Now that a busy NBA trade deadline has come and gone, it's time to sort out who were the winners and losers this year. Thankfully, Tom Ziller over at SBNation.com has his own winners and losers breakdown. There are plenty of familiar names on the list, because many of them were involved at some point with the Denver Nuggets.
↵Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, who was burned twice on a potential Carmelo Anthony deal, is a winner, Ziller believes, because his team swooped in quietly and made a trade for point guard Deron Williams. Nary was a noise heard about it before it broke on Wednesday morning.
↵And, naturally, Carmelo Anthony makes an appearance since he finagled his way out of Denver and across the country to New York. He signed an extension with the Knicks and is supposedly on a winning team. Call me when 'Melo wins a championship.
↵The Nuggets don't appear on the losers list, which shouldn't be surprising. Yes, they lost stars in Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups, but a return of Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgov and draft picks is nothing to scoff at. While the package the Nets offered included Derrick Favors and four first-round draft picks, 'Melo wasn't going to sign an extension with Jersey. Nuggets general manager Masai Ujiri and owner Josh Kroenke held out for what they believed to be the best package and finally got the Knicks to concede. While not the best deal, the trade wasn't a selling off of essential parts for absolutely nothing. They wound up with more than the Cavaliers and the Raptors did for LeBron James and Chris Bosh.
↵But in all of this, Nuggets fans are the real losers.
↵