Every NBA team’s worst trade ever

According to Fox Sports, at any rate.

I definitely agree with some of the entries, but some of the honourable mentions seem like they should be the actual choice for worst trade, and others just flat out ignore rather important factors and context.

One example would be the Kobe Draft Day trade being the Hornets' worst...I can see where they're coming from, but it's ignoring a key fact that the article itself notes:

The Hornets selected Kobe Bryant with the 13th overall pick in the 1996 draft, but Bryant never played a game for the team. Charlotte sent him to the Lakers for Vlade Divac due to Bryant's unwillingness to play for the Hornets, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Kobe made it clear he had a preferred destination, and more than a couple of teams were warned off selecting him. The Lakers' pick was too low, so they made a deal with the Hornets in order to make sure no one else snapped him up. Talk about it being the Hornets' biggest mistake and so on and so forth, which Kobe himself has taken to perpetuating, is basically revisionist history.

The entry for Denver is also suspect, seeing as how Melo was leveraging a trade, and by the writer's own admission, what they got for him was pretty good, compared to a lot of trades involving All-Stars who are demanding out. Saying "they should have found a way to make things work with Anthony before being forced to ship him out" is really over-simplifying things, and is something that could be applied to basically any similar deal.

Portland trading Drexler to a contender at his request is another one where the context is acknowledged, yet seemingly ignored at the same time. If granting a veteran's wishes to move them to a more favourable situation counts as a terrible trade, then the Bulls' entry should've been Scottie Pippen for Roy Rogers and a second round pick. Besides, Thorpe was a pretty solid player in his own right; not equal value for The Glide, but an OK trade given the circumstances.

A couple of others are arguably favouring recent history over blunders that have likely been forgotten about. Take the Orlando entry, for example. I'd say trading away Dwight Howard is worse; granted, he was pushing for a trade to happen, but again, so was Melo.

Pretty easy for Oklahoma City; James Harden.

Even though there probably would have been ball-sharing and playing time issues, you have to imagine that three MVP level players would have made it work somehow and would have at least been back to the finals by now, if they were still together.

The western conference rivalry between the "big threes" of the Warriors and Thunder could have been a decade-long epic battle as well.

Thomas for Knight is bad, but the worst Suns trade has got to be Marion for Shaq. Closed their title window instantly.

I'd assert that Utah's Kanter trade, Memphis's Gasol trade and Denver's Melo trade weren't bad at all. Utah became a defensive juggernaut when they got rid of Kanter, who is now a valuable sixth man, but somewhat overpaid and a square peg in a lot of lineups. The Grizzlies turned the Lakers into a championship team, but acquired Marc who would make multiple all-star appearances and help make them a perennial playoff team. The Nuggets got tremendous value for Melo, but Gallinari going down in the midst of a 57 win season led to them rebuilding the team.

As a knicks fan I need about 2-3 days to really think about this one.

I can recall Hornets' worst mistake as acquiring a priest to pray for team during 2004-05 season

Carmelo was uninterested in playing for Nuggets after Knicks signed Stoudemire. He played great, but thought that it was the time to play for his hometown, that's the reason Denver traded him. It was rumored that he diminished team chemistry. That was proved after Nuggets lost a few games only after the trade.

I'll bash a few of these sure, why not?

The Celtics selected seven-time NBA All-Star Joe Johnson with the 10th overall pick in the 2001 NBA Draft, but he played just 48 games in Boston before being traded to the Suns (along with Randy Brown, Milt Palacio, and a first-round pick) for Tony Delk and Rodney Rogers. Johnson currently is in his 16th NBA season while the rest of those players are long gone.

But...Johnson's long gone from Phoenix and has played on multiple teams since then too? I don't understand.

The Nets traded Julius Erving to the 76ers for cash in 1976.

Because the Knicks required them to pay an extra fee to enter the NBA AND Erving wanted a new contract, they couldn't afford both.

The Hornets selected Kobe Bryant with the 13th overall pick in the 1996 draft, but Bryant never played a game for the team. Charlotte sent him to the Lakers for Vlade Divac due to Bryant's unwillingness to play for the Hornets, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Andrew mentioned this but it's not like the Hornets did this intentionally, the Lakers went looking for a team so they could trade up to draft Kobe. They originally weren't even offering Divac but garbage, the Hornets managed to hold out long enough for the Lakers to send them an All-Star center for a high school kid.

In 2001, the Bulls traded Elton Brand to the Clippers for Brian Skinner and the draft rights to Tyson Chandler. Brand already had proven himself to be the real deal by averaging 20.1 points and 10 rebounds in his first two years in Chicago, but the upside of Chandler was too tempting to resist. Chicago gave up on Chandler after five seasons, however, when he was just 23 years old.

Which was almost the same age they gave up on Brand...arguably it's the trading of Chandler that was the bad part because they did it to sign Ben Wallace at age 65 AND didn't keep J. R. Smith who they got back for Chandler and would have been a good asset.

Plenty of folks believe the Jason Kidd trade was the worst in Mavericks history, but that one returned Michael Finley, who played nine years in Dallas and made the All-Star team twice. Trading Jamal Mashburn to Miami in 1997 for Sasha Danilovic, Kurt Thomas and Martin Muursepp was far worse.

And what exactly did Mashburn accomplish for anyone?

In 2008, the Grizzlies traded Pau Gasol to the Lakers for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie, the draft rights to Marc Gasol, two future first-round picks and cash considerations. Memphis fans may be happy with the deal now, but the reality is that the Lakers got two championships out of the deal, while the Grizzlies have yet to make a Finals appearance.

Okay...so? The Grizzlies replaced one franchise Gasol with another and have had their best string of success with him. What does the Lakers success have to do with anything?

The Heat traded Steve Smith and Grant Long to Atlanta for Kevin Willis in 1994. Willis was gone in the middle of the following season, while Smith avaeraged 18.6 points per game in his five years with the Hawks.

Willis was flipped for Tim Hardaway who did more for Miami than Mashburn ever did...so...

The Jazz traded Enes Kanter to the Thunder as part of a three-team deadline deal in 2015, but received only Grant Jerrett, Kendrick Perkins, the rights to Tibor Pleiss and a conditional first-round draft pick in 2017. Kanter may not have been a personality fit in Utah, but two teams (the Blazers and Thunder) were willing to sign him to a max contract that summer — which makes the return that Utah received that much more ridiculous.

What? No, that's not this works, that's not how any of this works.

Dont agree with the Memphis Gasol deal. They got Marc Gasol who has been the anchor for their team for the past few seasons. They just haven't done a good job of filling out their roster to take them to contending status.

I don't see how Al Jefferson being traded away can be bad. I would stop watching the Blazers if he was on my team.