The Champ's Counterpunch

Wow, one day after the trade assets article goes up and we already got two moves! Albeit they’re both by the same team, but it’s a start! After a couple of hours of dancing around, Trieu made two huge moves that reshape his roster, in anticipation of a rock fight with Chunky Monkeys in the Finals. It’s just like Warriors-Cavaliers, move to countermove. One signs Durant, one signs Kyle Korver and Deron Williams… And on it goes. Let’s take a look at what our defending champs did today.

Trade ID#72:

• Sour Snails receive Brook Lopez and Mike Conley
• Team Cameltoe receive Hassan Whiteside and Darren Collison

Trade ID#73:

• Sour Snails receive Nerlens Noel
• Funk Coaltion receive Klay Thompson

No stranger to post-championship mega-trades, Trieu once moved LeBron James after he won our inaugural reset title -- although he failed in his title defense during an injury plagued 2011 Finals, at least he made a bold move and got to the title game again. And four years later, after winning that elusive second title in 2015, Trieu dialed up three separate trades during the 2016 season, netting Gorgui Dieng in December and then Hassan Whiteside and Dirk Nowitzki -- for DeMarcus Cousins and Rudy Gay -- right before the playoffs started. Those moves worked out great and pushed him to a back-to-back title. Will this year's major roster shakeup power Snails to a three-peat?

Realizing that Chunky Monkeys may be slightly more offensively powered than him this year, GM Trieu was looking to make up some ground on defense while upping his 3PT shooting. In a bit of a surprise, he moved for Brook Lopez and Mike Conley from Team Cameltoe, trading in Whiteside’s youth and upside. With Monkeys boasting two stretch centers who can hit 3PT in Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka, Snails felt the need to add their own stretch big, ending up with Lopez, who is averaging 1.8 3PT per game. And while Lopez isn’t a good rebounder, he does outscore Whiteside by four more per game, and isn’t too far behind in BLK either. Sounds like Snails got what they wanted.

Also, clearly the inclusion of Mike Conley was the grease that got this trade moving as Conley is averaging 19.3 PTS, 6.2 AST, 2.4 3PT, and 1.3 STL in a comeback year after getting paid this summer. We already mentioned Trieu’s glut of guards in the trade article and including the underrated Darren Collison — now the main man in Sacramento — was easy. With a historic three-peat on the line, Trieu moved all in to bring in some veteran experience. Interestingly, Whiteside isn’t really that young because he spent a few years in basketball purgatory, and is actually only one year younger than Lopez! (Conley and Collison are the same age.)

In addition to that, Trieu had earlier agreed to a deal to send Klay Thompson to Funk Coalition for Nerlens Noel, who will likely be a defensive menace in Dallas with all the minutes he can handle. Noel is a double-double waiting to happen and will average over 1.5+ STL/BLK with sterling FG%. He replaces Whiteside’s defensive numbers nicely and is a great pairing with Lopez. Losing his beloved co-Splash Brother will hurt Trieu but Snails has plenty of 3PT from the wings already, and even has the almighty Dion Waiters ready to replace Klay’s bombardment from downtown.

Overall, Snails shifted some pieces around to pick up some lineup flexibility and additional shooting plus defensive stats so now it’s the Chunky Monkeys’ move! Or do the Snails have more deals up their sleeve? Hum…

Now let’s take a look at what Team Cameltoe got out of the deal. We already mentioned their approximate ages but the gem of the deal is still Whiteside, who is averaging 16.8 PTS, 14.1 REB, 2.1 BLK, and 56.1 FG%. And it seems like he’s underachieving a little bit this year too. (Those BLK could even rise from there as Whiteside averaged 3.7 last season.)

We love absolutely love this deal for Felipe as he gets younger and now with Willie Cauley-Stein emerging in Sacramento, Cameltoe could have the most fearsome defensive front court in SlamNation with Anthony Davis, Whiteside, and Cauley-Stein.

Plus, Collison is a nice approximation of Conley too, with 17.1 PTS, 4.6 AST, 1.8 3PT, and 1.5 STL over his past month of games. This real-life Boogie trade really worked out for Felipe didn’t it? And there’s rumors that our new owner is ready to move some more veteran pieces too, so if you’re interested, hit him up and say hello!

As for Funk Coalition, adding Klay Thompson helps provide additional juice to their PTS/3PT categories after their recent huge trade. While GM Jon loved Noel’s defensive stats -- acquired before the 2017 draft for Tobias Harris and an upcoming RD2) -- he was sure that a pairing of Noel and Ben Simmons alongside Karl Anthony-Towns wouldn’t result in enough spacing. So instead Jon traded the twenty-two year old Noel before he even played a game with the Mavericks and will instead ride with twenty-seven year old Klay’s 22.0 PTS and 3.3 3PT, which will fill a nice slot in-between D’Angelo Williams and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in the backcourt. Team Punctuation, let’s get it! This was a pure offense for defense trade, a straight need for need, basically the best kind of trade there is.

So now let's see if either or both of these moves puts Sour Snails in the driver’s seat for this year’s playoffs. And it's not like Klay will miss a chance to three-peat, he'll just have to settle for shooting in the the Toilet Bowl instead of the Finals!