Life Can Be Rough At the Top
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
(Archive)
The disappointment is palpable. Inevitable and understandable, too.

You can still remember those dizzying 20 days in February 2008 during which Pau Gasol, Shaquille O'Neal and Jason Kidd were all traded. You obviously want that every February now.

So you are bound to be underwhelmed when the face of Trade Deadline 2009 is either Rafer Alston or Tyson Chandler.

Can't blame you. Not when the deal with the biggest potential impact on the le race is Alston going to Orlando to be Jameer Nelson's new stand-in. Not when the most memorable deal of the deadline is Chandler's trade getting rescinded one day after consummation. Not when the third contender for face-of-the-deadline status is probably David Stern, after the commissioner used his All-Star Weekend pulpit to issue his first-ever public warning that the salary cap and luxury-tax threshold will be coming down, when much of the league was already freaked out about the impact of the global economic crisis on basketball business.

Add it all up and you quickly conclude that the Lakers and Laker Lovers must be the only folks getting any satisfaction out of this week's developments.

Yet I can't say that the deadline was a major disappointment at Stein Line HQ, because we had a feeling that this deadline never had a chance. You know our long-held stance that the run of trades which began with Allen Iverson's move from Philadelphia to Denver in December 2006 through Iverson's trade from Denver to Detroit at the start of this season is the most epic two-year run of swaps that this league has ever seen. With such high standards to live up to -- and after hearing on a daily basis from executives all over the NBA map how financially strapped they increasingly feel -- I'd say we did pretty well to come as close to a Shaquille O'Neal trade to Cleveland as we did Thursday.

There were also some strong rumblings out of Phoenix on Friday to suggest that Shaq would have been traded to Cleveland had the Suns had learned the severity of Amare Stoudemire's eye damage one day sooner.

As for trying to pinpoint a few teams that did well as the trade buzzer sounded, Orlando certainly did well to find a proven starting point guard at the 11th hour. Sacramento cleaned up its payroll better than the Maloof brothers could have dreamed when the week began. But we keep getting drawn to the same team.

Kobe's.

Even the big-market Lakers felt they had to make two payroll-slashing trades this month, dumping Vladimir Radmanovic to Charlotte for Adam Morrison and Shannon Brown and then paying the Memphis Grizzlies to take Chris Mihm from them. If that doesn't slam home how tough times are, nothing will.

But it's also true that the inability (or financially motivated reluctance) of countless contenders to improve their rosters -- coupled with the league's raging injury epidemic -- has only strengthened the Lakers' position as the best team in the league as March beckons. You know how we work around here: Power Rankings are a Monday enterprise. Yet it feels quite appropriate, as we assess a month that began with the Lakers learning that Andrew Bynum would be out for at least the rest of the regular season with another knee injury, to take note of how vice-like L.A.'s hold on the top spot appears after the passing of the most important date on the February calendar.

The Celtics just lost Kevin Garnett to a knee injury that has quietly concerned the reigning champs all season. Boston also felt it had to pass on a deadline deal for an ideal James Posey replacement -- Andres Nocioni -- because Nocioni's contract is even richer than the deal Posey received from New Orleans which the Celts felt they couldn't match last summer.

The Cavaliers ultimately couldn't complete a deal for O'Neal or Milwaukee's Richard Jefferson, even though they were blessed with a trade asset Boston could only dream of: Wally Szczerbiak's $13.8 million expiring contract. Cleveland is thus forced to compete with Boston, San Antonio and many other playoff teams for any decent veteran free agent who can secure a buyout before March 1 to retain playoff eligibility.

The Spurs, meanwhile, remain the only team in the West that can realistically play with L.A. in a seven-game series, thanks to the non-moves and injury woes dragging down the rest of the conference. Yet it was still a very disheartening week for them, with Manu Ginobili being ruled out for at least two weeks because of a new foot problem (after offseason ankle surgery on the other foot) and with the Spurs believing they were close to a deal with the Clippers for Marcus Camby, only for L.A. to ultimately say no to a package featuring Bruce Bowen, Fabricio Oberto and promising rookie George Hill.

It's safe to say that the Alston acquisition won't be troubling the Lakers, either. Clutch as the trade was for the Magic with Nelson headed for season-ending surgery and Tyronn Lue and Anthony Johnson clearly not filling the void, Alston can only help Orlando so much. There were plenty of skeptics about the Magic's ability to beat Boston or Cleveland in a playoff series even with Nelson.

On this scorecard, though, all those injuries stand out as the league's greatest source of disappointment these days. The Lakers have already proven that they have the depth to get to the NBA Finals without Bynum, but it's a totally different tale for the teams that have lost these prominent names: Garnett, Ginobili, Nelson, Stoudemire, Chandler, Dallas' Jason Terry, Utah's Carlos Boozer, Houston's Tracy McGrady, Charlotte's Gerald Wallace and two major absentees each for Milwaukee (Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut) and Indiana (Danny Granger and Mike Dunleavy). Don't forget that Philadelphia's Elton Brand and Minnesota's Al Jefferson also suffered season-ending injuries recently in what's been a brutal month for the NBA health industry.

I don't disagree that this deadline will probably be remembered more for what didn't happen than what did, but scrolling through that injured list is what really brings me down. Shaq, Stoudemire and Vince Carter were all generating legit offers right up to 3 p.m. on Thursday. There have been worse deadlines, folks. Much worse.

Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. To e-mail him, click here.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailyd...dime-090221-22