It was argued back and forth for almost six months if the Nets or Knicks were going to acquire Carmelo Anthony from the Denver Nuggets. One day a deal would seem inevitable. Other days it seemed like nothing more but a mere fantasy. On Monday, all of the Carmelo Anthony trade drama was put to rest when the small forward was traded to the New York Knicks.
It was announced on Wednesday, Deron Williams had been traded to the New Jersey Nets. However, with this trade there was no back and forth, will he or won’t he drama. This one was not preceded by six months of here say, but this trade was more of the seven seconds or less variety. It makes fans wonder if the Nets’ front office was not scorned over losing out on Carmelo Anthony, decided to get drunk, picked a random NBA team, and called to make an offer for their best player. In other words, what were the Utah Jazz thinking?
In return, the Jazz received Derrick Favors, Devin Harris, two first round draft picks and cash. Not a bad haul by any means. However, was it worth trading arguably the best point guard in the game for? At this point, the only reason people can point to for the Jazz trading Williams is the organization didn’t want to go through all of the drama the Cavaliers and Nuggets did with losing Carmelo and LeBron. Considering Williams is not a free agent until the summer of 2012, isn’t that mindset somewhat pessimistic and hasty?
It has not even been a month since Jerry Sloan suddenly resigned after coaching the Jazz for 23 seasons. After coach Sloan left, many fans and analysts felt Williams may have had a hand in the coach leaving. For a second, let’s pretend that Williams did have a hand in Jerry Sloan resigning. If the franchise picked Williams over Sloan so to speak, would they have traded him three weeks later? Wouldn’t they have traded Williams at the beginning of the month and kept their hall of fame coach?
Unless Deron Williams is secretly one of the biggest locker room cancers in the history of sports, I just can’t wrap my head around this trade. Now, Utah has neither Deron Williams or Jerry Sloan. I am sure the fans in Salt Lake are outraged, After all, the Jazz are the only professional team in the state. Unfortunately, it may be along time before the Jazz see the postseason again.
It looks as though the NBA has a dangerous trend going on. Recently, we have seen star players leaving small market franchises and fleeing for big markets to join other stars. Cleveland, Phoenix, Denver and Utah are all potentially lottery bound for years to come on the account of losing their star players to bigger markets who can pay numerous stars.
Unlike the Cavaliers or Nuggets, the Jazz didn’t put up an effort to keep their best player. Unfortunately, Utah may have started an even more discouraging trend: Instead of living in fear of the big market teams luring your best players through free agency, the small market teams can now just expect the worst and trade their best players without having to deal with a free agency fiasco. Some may think this is smart and resourceful. I look at it as bad for the league.
Joshua Sexton is a lifelong basketball fanatic, who watches as many games as possible. In addition, He has played and coached the game at the high school level. He has recently started writing about the game of basketball.
