How trade deadline affects OKC Thunder amid winners and losers
Cleveland Cavaliers:
The moves Koby Altman made sending out six players and bringing back four highlighted the trade deadline. Obviously getting younger and adding scoring was an immediate plus.
With George Hill, the Cavaliers have a point guard much more along the ilk of what LeBron James prefers to work beside. Hill is a huge upgrade defensively over any point guard the Cavs had on the pre-trade roster. Additionally, he can run the team and get people the ball in good spots. Whether he can keep up his career perimeter shooting of 45.3 percent is the question.
Jordan Clarkson will add scoring off the bench and Larry Nance Jr. lands with the team where his father made his mark. As an aside, I almost shed a tear the OKC Thunder couldn’t find a way to snag Nance Jr. as I deem him an undervalued talent.
Finally, the move to bring in Rodney Hood may prove to be the biggest get of the deadline. The issues around Hood is whether he can remain on the court. The guard has already missed 16 games this season and has a propensity to get injured.
Short term:
No question the Cavaliers got younger and adding scoring power and undeniably improved at two positions. But, how much did they do to fix their defense? Clarkson isn’t known as a solid defender. Despite coming from the defensive Jazz, Hood has a negative -2.9 defensive box score. Hill is also a negative (-1.3), but he’s coming from the Kings, so it’s presumed he’ll be better with better talent around him.
As for the two Lakers, it’s a mixed bag as the young team ranks ninth in defensive rating. Nance brings a positive 2.9 box rating, but Clarkson is a negative -2.1.
The other key will be finding and developing chemistry with just 28 games to do so.
Long Term:
While some are indicating if LeBron leaves this summer the trade deadline was a loss. I’m not necessarily in this camp. This because Altman was able to add youth and talent while retaining the Brooklyn Nets pick. Certainly, the desire is to retain James, but at least Altman helped the future in Cleveland should the King leave.
Effect on OKC Thunder:
With the four new players needing to pass their physicals presumably they’ll take to the court to face the rival Boston Celtics. The OKC Thunder will play Cleveland the game after. After absolutely destroying the Cavaliers in Cleveland this team will be anxious to even the score. Fortunately, they’ll still be figuring out their chemistry and because the squads play before the All-Star break there won’t be much time to gel.