career Oklahoma City days, when he came off the bench in support of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant. That was a different time. More recently, in the years since Harden became a singular offensive force for the Rockets, he's run through big name after big name, consistently ending relationships with some level of acrimony.
Dwight Howard. Chris Paul. Westbrook (in Houston). Throw Irving and Durant on the pile now, too. There's no record of Harden and another co-star working well together for any significant length of time. And while many of the names listed have reputations for being somewhat difficult to work with, Harden is the common denominator.
If I'm the Sixers, my biggest nonfinancial concern is how Harden will mesh with Embiid both on the floor and in the locker room. All the concern-trolling we did when Harden teamed up with other alphas in Brooklyn applies here, too.
Philadelphia can't take the ball out of Embiid's hands, and Harden has never been all that good without the rock. Chemistry will be difficult to establish, and if history is any guide, the risk of another messy breakup is high.
Simmons wasn't going to help, but at least he wasn't actively doing any damage. In a worst-case scenario, Harden could detract from Embiid on offense and force him to work harder cleaning up mistakes on D.
The Sixers had to give up picks and attach valuable supporting players to get it done, a far cry from the hauls they were seeking earlier this season for Simmons. But Daryl Morey got his guy, and that makes him a winner.
It's unclear whether Harden is more of a blessing or a curse long-term, but we should probably defer to Morey's judgment. He knows Harden better than any executive in the league, and he has long seemed convinced that the juice is worth the squeeze.
We also can't overlook the fact that Morey got his man by trading Simmons, who hasn't played since June and might have never suited up for the Sixers again.
Morey deserves additional credit for getting something done now rather than waiting until the offseason. Better deals might have materialized, but the future is never certain. In the present, Embiid is a steamrolling megastar who looks capable of flattening the field on the way to a title.
Maybe he'll be just as dominant in each of the next five years. Or maybe the guy who missed his first two seasons because of injuries and has yet to play more than 64 regular-season games in a year will break down again.
When you have someone playing as well as Embiid, you have to seize the moment. After much posturing and an almost alarming level of patience, Morey did that.
LeBron James has had more than his share of success over the last two decades, but the Los Angeles Lakers' deadline stasis all but assures this season will remain a failure.
This isn't all on James, who's been remarkably productive in what will go down as easily the greatest age-37 season in NBA history. But he had a hand in, well...tying the Lakers' hands behind their backs at the deadline.
He and Anthony Davis both pushed for the Lakers to abandon depth and ignore fit to bring Russell Westbrook aboard last offseason. Westbrook quickly became untradable (and, lately, unplayable in fourth quarters), and the Lakers' lack of mid-tier salary or first-round picks left them with no trade ammunition of consequence.
Apparently, there were no tantalizing offers for Talen Horton-Tucker, Kendrick Nunn and that distant 2027 first-rounder. Imagine that. So L.A. couldn't swing a single deal.
Just a reminder that great players—maybe even the greatest—are often terrible judges of talent.
Thaddeus Young always seemed like one of the league's most logical trade candidates, but the Toronto Raptors didn't profile as one of the teams likely to land him.
ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported the Raps added Young, Drew Eubanks (whom they subsequently waived) and a 2022 Detroit Pistons second-round pick in a deal with the San Antonio Spurs for Goran Dragic and a protected first-rounder.
It seems as though we underestimated Toronto's hunger for multiskilled, hybrid forwards between 6'6" and 6'9". That's on us. A team that routinely fields lineups featuring at least three such players, led by OG Anunoby, Scottie Barnes and Pascal Siakam, clearly has a type.
Even Toronto's "centers" (or, north of the border, "centres") skew diminutive. Precious Achiuwa is listed at 6'8", while Khem Birch and Chris Boucher are listed at 6'9". To that mix, the Raptors now add Young, another undersized big.
At 6'8", Young had an unusual late-career breakout for the Chicago Bulls last year, thriving in small-ball looks. He's played almost exclusively at the 5 this season for San Antonio.
Now he's a Raptor, and it's going to be fun.
Let Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid vie for MVP as conventional bigs. The Raptors are doing it their way, and their way is small.
The Sacramento Kings followed up their much splashier Tuesday deal, in which they added Domantas Sabonis, with a quieter exchange at the deadline. Per Woj, the basics of the four-team swap from Sacramento's end involved Marvin Bagley III going out and Donte DiVincenzo, Josh Jackson and Trey Lyles coming in.
There's no doubt the Kings are better now than they were last week. Sabonis is a two-time All-Star, and there's no guarantee Tyrese Haliburton will match that. DiVincenzo is also an intriguing two-way guard whom Sacramento has now acquired for the second time. Getting off Bagley's dead-weight salary is also a plus.
But this has to get filed under "life comes at you fast" from DiVincenzo's perspective. He goes from playing for the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks, who have as good of a shot to hoist the trophy again this year as anyone else, to the Kings, owners of the league's longest playoff drought.
The good news is that DiVincenzo is likely to get paid in free agency this summer. The bad news is that the Kings and their ninth-seed ceiling will probably be the ones writing those checks.
How can two teams that traded with each other in one of deadline day's bigger deals both wind up winners? Aren't trades zero-sum games?
Not exactly, as the San Antonio Spurs land here for their overall performance on Thursday, while the Boston Celtics gets their win for adding Derrick White, quietly the best non-star player who changed teams.
San Antonio has long been a wallflower at the deadline, but it shook off that status in a big way. All told, the Spurs added two future first-rounders and the right to swap with the Boston Celtics on a third.
Yes, losing White stings. But San Antonio had a glut of younger guards on the roster and is finally conducting business like a normal franchise—which includes packing it in and accumulating picks when a season isn't going anywhere. Good for the Spurs.
On Boston's end, White brings playmaking, defense and a reasonable contract that will pay him an average annual salary of $17.6 million through 2024-25. Lineups including him, Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum will be switchable and defensively monstrous. A first-round pick and a swap is a high price, but it's reasonable when the return is a 27-year-old wing who basically does everything Josh Richardson was supposed to do, plus more.
The Celtics also brought old pal Daniel Theis back by sending the expiring contracts of Dennis Schroder, Enes Freedom and Bruno Fernando to the Houston Rockets. When the dust settled on the day, they had accomplished their mission of ducking under the tax line.
Nice work (in very different ways) by both organizations.
The Washington Wizards should be invested in impressing Bradley Beal, but it's hard to see how acquiring Kristaps Porzingis and a second-round pick for Davis Bertans and Spencer Dinwiddie will accomplish that.
All KP proved with the Dallas Mavericks was that he wasn't capable of being a quality second option to Luka Doncic. Now he's supposed to succeed in that role alongside Beal, a star who isn't on Doncic's level?
Washington got the best player in this exchange, but it's telling that the Mavs were the team attaching a second-rounder to get the deal done. And while tastes can differ, one bloated superstar-tier contract compromises flexibility more than a few moderate overpays for fringe starters.
Porzingis will earn $33.8 million next year with a $36 million player option for 2023-24. Dinwiddie is on the books for $18 million in 2022-23, plus $18.9 million the year after (only $10 million of which is guaranteed). Bertans will average $16.3 million over the next two-and-a-half years before his early termination option ahead of the 2024-25 season.
This is ultimately a failure for Dallas, too. Porzingis cost the Mavs two first-rounders to acquire, and he couldn't help them join the contending class. But at least Dinwiddie provides insurance if Jalen Brunson prices himself out of their range in free agency, and at least Bertans' main skill—shooting—tends to retain value.
Washington won the Westbrook trade by dumping one big, bad salary for depth. That makes this reversal even tougher to defend.