Trade (Deadline) Ten Years Later - Antawn Jamison for Theoretical Cenk Aykol
Which player reportedly lost $374,000 in a Ponzi scheme? The answer may surprise you!
The NBA Trade Deadline was on February 21, 2014. We will have a post each weekday until then looking at the NBA trades that were made in the month leading up to the deadline (most of which happened in the 24 hours beforehand). A schedule for the upcoming week can be found at the end of this post.
The Names: Atlanta Hawks receive: Antawn Jamison. Los Angeles Clippers receive: Draft rights to Cenk Akyol.
The Team Context: These were not your father’s Los Angeles Clippers; your father’s Los Angeles Clippers were horrible. The Clippers franchise had their first peak win total in 1974-1975, when they were the Buffalo Braves and got 34.5 points per game from Bob McAdoo to finish 49-33. A move to San Diego (and name change to Clippers) in 1978 was followed by a move to Los Angeles in 1984, the latter of which was made in open defiance of the NBA by generally loathsome owner Donald Sterling. The NBA threatened to dissolve the Clippers, Sterling filed a lawsuit against the NBA, and the parties ultimately agreed that the Clippers would remain in Los Angeles in exchange for Sterling paying a $6 million fine. The NBA likely spent much of the next three decades regretting this outcome, as Sterling distinguished himself as one of the worst owners in professional sports. The Clippers had a winning record in just two of their first twenty-six seasons in Los Angeles, a laughingstock languishing in the shadow of the highly successful Lakers. But in spite of Sterling, things were starting to turn around in Clippertown (soon to be renamed “Lob City”). NBA commissioner David Stern exercised the league’s control over the New Orleans basketball team to controversially veto a trade that would send Chris Paul to the Lakers, rerouting the superstar to a Clippers team that already had the highly vertical Blake Griffin and Deandre Jordan. The Clippers posted their best-ever winning percentage in the strike-shortened 2011-12 season (on pace for 49.6 wins) and, for the first time ever, broke the 50-win barrier in 2012-13 with a 56-26 record.
The Atlanta Hawks were also born in Buffalo as the Bison, but started moving just a month later. The team gradually became the Hawks as they bounced around Midwestern host cities, stabilizing somewhat with thirteen seasons in St. Louis before moving to Atlanta in 1968. There were some good years in Atlanta accompanied by a whole lot more bad years, with no years that were “great.” Despite a few impressive regular season win totals, the Hawks’ success seemed to be capped at the second round of the playoffs – they had not advanced to an Eastern Conference Finals since arriving in Atlanta. In 1992-93, the Hawks kicked off a streak of seven consecutive playoff appearances, then started the 21st century by missing the playoffs in eight consecutive seasons. They returned to the postseason in 2007-08 and entered 2013-14 on an active six-year playoff streak, but that run of fortune was in peril. Hawks star Al Horford suffered a season-ending pectoral tear in late December, at which point the team was a respectable 18-14. Atlanta lost their first three games of 2014 before stabilizing to go 6-7 in January, won their game on February 1, then lost their next seven games leading up to this trade to fall from 25-21 to 25-28. This was still a playoff-caliber record in the moribund Eastern Conference, for now, but the 25-57 record they were jetting towards probably would not be.
The Player Context: When you research Antawn Jamison in 2024 you get a lot of the fun fact that he’s “one of two basketball players with 20,000 career points to not make the Hall of Fame.” That fact is still true if you assume some active or otherwise recent guys are making the Hall of Fame (some of which might not?), but nobody ever seems to mention that those “two basketball players” are the two guys who just squeaked over the line – Tom Chambers had 20,049 career points and Antawn Jamison had 20,042. If you were to move the line from the round 20,000 to the almost as round 20,050, it’s a clean dividing line between Hall of Fame worthy and not. Still, 20,042 points is certainly a lot (the 55th most ever, in fact) so we’re obviously talking about a great player. Jamison averaged at least 15 points per game in every season of his career except the final one. The teams he played on were never quite good enough to compete among the elite, though a lot of this was just rough timing on his part – he started his career with the turn of the century Warriors, spent his prime with a Washington team that imploded under the command of Gilbert Arenas, then joined the Cavaliers to try patching the chasmic void left by a departing Lebron James. Like the Atlanta franchise he was being traded to, Jamison was frequently stymied in the playoffs, appearing just seven times in his career and winning two playoff series in total.
Jamison entered free agency in the summer of 2012 at 36 years old with about $140 million in career NBA earnings and opted to chase playoff success. Jamison spoke openly about the impact a ring would have on his legacy in 2012 at Grantland:
“If I win a championship, I’ll be put in a different category,” he said. “I know where I am with the totals, the averages, the scoring list or whatever. But I didn’t win in high school. I didn’t win in college. To have such a roller coaster career in the pros and to be a professional night-in and night-out and to know I put in the work and did all those things I needed to do to be successful, man … ” And here, the composed, intelligent veneer with which Jamison conducts his media responsibilities broke down for a second. He smiled broadly, looked up at the rafters, and said, “Man, I deserve it. I want one bad. I envision it all. I envision holding that trophy up, I envision going to that parade, I envision getting that ring. It’s the only thing that keeps me motivated, having my name associated with a champion. I just deserve it.”
He signed with the Western Conference favorite Los Angeles Lakers right before they began to crumble, as we laid out yesterday. Jamison altered his strategy slightly in the summer of 2013, signing with the team that had the highest over/under season win total (57.5) instead of the highest championship odds. Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to leave town to make the transition work. Although Jamison was seen as a pretty good minimum-salary pickup for the Clippers, a guy named “TheAnalyst32” made a prediction that LA would “have the same problem of having slightly too many players again.” This proved to be good analysis, as Jamison did not debut until he played in a 39-point blowout of the Bulls on November 24. New Clippers coach Doc Rivers (more on that later) alleged that Jamison was being saved for later in the season, but made a lukewarm commitment that evening that “moving forward I will try to use him.” Rivers remained committed for about a month, then stretched the boundaries of “use” for a few weeks after that, and then Jamison fell out of the rotation entirely on January 10th. His only playing time for the Clippers after that date was a 123-78 brutalization of the 76ers on February 9, and the only mention of Jamison in the game recap is to point out that he was laughing on the bench with a 54-17 lead 15 minutes into the game.
Cenk Aykol was selected with the penultimate pick of the 2005 NBA draft just a couple of months after his 18th birthday. He had distinguished himself as a key player for the Turkish U-18 national team; in August 2004, DraftExpress wrote of Aykol “he’s not a player that makes you think about the NBA, but he might be the kind of guy who quietly develops into an interesting prospect.” By August 2005, the site praised him as “the clearest example of go-to player seen [at the 2005 European Junior Championships] in Belgrade,” was “confident he will reach the elite in Europe,” and had a slightly brighter view of his NBA potential, saying that although it was rare for a guard with such average athleticism to succeed in the NBA, “Aykol might be capable of delivering.” Suddenly, the coverage stopped. DraftExpress had ceased writing about Aykol by September 2006, with the final update being that he “cried like a baby after losing the gold in the final.”
As it turned out, even confidence that Aykol would be “elite in Europe” was misplaced – he had a fine career, but never really stood out in EuroLeague or EuroCup play. The stats weren’t dramatically better in the domestic Turkish league either. He spent most of his playing days with Anadolu Efes in Turkey, but was playing for Galatasaray Liv Hospital at the time of this trade (following his prior season with Galatasaray Medical Park and an earlier stint with Galatasary Cafe Crown – if I were selling the actual naming rights to my team, I would demand much longer contracts than this from my sponsors). Despite being selected in the NBA Draft and traded for NBA players, Cenk Aykol was never particularly close to being an NBA player himself. By 2014, he didn’t even have much time left as a TBL player.
The Trade: This was another fake trade in the mold of Tyshawn Taylor for Theoretical Edin Bavcic, with undisclosed cash sent from Los Angeles to Atlanta that presumably offset the cost of Jamison’s NBA contract for the luxury-taxed Clippers. Just like our prior fake trade example, neither of these guys played in the NBA again and Cenk Aykol never played in the NBA at all.
The trade was finalized just before the Clippers team plane left for a Memphis road trip. “Yeah, just found out I was traded,” Antawn Jamison texted the Los Angeles Times moments after being told that he couldn’t be on the team anymore. “Getting off plane now,” he said, vague as to whether he was being escorted by security as he carried his things out in a cardboard box. The article also details Matt Barnes, who stayed with the team, constantly refreshing Twitter on the LAX tarmac as the trade deadline approached and rumors about his future spilled out in real time. I’m not a logistics expert, but wouldn’t it have made significantly more sense for the Clippers to schedule the team flight an hour or so later once their team was set in stone? They didn’t even play in Memphis until the next night. I guess it could’ve been worse if the flight was scheduled an hour or so earlier and they had to turn around to drop Antawn Jamison off.
An unrelated note: the Clippers made this deal subject to a restriction that prevented them from making any trades involving the Boston Celtics as a result of the summer 2013 trade where the Clippers acquired Doc Rivers as their head coach. This restriction was ostensibly to prevent Doc from poaching his Celtics stars, but became less sensical when these stars were sent to Brooklyn a couple of weeks later. With the Celtics in a non-competitive position and making trades for the future, it’s interesting to consider whether any worthwhile moves between the two teams were held up by that contractual language.
The Reaction: There was a perception that the trade was “probably a good move for both” Jamison and the Clippers, given the sparse playing time he had received in recent weeks. For the Hawks, “with [their] four hundred injured forwards/centers,” he’d probably get additional playing time. Even so, Hawks GM Danny Ferry discussed the trade with the caveat that “we’ll look at Antawn over the next couple of days and decide if it’s the best fit for each other” and with the odd throw-in compliment that “he really is a gentleman.”
The top Reddit comment says that, with Elton Brand and Antawn Jamison, “we’re gonna be so good 10 years ago” (though the commenter now seems to be a Pelicans fan). Weird to read 10 years later, when the idea of Elton Brand and Antawn Jamison on a roster at all sounds positively Mesozoic. Funny when considering that Cenk Aykol’s hype had also peaked about nine years prior to this trade.
The Results: On February 19, the Hawks had Cartier Martin, playing on the final day of his second consecutive 10-day contract, start a game for their basketball team. They let Martin leave the team on February 20 to give his roster spot to the newly-acquired Jamison. On February 21, the Hawks waived Jamison and promptly signed Cartier Martin for the remainder of the season. That night, Cartier Martin was back in the Atlanta rotation like he never left. The Hawks lost again to extend their losing streak to eight games.
Antawn Jamison had been considering retirement on the record for more than three years already and took this opportunity to end his NBA career in spite of fan pleas to join Washington or Charlotte. The Clippers made the playoffs as a 3-seed (57-25) and the Hawks managed to keep their playoff streak alive as an 8-seed (38-44) (lol). Both teams had a fun seven-game first-round series and that was about all in terms of excitement; the Hawks were eliminated with a Game 7 loss to the Pacers and the Clippers lost their second-round series against Oklahoma City. At least Jamison didn’t have to waste his time.
The Aftermath: Cartier Martin reportedly lost $374,000 in a Ponzi scheme in 2011, which is literally the only information in the “Personal Life” section of his Wikipedia.
Two months after this trade, the NBA forced Donald Sterling to sell the Los Angeles Clippers due to a leaked recording of his flagrant racism in a conversation with his mistress (or to use her preferred titles, his “right-hand arm man” and his “silly rabbit” (please, if you never click any other links, click that one)). Sterling complained about his girlfriend wanting “to broadcast that you’re associating with black people” when she posted an Instagram photo with Magic Johnson. Obviously, players across the league reacted with disgust, sponsors started dropping the Clippers, and members of the team considered boycotting a playoff game in protest. The Clippers were ultimately sold to recently-retired Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, the 6th-richest person in the world at time of press. In stark contrast to Sterling, Ballmer is regarded as basketball’s best owner due to his terrifyingly enthusiastic support of the team and willingness to spend his piles of money accordingly.
Antawn Jamison became a TV analyst in the season immediately following his retirement, then transitioned to become a scout with the Lakers in 2017. In 2019, the Washington Wizards hired Jamison as their Director of Pro Personnel. He is still with the Wizards today in what is probably the same general position, except he’s now the “Senior Director of Pro Personnel.” Congrats on the promotion, Antawn!
This was only the beginning for Theoretical Cenk Aykol, even though he had been drafted nearly a decade earlier and was basically done with basketball. Aykol’s playing career seemed to end in the 2015-2016 season, where he played 10 games in the EuroLeague and 28 games in the domestic Turkish Basketball League for Beşiktaş, then known as Beşiktaş Sompo Japan (the fourth of six sponsored names foisted upon Beşiktaş since 2005). The TBL indicates that Aykol spent 2016-2019 playing for "question mark," and his primary Twitter activity in that time was retweeting the successes of his professional volleyball player wife. Then he had a random final act of eleven games with [sponsor redacted for sanity] ITU in 2019-20, where he approached a TBL career-high with 20.5 minutes per game, only made 13 of the 48 field goals he attempted, and lost all eleven of the games he played in (along with ten others):
Aykol has been working as an assistant coach in Turkey since 2021.
In America, the concept of Cenk Aykol was traded twice in 2015 (from Los Angeles to Philadelphia and then onwards to Denver), then twice more in 2017 (a homecoming from Denver to Atlanta and then an unceremonious repackaging to Phoenix). After so many trades, a fan asked Aykol who owned his draft rights in November 2018 and Aykol responded that his wife did (at least I think that’s what he said; my Turkish isn’t the best). But the NBA trade economy has never respected the sanctity of marriage and certainly wouldn’t start for Cenk Aykol. Unlike Theoretical Edin Bavcic, stuck on a stacked theoretical Cleveland roster that includes the draft rights to nine players, Theoretical Cenk Aykol is one of only four players whose draft rights are held by the Phoenix Suns – he may have a trade or two left in him.
February 8, 2024:
Philadelphia 76ers receive: Byron Mullens, conditional 2nd round pick
Los Angeles Clippers receive: Future 2nd round pick
February 9, 2024:
Cleveland Cavaliers receive: Spencer Hawes
Philadelphia 76ers receive: Earl Clark, Henry Sims, draft picks