2024 NBA trade deadline in review: Did your team make the right move?

With the All-Star Game behind us, we’re now a full three weeks removed from the NBA trade deadline, giving us just enough perspective — and sample size — to judge the decisions each team made earlier this month.

Did the Milwaukee Bucks actually address their areas of need? Did the Dallas Mavericks leverage themselves too much? Should the Los Angeles Lakers have been more active?

We looked at all 30 teams and placed them in one of three categories:

1. Winners: Yes, they made the right moves and decisions. They’re better now.
2. Losers: Wrong moves, wrong decisions.
3. TBD: Still too early to tell.

Jump to a team:

ATL | BOS | BKN | CHA | CHI | CLE
DAL | DEN | DET | GS | HOU | IND
LAC | LAL | MEM | MIA | MIL | MIN
NO | NY | OKC | ORL | PHI | PHX
POR | SAC | SA | TOR | UTA | WAS

Yes, they made the right call(s)

The Knicks didn’t even wait until the deadline to make their first move. Instead, five weeks beforehand, they dealt RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley for OG Anunoby and Precious Achiuwa, which transformed New York’s offense just as much as it supercharged the defense. And the Knicks were the hottest team in the league for a few weeks afterward, until Anunoby left the lineup due to injury.

So, to make that move then to grab Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks from Detroit as bench players? All while not surrendering a single first-round pick in either deal?

It’s hard to see the downside, even if Bogdanovic and Burks still need to integrate with the second unit while the Knicks get back to full strength (and after the duo played for an abysmal Pistons club.) The short-handed Knicks have struggled lately, and opposing teams have outscored them by an average of minus-8.7 and minus-5.7 points per game, respectively, when Bogdanovic and Burks are on the floor thus far. Still, with Julius Randle still recovering from a dislocated shoulder, adding Burks and Bogdanovic gives New York added punch, a plus for a club that is sometimes too reliant on All-Star Jalen Brunson’s scoring and minutes. And that should help considerably down the line.

Boston didn’t truly need anything, as evidenced by its league-best record and its dominant starting five, which is outscoring opponents by 13.8 points per 100 possessions in nearly 500 minutes. With that in mind, the Celtics opted to merely tinker around the edges.

Newcomer Xavier Tillman isn’t the most skilled offensive player, but he is a fantastic insurance defensively — especially in exchange for a couple of second-rounders — in case Kristaps Porzingis or Al Horford is lost to injury. Ideally, the Celtics won’t even need Tillman much. He has played only three minutes since the trade to Boston, as has wing Jaden Springer. Springer hasn’t shown a great shooting touch, but the defense is clearly there, as he showed in individual performances for Philly against Stephen Curry and Luka Doncic right before the deadline.

After a puzzling deadline last season, in which an underperforming Toronto club head-scratchingly opted to hold onto free-agent-to-be Fred VanVleet while also acquiring Jakob Poeltl, this time the Raptors got it right. And in doing so, they (finally) identified a direction: building around 22-year-old Scottie Barnes.

The three first-rounders they acquired for Pascal Siakam was step No. 1. Step No. 2: finding young players who can grow with Barnes. And RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley have fit beautifully next to the All-Star wing — and should for years to come. Getting a first-rounder for a game-changer such as OG Anunoby would have been preferred, but let’s not nitpick. Barrett, in particular, has been highly efficient while averaging 20.3 points per game since joining the Raptors.

The Clippers’ trade deadline ended in October, when they orchestrated a deal for a future Hall of Famer. For months now, since those first five games with James Harden, LA has fully looked like a title contender. There’s a good argument to be made that the club would benefit more by deepening the cohesion between Harden and the other Clippers as opposed to changing even more.

They already have a top-five offense and a defense that’s within striking distance of the league’s top 10. They were elite before the deadline. And even with them being 5-5 over their last 10, it’s hard to be overly concerned. No move was truly necessary.

Charlotte quietly did a solid job of landing not only talent — Grant Williams, Tre Mann and Seth Curry — but also a handful of assets, including a first-round pick in 2027 from Dallas and two second-round picks.

But perhaps more meaningfully, the Hornets might have found something with this post-deadline group that clicks. Charlotte is second in defense since the trade deadline. That combined with the increased scoring from No. 2 pick Brandon Miller since injured star LaMelo Ball left the lineup in late January makes the Hornets worth watching. With Charlotte having recently pieced together five victories in a six-game stretch — after having won just 10 games all season prior to that — we might look back on this time as a turning point.

Minnesota, thirsting for consistent backup guard play behind Mike Conley, landed floor general Monte Morris from the struggling Pistons.

The pickup was huge for the Timberwolves, who saw their offensive efficiency drop by nearly six points per 100 possessions and their defensive efficiency inflate by almost four points per 100 possessions whenever Conley went to the bench. Morris, perennially one of the league’s best backups and leaders in assist-to-turnover ratio, has logged 16 dimes against just one miscue with Minnesota. Perhaps because of that, Morris is a plus-19 through his first six games for the Wolves.

It remains to be seen what, if anything, Gordon Hayward contributes to OKC. Still, the Thunder gave up very little for Hayward, who is efficient and can make defenses pay in a way that someone such as Josh Giddey can’t as a jump-shooter. Plus, Hayward has real postseason experience — something most of his new teammates don’t. (The club, which struggles mightily on the glass, also signed free agent big man Bismack Biyombo.)

Here’s the real reason why OKC trends toward “winner”: the other move the organization made at the deadline. To give up a 2024 first-round pick to Dallas in order to swap each other’s picks in 2028 was really smart. The Thunder don’t have the roster space to take on a draftee this coming offseason anyway, and they could really benefit by 2028 if things go haywire in Dallas with Luka Doncic.

in for Jrue Holiday. Enter Patrick Beverley, whom the Bucks acquired in exchange for Cameron Payne. Milwaukee already has seen the defense improve considerably since Doc Rivers got the permanent head-coaching job and Beverley joined the rotation. The club has gone from a bottom-10 team in defending on-ball screens to a top-5 one since Rivers’ arrival. The Bucks also have switched far more — 32%, up from 23% prior — in that span, making Beverley a solid fit.

Overall, Milwaukee has rated sixth defensively over the past month, up from 19th prior. It’s the kind of jump that will make you do a title-contender double take with this Bucks club.

Nabbing Terry Rozier two weeks before the deadline was very smart for a team that ranks in the league’s bottom 10 in offense — and it already is paying dividends. Through just nine games and 180 minutes together, the Rozier-Tyler Herro duo has produced 114 points per 100 possessions. Not great, still. But by contrast, the Herro-Kyle Lowry duo has scored just 106 points per 100 possessions in 394 minutes.

That added scoring punch, even if it provides less defense, will be meaningful come playoff time for a team that defends well but struggles to find the basket. (Delon Wright, who just joined the club and filled in for Rozier when he missed a few games with a knee injury, also could be a fundamentally sound difference-maker, as Wright showed in his Miami debut earlier this week.)

Phoenix badly needed two skills three weeks ago: (1) some perimeter defense and (2) corner shooters. Royce O’Neale, a career 38% shooter from deep and a solid wing stopper, brings both. With the Suns already having exhausted a ton of their resources into their Big Three, being able to land someone like O’Neale for a handful of second-rounders is a win. That was evident in Phoenix’s victory over the Lakers, against whom O’Neale logged 20 points, 9 boards and 4 assists in his first start.

It’s still early yet, but the Suns’ four-man lineup of O’Neale, Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Jusuf Nurkic — as Bradley Beal remains out with a hamstring injury — is beating opponents by 7.5 points per 100 possessions through 28 minutes.

The Cavaliers, who not only overcame long-term injuries to both Darius Garland and Evan Mobley in December and January but thrived throughout, stood pat. Wise move. With how well Isaac Okoro has defended and shot the ball this season, and with how solidly Dean Wade has played both as a starter and a reserve, the choice to keep things static was fine for a team that has been on fire since mid-December. The Cavs tapped into more of a long ball strategy while they dealt with the injuries and, in doing so, won 18 of their final 20 games before the All-Star break — tied for the second-best mark in NBA history.

Memphis, which has seen just about every meaningful player on its roster miss time this season, was clearly looking toward the future as opposed to the now. The club moved a pair of centers in Steven Adams and Xavier Tillman for picks and long-term flexibility. Adams, in particular, already had missed the whole season, and he was sent to Houston to help the Grizzlies avoid the league’s first tax apron. It is something that should help them spend much bigger, and more freely, if and when they have a roster healthy enough to win again with Ja Morant.

Yes, the team needs a stronger point guard to pair with Victor Wembanyama. Wizards guard Tyus Jones, the brother of current Spurs guard Tre Jones, would have been a great fit. Dejounte Murray would’ve been too, as someone who began his career in San Antonio.

But aside from a smaller deal in which they traded away shooter Doug McDermott, the Spurs were quiet. Here’s why that was smart: The team has considerable cap room — and Tyus Jones, specifically, is a free agent this summer — so trading meaningful players and/or picks that it would later want to build around its star big man would be foolish. Plus, with how Wembanyama has been playing lately, it’s wise to simply let him develop as is then give him an offseason to build cohesion with whomever the Spurs add over the summer.

If there’s one team that should receive the benefit of the doubt without making any tweaks, it’s the Nuggets, the reigning champions, whose starting five owns the best plus-minus in the league at plus-208 in 682 minutes. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

No, they made the wrong call(s)

The Bulls are mediocre, have been for years, and they made a terrible mistake by standing pat at the deadline. They’re the only club in the league that hasn’t made a trade at or around the deadline in the past three seasons.

If the goal was continuity, consider it a success: The team was ranked 22nd on offense and 15th on defense before the deadline — and 17th and 25th after. There was demand — reportedly multiple second-round picks — for rebounder extraordinaire Andre Drummond, who will be a free agent at season’s end. And demand (first-round picks!) for well-rounded defensive ace Alex Caruso. Yet both remain on the roster, as they did the season before. And for what? The Bulls are stuck in the mud — their double-digit home loss on Tuesday, in which they shot an abysmal 2-for-29 from 3 against the historically brutal Pistons, illustrates that — and the organization seemingly refuses to climb out.

A club on pace to post the worst defensive efficiency in league history went into and came out the deadline … with the exact same roster. We’ve seen enough of this group over the past year and a half — seventh in offense, 22nd in defense last season; seventh in offense, 30th in defense this campaign — to know something needs to change. With all that said, in light of Trae Young’s injury it’s fair to say the Hawks are grateful they didn’t invest big in trying to make a playoff run.

It’s strange to look at a roster with so many guards on it and say, “This team could use more shooting.” But that’s exactly the case for Orlando, which ranks 26th in 3-point attempts and 25th in 3-point percentage.

If Orlando finishes well enough to reach the postseason, its lack of perimeter threats will force a number of key players, including Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, to navigate the realities of less room and more physicality. Simply put: Teams that rank fifth on defense but 23rd on offense aren’t equipped to win in the playoffs. With that in mind, a sniper like Buddy Hield might have been a fantastic pickup for the Magic for this reason.

Portland made it known it wasn’t fielding conversations on veteran wing Jerami Grant, who is in the midst of a second consecutive campaign in which he’s averaging more than 20 points and shooting 40% from deep. But at age 29 and earning an average of $32 million, he falls squarely outside the rest of the club’s young core. He can teach younger players and earn the Blazers some unnecessary wins, but finding a worthwhile deal for him would have helped the club improve through the draft.

Maybe they did the right thing?

, who averaged 10 points, 8 boards and 1.5 blocks through his first six games with Dallas. Gafford’s contributions were critical in those first few games, as rookie center Dereck Lively II was out. The Mavs rolled the dice in acquiring power forward P.J. Washington, a decent player with size and adequate career perimeter shooting numbers. With this in mind, it’s no coincidence that the Mavs won each of their first four contests with those two in the lineup. It could turn out to be a sign of bigger things to come.

Still, Dallas needs to be incredibly careful in safeguarding players and picks as Doncic, a perennial MVP candidate, enters his prime. To get the frontcourt duo, the Mavs dealt away Grant Williams — a player they’d landed by giving up a first-round pick swap in a sign-and-trade — Seth Curry and a 2027 first-round pick. Put another way, Dallas has now depleted its war chest in a short amount of time, which is fine for now but could be costly down the road if the Mavs hit a ceiling and Luka gets antsy. The club eventually could look back and realize it spent too much to attain a pair of players who might ultimately still end up playing behind Lively and Maxi Kleber in key moments.

Credit the Pacers — with one of the most efficient offenses in NBA history — for going for it. They swung big by making a pre-deadline deal for free-agent-to-be Pascal Siakam, which cost them solid role player Bruce Brown and three first-round picks. It made a lot of sense to put another All-Star-caliber player alongside star Tyrese Haliburton, and the results so far have been solid: Indiana is winning by four points per 100 possessions — while generating more than 119.4 points per 100 — with those two on the court together.

That said, Indy gave up sharpshooter Buddy Hield at the deadline for seemingly very little. Sure, he is set to become a free agent this summer too, and the Pacers apparently wouldn’t have brought him back. But players who consistently hit 200-plus 3s a season at or around a 40% clip are rare, and the return for him was underwhelming for a team with a shot to make noise.

One of the most important qualities for front office executives is knowing when to part ways with talent. If you do it too early, you run the risk of seeing a player make you look foolish. If you do it too late, you lose any and all leverage in your deal-making.

The Jazz did well to avoid both — in dealing talented second-year guard Ochai Agbaji along with center Kelly Olynyk to Toronto for Kira Lewis Jr., Otto Porter Jr. and a 2024 first-round pick.

It’s the sort of move that likely wouldn’t have been available for the Jazz had they given it another season with Agbaji. But with Utah currently being just outside of the play-in picture and falling, making a deal for the future — particularly for a first-round pick — is arguably worth the risk, especially after having lost 12 of its past 17 outings. We’ll see how it pans out.

What’s not to love about the trade for Buddy Hield? The man has done nothing but hit 200-plus 3-pointers per season for the past five years at terrific rates. He has continued to do what he does best, hitting 42% of his treys in a Sixers uniform. But he arrived after reigning MVP Joel Embiid exited the lineup in need of a meniscus repair, and the results next to Philly’s other All-Star, Tyrese Maxey, haven’t been great: The club is underwater by almost 15 points per 100 possessions in the 201 minutes those two have been on the floor together.

The other moves — a clear tax-savings one to dump Danuel House Jr., one jettisoning Patrick Beverley for Cameron Payne and a separate one sending Jaden Springer to Boston — are questionable. The Springer deal, specifically, was a bit of a head-scratcher, in that it’s not that big a leap to see him eventually becoming a solid role player for an already stacked rival in the Celtics.

Ultimately, though, it’s impossible to categorize the Sixers’ moves until we see the new players in action with Embiid.

At first glance, the answer seems clear: This team did not get better by trading away solid veterans Alec Burks, Bojan Bogdanovic and Monte Morris.

Quentin Grimes has upside, given that he defends and shoots — skills Detroit needs in abundance. But he has only three games under his Pistons belt so far. Recent acquisition Simone Fontecchio, who has averaged 15 points per game and shot almost 39% from 3 with the club so far, certainly helps with the shooting too.

Perhaps Detroit’s biggest benefit is this: With no Killian Hayes in the rotation anymore, there’s no question — not that there ever should have been — about how much playing time Jaden Ivey and Marcus Sasser should be getting. Which is to say, a lot. Both have had some of their best scoring nights — 28-, 37- and 26-point performances from Ivey and 21-, 18- and 17-point showings from Sasser — since Hayes was pulled from the rotation then eventually waived.

If and when he can return healthy, Steven Adams — still just 30 years old — should be a great pickup as a backup center to Alperen Sengun, particularly as an offensive rebounder and a screener for a smaller guard such as Fred VanVleet. But at the same time, with the team free-falling (Houston is 2-8 in its past 10), some win-now help in the form of a backup guard would have been useful for the Rockets, given that they still have at least a shot of earning a play-in spot out West.

New Orleans stood pat, which makes sense in a vacuum. After all, the Pelicans have yet to experience a postseason with a healthy Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, and they possess one of the deepest rotations — if not the deepest — in the league. In light of that, they might want to see how that looks before making any other key roster moves.

They’ve logged a winning record since the deadline, but it’s worth noting they’ve gone 4-1 against the below-.500 clubs they’ve played in that time, but 1-3 against teams .500 or better.

Depending on how the Pels perform come the postseason, we might see movement this offseason from New Orleans. By then, the club could have a better sense of what it needs.

Washington is obviously headed nowhere fast, and it opted against truly shaking things up when it could (should?) have. But it was fascinating to read Kyle Kuzma’s comments in The Athletic concerning a deal the Wizards had on the table with Dallas, essentially saying executive Michael Winger left it up to Kuzma to decide whether he wanted a fresh start elsewhere.

Allowing Kuzma — an NBA champion who is well regarded throughout the league but who also has never been an All-Star — a choice instead of handling it coldly could garner goodwill with players and high-level agents down the line.

was less rumor and more fait accompli. Then he played arguably the best ball of his career in the weeks leading up to Feb. 8, making it hard to justify trading him. Shortly after the deadline, the Lakers did pick up guard Spencer Dinwiddie — who has struggled mightily this season — as a free agent once he cleared waivers.

After the series of emoji tweets and passive-aggressive moves from LeBron James, the Lakers could’ve made a panic move. But they didn’t, and that, in itself, could be a win on some level. Prior to Wednesday, the results have been mixed since the All-Star break: wins against the lowly Pistons, Spurs and tumbling Jazz (who have now lost 12 of 17); losses to the surging Warriors and Suns, both of whom have been among the NBA’s best teams since mid-January. Still, the Lakers’ come-from-behind victory against the Clippers Wednesday could serve as a shot in the arm for a club that has the seventh-toughest remaining schedule in the league.

Beyond the fantasy uniting of LeBron James and Stephen Curry, the Warriors have been public in saying their best chance at improving would come from within. So far, they’ve been right. They are 7-2 since the deadline and have found a rhythm after getting Draymond Green back from suspension, as Curry — benefitting from Green’s screening ability — drilled a whopping 25 3s over a three-game span at one point earlier in the month.

Steve Kerr and Dubs chose to move forward by bringing Klay Thompson off the bench for the first time since his rookie season (he has led the club in scoring three times in the five games since the change) while reinserting defensive stopper Gary Payton II into the team’s rotation after a long injury layoff (a key factor in lifting the club from 19th in the league in defense prior to the trade deadline to a much-improved ninth since then). Hell, add Chris Paul’s return earlier this week to that mix, as well. These things aren’t trades, but they’re meaningful shake-ups in the rotation that could prove to be important in the West.

Coming off its first postseason appearance in more than a decade and a half, Sacramento didn’t want to mess with its continuity unnecessarily this past offseason. And it apparently didn’t want to rock the boat too much at the trade deadline, either.

This isn’t to suggest that the Kings couldn’t have used any help. A player such as forward Jerami Grant would have been an interesting fit for Sacramento, although the Trail Blazers reportedly weren’t entertaining the idea of moving him. And even if that wasn’t a possibility, something smaller in scale — such as the move Minnesota made for backup point guard Monte Morris — might have helped, given that Kings backup Davion Mitchell struggles to score and is playing fewer minutes than he ever has.