The person that should be thanked most for the Warriors revival....

Someone in Indiana should've been fired after that trade.

OH WAIT .....

 

Pacers looser fanboy here.

This was a trade that was less about acquiring players than two teams trying to dump them. Jackson was poison in Indiana after the Club Rio shooting. Murphy and Dunleavy were never going to fit into Nellie's offense, and Diogu at this point is an enigma. The Pacers were in a lose-lose situation -- the worst time to trade is when everybody knows you've got to dump somebody. Heck, Mullin, a buddy of Bird's, probably did him a favor by giving him that much for Wacko Jacko and Baby Al, both of whom also have a long way to go before their contracts expire, though not quite as long as Murphy and Dunleavy.

The dumber trade, in my opinion, was Bird giving up this year's first-rounder for Harrington. If you've watched the Dallas-Golden State series, you can understand why Indiana dumped Harrington the first time -- he's one of the smallest-time playoffs performers going. Reggie Miller has shown great restraint on TNT in not unloading on him. Mullin also undid another of Bird's mistakes by taking on Sarunas Jasikevicius (guessing on spelling), who is showing why nobody wanted him out of Maryland, yet still has two or three more years on his deal.

And Jackson is going to, pardon the pun, shoot the Warriors in the foot eventually. Sheesh, he's already been thrown out TWICE in this series. If Dallas finally gets smart and doubles Baron Davis every time he crosses the court -- that worked pretty well in the last few minutes last night -- the Warriors offense is cooked.

The only way this deal shows a clear long-term winner is if Diogu starts playing consistently at the level he's flashed on occasion. Otherwise, this deal is, at best, a one-year wonder for Golden State.

 

OK, Cook, if I'm reading this correctly you're suggesting that the only potential "long-term winner" in this deal (if Diogu starts playing consistently) is Indiana??? Umm, how to say this politely ...are you nuts? GS got the better players in the deal. Indiana got the more overpaid longer-term bad contracts. Since the trade, GS went from what appeared to be another forgotten losing season to having the franchise's best season in about 15 years or so. Since the trade, Indiana went from being a playoff team (albeit with a low seed) to a horrible team that had the franchise's worst season in nearly two-decades. Even accepting your conditioning this with the "long-term" tag, when Jackson and Harrington's shorter term deals expire and GS will likely be solidly positioned to make a run at a superstar free agent, Indiana will still be stuck with its hands tied by the bloated contracts for declining softies Murpy and Dunleavy. I realize Bird/Walsh felt like they had to move Jackson, but this appears to me to be the most one-sided trade (both short AND long-term) I've seen in years, and it sure ain't in Indy's favor.

 

Hey, I started off noting I was a Pacers looser fanboy, so that should answer the question of whether I'm nuts.

I'm just saying that this deal, while not looking so good for Indiana (to say the least) and while done with a gun to Larry Bird's head (sorry), is not exactly Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio. The moment Baron Davis gets hurt and/or uninspired again, Golden State starts dropping. Jackson will have some great nights for you, but you can't count on him every night, and Don Nelson can fine him until Jackson's wallet is empty, but he still will go out of control. Harrington has good-player-on-bad-team career written all over him. He's just disappeared these playoffs. But then again, that's not unusual.

If we're playing ifs (as in, GS can make a run at a free agent in a few years once the contracts expire), then IF the Pacers find a taker for Jermaine O'Neal -- a good player who is clearly never going to be a superstar/leader -- and, say, Jamaal Tinsley, then Bird has cleared up a huge amount of salary, not to mention what he gets in return. And if he can get a coach that knows how to adapt to his talent rather than shove them all into his own little square peg holes, than Bird has a team that at the least is back in the playoffs next year.

That's why I say the dumbest move, as it turned out, was trading that pick for Harrington. Presumably Bird figured it wouldn't be an issue because the Pacers would be in the playoffs. But having, say, Mike Conley Jr. in your pocket would be extremely helpful.