When a trade is made in the NBA, it is not obvious, at time T, who will emerge victorious in the long term. With hindsight, we unfortunately realize that some operations can be disastrous and destructive for a franchise, missed out on a crack or disabled over several years.
Here are some historic deals which, in retrospect, are among the least relevant in the history of the NBA, by the level reached by the players traded or by what became of the abandoned picks in certain operations …
1956: St Louis does without Bill Russell
The most successful player in history and incidentally one of the most dominant of all time, has not always belonged to the Celtics. A franchise that he nevertheless marked so much that a statue was erected to his glory in Boston a few years ago. In 1956, the great rivals of the Celtics, the Saint Louis Hawks of Bob Pettit, counted, for a few moments, Bill Russell in their ranks!
Eager not to overshadow their star, yet capable of playing position 4 and 5, the Hakws immediately sent Russell to Boston against Cliff Hagan and Ed Macauley, two players among the best of the time but whose qualities have obviously never equaled those of the future legend with 11 league titles and 5 MVP titles.
A team with a Russell-Pettit racket could probably have made a season without the slightest defeat as both men were above the rest at the time …
1975: Jabbar in LA against … not much
The Lakers have always had a knack for showing very profitable trades for them in the NBA. In 1975, Californians got wind of the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Bucks star, to leave Milwaukee for a bigger market.
At that time, former Lew Alcindor was already running at 30 points, 14 rebounds and 3 blocks per game, which did not convince the Wisconsin franchise to wait to recover better than the rookies. Junior Bridgeman (8th choice) and Dave Meyers (2nd choice) as well as the most experienced Brian Winters and Elmore Smith, four players completely forgotten by the general public despite very honorable careers (Winters was 2 times All-Star and Bridgeman saw his jersey withdrawn by the Bucks).
It must be said that Milwaukee never returned to the Finals after that and that Jabbar had the career and longevity that we know …
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