Isn’t this the one-sided trade that’s most frequently omitted from lists of one-sided trades?
June 27, 1983
Celtics trade…
C Rick Robey (career Win Shares 15.8 / after trade Win Shares: 0.6 ! )
2nd round pick #28 (Rod Foster, played 35 games for Phoenix over three years)
2nd round pick #45 (Paul Williams, never played an NBA game)
Suns trade...
PG Dennis Johnson (career Win Shares 82.6 / after trade Win Shares: 35.3)
1st round pick #21 (Greg Kite, played 680 (!!!) games for multiple teams)
3rd round pick #54 (Winfred King, never played an NBA game)
I remember reporting at the time that ran along the lines of “Suns are getting a much-needed bruiser… Celtics are getting an enigmatic malcontent” and graded the trade a win for the Suns. At the time, I was 10 years old and thought, “Has everyone lost their mind? This is awesome! The Celtics just fleeced them!” Indeed, the next year, a banner would be hanging from the Boston rafters, and the rest is history. The Celtics grabbed another title in 86, DJ went to the Hall of Fame, Bird stole the ball and passed it to DJ, and later called him the best teammate he ever played with, and so on and so forth.
Most one-sided NBA trades happen under duress, player-imposed or self-imposed: (1) marquee player wants out and the team, lacking leverage, trades him for too little (e.g. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Charles Barkley). (2) Short-sighted management gives up draft equity in GFIN move that doesn’t pay off and delivers young superstar to another team (e.g Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, etc). In terms of straight-up, similar-aged player-for-player deals, Robey-for-DJ is the second worst I can think of, after Leonard for George Hill. The fact that Phoenix somehow threw slightly more draft equity into the deal than Boston is the extra slap in the face. In modern NBA terms, it would be like trading Mason Plumblee for Jrue Holliday (if Holliday had some personality issue surrounding him) plus the Plumlee team giving up more draft equity.
A few more fun points around this:
- At the time of the trade, DJ was a former Finals MVP. Robey had never been better than— maybe— the fifth best player on any pro team.
- Robey himself said when he learned about the transactionl: "I just had to laugh and tell him that the Celtics had just gotten a pretty good deal”
- Does anyone remember anything about Greg Kite’s post-Celtics career? Dude started 82 games for the 1990-91 Orlando Magic!
Edit: corrected DJ's win shares
June 27, 1983
Celtics trade…
C Rick Robey (career Win Shares 15.8 / after trade Win Shares: 0.6 ! )
2nd round pick #28 (Rod Foster, played 35 games for Phoenix over three years)
2nd round pick #45 (Paul Williams, never played an NBA game)
Suns trade...
PG Dennis Johnson (career Win Shares 82.6 / after trade Win Shares: 35.3)
1st round pick #21 (Greg Kite, played 680 (!!!) games for multiple teams)
3rd round pick #54 (Winfred King, never played an NBA game)
I remember reporting at the time that ran along the lines of “Suns are getting a much-needed bruiser… Celtics are getting an enigmatic malcontent” and graded the trade a win for the Suns. At the time, I was 10 years old and thought, “Has everyone lost their mind? This is awesome! The Celtics just fleeced them!” Indeed, the next year, a banner would be hanging from the Boston rafters, and the rest is history. The Celtics grabbed another title in 86, DJ went to the Hall of Fame, Bird stole the ball and passed it to DJ, and later called him the best teammate he ever played with, and so on and so forth.
Most one-sided NBA trades happen under duress, player-imposed or self-imposed: (1) marquee player wants out and the team, lacking leverage, trades him for too little (e.g. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Charles Barkley). (2) Short-sighted management gives up draft equity in GFIN move that doesn’t pay off and delivers young superstar to another team (e.g Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, etc). In terms of straight-up, similar-aged player-for-player deals, Robey-for-DJ is the second worst I can think of, after Leonard for George Hill. The fact that Phoenix somehow threw slightly more draft equity into the deal than Boston is the extra slap in the face. In modern NBA terms, it would be like trading Mason Plumblee for Jrue Holliday (if Holliday had some personality issue surrounding him) plus the Plumlee team giving up more draft equity.
A few more fun points around this:
- At the time of the trade, DJ was a former Finals MVP. Robey had never been better than— maybe— the fifth best player on any pro team.
- Robey himself said when he learned about the transactionl: "I just had to laugh and tell him that the Celtics had just gotten a pretty good deal”
- Does anyone remember anything about Greg Kite’s post-Celtics career? Dude started 82 games for the 1990-91 Orlando Magic!
Edit: corrected DJ's win shares
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