NBA trade winners and losers: Cleveland Cavaliers deliver, Chicago Bulls not so much

LOS ANGELES – As the clock counted down on the National Basketball Association (NBA) trade deadline on Feb 5, it was the Los Angeles Clippers who drained a shot at the buzzer, while the Chicago Bulls seemed unable to execute the play drawn up in the huddle.

Giannis Antetokounmpo and Ja Morant were supposed to be the biggest names on the move and yet the Milwaukee Bucks and Memphis Grizzlies held their ground.

With the second half of the NBA season already upon us, there were multiple winners and losers as the trade deadline passed.

WINNERS

At least for the time being, the Cavaliers figured out how to make themselves a better team, all while sitting in a top-four spot in the Eastern Conference. Goodbye Lonzo Ball, De’Andre Hunter and the injured Darius Garland. Hello Keon Ellis, Dennis Schroder and James Harden.

Cleveland lose 10 years in the Harden-Garland swop but they suddenly have scoring punch for when star guard Donovan Mitchell goes to the bench. It was a glaring weakness for a top team, and while Harden, 36, is an older player, he has been durable.

The Cavaliers have yet to integrate their new pieces, although Ellis and Schroder did make their team debut on Feb 4 in a blowout road victory over their trade partners, the Los Angeles Clippers.

Harden, 36, was swopped for a 26-year-old in Garland, who has two All-Star Game appearances and a tight relationship with Clippers coach Tyronn Lue. What Garland will need moving forward is better health.

The Clippers also addressed their empty vault of draft picks by landing two first-rounders when they moved centre Ivica Zubac, whose old-school game lacks the versatility of today’s big men. And yet the Clippers also added Bennedict Mathurin from the Indiana Pacers in the deal.

The Clippers now have the fifth overall pick from the 2019 Draft (Garland), the No. 6 overall pick from 2022 (Mathurin) and two first-round picks for the future.

Trading Morant was supposed to bring Memphis the kind of draft capital similar to what the Oklahoma City Thunder had acquired to build their current empire and make them formidable for years to come.

With teams seemingly unsure of where Morant sees himself down the road, the Grizzlies traded Jaren Jackson Jr to the Utah Jazz for a package that includes three first-round draft picks. Add that to the four first-round picks they landed this off-season by trading Desmond Bane to the Orlando Magic, and Memphis can see a bright future, all in a matter of nine months.

LOSERS

The Bulls now have 14 second-round draft picks through 2032 and only five of them are their own. And Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu and Nikola Vucevic are gone now from a roster that was hovering around the bottom of play-in eligibility.

Guard Jaden Ivey is a nice pickup, assuming injury issues are behind him, but was there not a single first-round pick to be had this week?

The pursuit of Antetokounmpo inspired dreams of the Greek Freak playing alongside Stephen Curry. Oh well.

Not only that, sending out Jonathan Kuminga seemed like it would bring a decent return. But even while combining Kuminga with Buddy Hield, the Warriors were able to land only Kristaps Porzingis. At least Porzingis is on an expiring contract.

Golden State are currently eighth in the West, but that is merely a spot in the play-in tournament. Can Curry will another deep play-off run with the squad he has around him?

The Lakers won the 2025 trade season by ripping away Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks, but with merely a handful of expiring contracts to deal, they were going to have to be clever to land the kind of upgrade they needed this time around.

Enter Luke Kennard. He is not the most aggressive of talented sharpshooters and it is hard to see him being more assertive on a team when Doncic and LeBron James are yearning for the ball. REUTERS