In hindsight, did Dallas have the best trade deadline?
They are clearly the team that realized the most improvement in won/loss record. I thought they made good trades. Addition by Addition and Addition by Subtraction. But the biggest issue was fixing their offseason mistakes of signing Grant and trading for Richaun Holmes.
Gafford and PJ Washington are not big impact players. If either went to BOS or DEN or another good team, they would hardly play, certainly not start. But in comparison to Grant and Holmes, they were major improvements.
I am still not sure how good DAL is. LAC didn't have Kahwi. In this series, I am not sure if DAL is playing well or if OKC is just playing bad. I have my doubts that DAL is going to hold up and contend for the finals, but we shall see. They have gotten hot at the right time.
i think Washinton and Gafford are a bit underrated cause they were rotting away on a dysfunctional franchise. They are only 25 and seem to have bought in a bit more on defense after joining Dallas. I know people will hate me for saying this but there is good chance both are better than Horford starting next season.
No hate, but maybe disagreement.
Even if Horford declines and they get better, Horford isn't even a starter on the Celtics now if we are full strength, so that was exactly one of my points. These guys made DAL better, but they would not have had nearly the impact if they joined other teams.
PJ Washington is a career 35% from 3. He was only 31% on DAL in 29 regular season games. He is about 41% so far in the playoffs in 11 games. I am sure he is getting better looks on DAL than he was on CHA, but that is a pretty significant jump from regular season to playoffs. In the playoffs, teams tend to focus more on stopping the best player, giving the lesser players more opportunity. We'll see if he can keep it up.
As to Gafford, he is doing pretty much what he has done his whole career. Classic blue collar big. Not that much different than Tillman if you compare career box score stats. But he is long and defends well. Top heavy teams like DAL need players like him. On the Celtics, he is certainly not a starter. He would probably play ahead of Kornet, but I thought that would be the case for Tillman. He would be a useful player, but not an impactful player.
Topic: 2024 NBA Season and Playoffs (Read 663073 times)