Traditionally, groups are lively on NBA commerce deadline day, making a number of trades — generally inside minutes of one another — and overwhelming followers with commerce data that makes it troublesome to know what is going on on.
The Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets determined to present us all a break from this confusion by reaching a fast deal, giving us loads of time to soak up the change in surroundings.
The change? D’Angelo Russell goes to the Nets with Maxwell Lewis and three second-round choices (2027, 2030 and 2031), and Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton go to Los Angeles.
Let’s be clear straight away. Nobody right here did badly and each side achieved what they needed to attain. If you happen to’re searching for grades, each obtained a stable B+ on this one, and let’s have a look at why.
The Lakers are aggressive and so they have two of the very best gamers in all of basketball in Anthony Davis and LeBron James. They wanted authentic weapons round him, and Finney-Smith matches that profile as a various 6-foot-7 wing who can defend at a excessive degree and join on a excessive share of his 3-point makes an attempt .
At 31 years outdated, Finney-Smith is hitting 43.5 p.c of his 5.4-3 makes an attempt per recreation, whereas protecting all the pieces from capturing guards to smaller facilities, typically with a excessive degree of defensive self-discipline.
It is no shock that the Lakers are in dire want of a two-way participant who can compete on each ends of the court docket for prolonged durations. Outdoors of Davis, the roster was loaded with gamers whose major talent set skewed towards both offense or protection, and with the acquisition of Finney-Smith, they lastly discovered a participant they’ll depend on to a potential playoff push.
Giving up Russell, who has been borderline unplayable for stretches this season, is sort of addition by subtraction. His protection has been problematic and his offensive decision-making by no means appeared to mesh with new head coach JJ Redick.
In fact, the Lakers needed to pay for this improve by giving up draft fairness, however did so with out sacrificing a first-round decide, which is exceptional.
The addition of Milton provides the Lakers an instantaneous offensive kind participant off the bench who can see his minutes prolonged in a pinch, if the necessity arises.
For Brooklyn, it is all concerning the Benjamins. Russell is an expiring $18.6 million contract with little commerce worth, however the Nets are rebuilding. They knew they might lose Finney-Smith, who has a $15.3 million participant choice subsequent summer season, in order that they determined to get a head begin by buying a full-fledged contract arriving at expiration whereas getting three second-rounders so as to add to their draft capital.
Russell has no rapid worth primarily based on his play this season, so Brooklyn probably has no drawback with him leaving for nothing throughout the 2025 offseason.
That mentioned, there’s one other aspect to this, which helps the Nets.
It seems that Brooklyn has been surprisingly aggressive this season (12-20), to the purpose the place it might truly be argued that the Nets have already received too many video games.
Russell as an oblique tank commander could possibly be a low-key and shrewd transfer, because the 6-5 guard is not precisely an efficient offensive participant, nor does he play the caliber of protection that helps you win video games .
The downgrade from Finney-Smith to Russell is substantial, and it is a huge a part of why the Nets get the identical grade because the Lakers, given their aspirations to choose excessive within the 2025 NBA Draft.
