Poor KG: Winners and Losers of the AI Trade

I am going to write about this in more detail in a column for Whatif, but here are my quick winners and losers from the AI trade that went down today.

Winners:

Denver. It is going to require an adjustment period, but if Melo can move past this sucker punch incident, I think this will work. There are more than enough shots to go around in Denver and while Iverson would do well to be a little bit more of the dazzling passer he was in the Denver All-Star Game (I think that was '05), he doesn't have to alter his game that much. It's really about Melo, which is nothing new.

Andre Igoudala. There are more shots and touches to be had in Philly now and he's got a decent point guard (read: not Kevin Ollie) to get him the rock. Of course, as long as Webber (the true source of all Philly's problems, from salary to shot selection) is around, Iggy's growth will continue to be stunted to a certain degree.

The West. The rich get richer.

The Nets. The Celtics are idiots, which means that atrocious Atlantic is still up for grabs which means New Jersey can keep skating by.


Losers:

Philly. They lost a long time ago. But they just topped it off with this half-assed trade. People are going to believe this is a decent deal because there are plenty of catch phrases that GM's love to throw out there like "expiring contracts" and "draft picks." However, Billy King wound up with a crappy deal here: a worthless expiring contract (Smith's $7 million will come off the books in year where the Sixers are still like $15 million over the cap), two crapshoot picks (even in a deep draft, picks in the 20's are a toss-up), and a journeyman pointguard with his own bad contract (Andre Miller and his three years/$27 million). Not sure what there is to get excited about here. That little grab bag in exchange for a once-in-a-generation player? Yikes.

The East. And the poor get poorer.

Boston. See above.

The Clippers. I still can't believe the Clippers wouldn't trade Livingston (the verdict is still out on him, by the way) when they had the chance to become a legit title contender overnight. Weird.

Kevin Garnett. Just when we thought there was a chance ...

Earl Boykins. Sorry, little man, your days of jacking up almost a shot a minute are over.