Surprise, chaos at NBA trade deadline

Posted on by

By JABARI WILBON

Usually the trade deadline in the NBA is filled with moves from teams all over the league, but with 24 hours left before the deadline, no significant moves had been made besides Blake Griffin trade bout a week ago.

The Cavaliers made a lot of moves in the last 12 hours before the deadline, essentially revamping their entire team. They traded Isaiah Thomas to the Lakers for Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance Jr. Dwyane Wade was also traded back to the Miami Heat for a second round pick. Several other smaller moves were made by the Cavaliers later on in the day.

Emmanuel Mudiay was traded from the Nuggets to the Knicks and Elfrid Payton was traded from the Magic to the Suns. Rodney Hood and George Hill were included in deals to Cleveland and will make their debuts for the Cavs in the next few days.

Throughout the shocking chaos during this year’s NBA trade deadline, SportsCenter and other NBA sportswriter did an excellent job following all the action and getting it out to the public almost immediately when deals were finally made. Writers such as Adrian Wojnarowski and Marc Stein utilized social media very well, especially Twitter.

They both tweeted early in the day on Feb. 8 which teams were in trade talks and how likely it was that the talks would turn into agreements. They then broke the news immediately about all of the Cavaliers moves, starting with Thomas, the most significant trade deadline move.

Within the afternoon, SportsCenter had covered the trades on broadcast, bringing on Stephen A. Smith within an hour of Isaiah Thomas’ deal. Smith talked about how the trade would effect the Cavaliers and what the future is like for Thomas in Los Angeles. SportsCenter also used Twitter to share the news about the trades around the world.

Articles were posted online as early as 12:45 p.m. on Feb. 8 with analysis and coverage of the trades, almost as soon as they were announced. Overall, reporters utilized social media very well during this hectic time and also getting analyst on SportsCenter as soon as possible.