Contenders fall flat at trade deadline

For all the discussion of the NBA’s contenders trying to fatten themselves for championship runs, the league’s trade deadline turned into mostly an exercise of dumping bad contracts and positioning for future salary-cap space.

The Phoenix Suns and Cleveland Cavaliers injected drama into the final hours before the 3 p.m. ET deadline, but never could agree on a package that would’ve sent Shaquille O’Neal to Cleveland. The Cavaliers discussed trading Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic for O’Neal, but that wasn’t a trade that would’ve given Phoenix the level of payroll relief it wanted. What’s more, the Suns have been re-energized with the firing of Terry Porter, and aren’t ready to give up on this season.

The Cavaliers had conversations about several significant players leading up to the deadline, including O’Neal, his Suns teammate, Amare Stoudemire, Milwaukee Bucks forward Richard Jefferson, New Jersey Nets guard Vince Carter and Washington Wizards forward Antawn Jamison. But the Cavs never made a deal, despite dangling Wally Szczerbiak’s $13.8 million expiring contract. The Portland Trail Blazers also had talks regarding several high-profile players, including Carter and Jefferson, but ending up keeping Raef LaFrentz’s $12.7 million expiring deal.

As it turned out, the Orlando Magic made the most important move on Thursday, acquiring Houston point guard Rafer Alston. With All-Star Jameer Nelson possibly missing the rest of the season with a shoulder injury, Alston gives them stability at the position. The Rockets receive Magic forward Brian Cook and Memphis Grizzlies guard Kyle Lowry.

It turned out to be a deadline where marginal teams like New York, Chicago and Sacramento mixed-and-matched parts for future salary-cap freedom. The Knicks were busy, shipping Tim Thomas, Jerome James and Anthony Roberson to the Chicago Bulls for Larry Hughes and Malik Rose to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Chris Wilcox. Wilcox had been traded to the New Orleans Hornets for Tyson Chandler two days earlier only to see the Thunder void the deal on Wednesday because of concerns about Chandler’s left big toe.

The Minnesota Timberwolves, who had earlier discussed bidding for Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich, instead traded guard Rashard McCants and center Calvin Booth to the Sacramento Kings for forward Shelden Williams and guard Bobby Brown. The Kings made the week’s biggest trade on Wednesday, sending center Brad Miller and swingman John Salmons to the Bulls in a three-team, seven-player trade.

The Bulls also sent guard Thabo Sefolosha to the Thunder for a first-round pick.

That the trade deadline saw more financial deals than basketball ones came as no surprise. On the eve of the deadline, the NBA sent out an ominous memo to its teams to outline the dramatic projected drops in salary-cap and luxury-tax levels for the next two summers.

Because of rapidly declining revenues, the league office delivered a sobering warning to teams trying to free cap space for the historic free-agent class of 2010: Owners and executives will likely have to strip more payroll than initially planned.

At a time when most of the league’s teams are trying to shed salary, these stark projections did nothing to encourage the absorbing of top talent and pricey contracts.

“They’re scaring the crap out of the people,” one Western Conference executive said Wednesday night. “There were already not enough buyers in this market, and after seeing that [memo], there are even less now.”

One West GM predicted the market could become even more flooded after the season.

“You’re not going to believe the number of players that will be out there [on the trade market],” he said. “But I don’t know how many teams will be willing to take them on.”