Trade (Deadline) Ten Years Later - Steve Blake for MarShon Brooks and Kent Bazemore
One guy gets $70 million and excessive sneaker money for being in the right place at the right time. One guy steps on a spike strip.
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. If I make the post after midnight PST but before I fall asleep (like I’m doing now) it still counts as “on schedule.”
The Names: Los Angeles Lakers receive: MarShon Brooks, Kent Bazemore. Golden State Warriors receive: Steve Blake.
The Team Context: On January 15, I wrote about the trade that brought MarShon Brooks to Golden State. Between “then” and “now,” they went 7-7 in a series of mostly forgettable games, notwithstanding this weird one where they blew out the 15-38 Philadelphia 76ers behind 32 points from Marreese Speights. It was still an ascendant team shaking off their past identity of mediocrity, but showing perhaps a crack or two.
The Los Angeles Lakers were probably considered the premiere franchise in basketball for most of the preceding, oh I don’t know, forty years? The Boston Celtics earned this title in the 1960s as a result of beating the Lakers in a whole bunch of NBA Finals, but the Lakers started to even things out in the 1970s and 1980s, then picked up a neat 5 championships between 1999 and 2010 to become the class of the sport for anyone too young to remember K.C. Jones. The Lakers entered the decade with an aging but still-potent Kobe Bryant, sufficient for an elite 57-25 record (.695) in 2010-2011, a great 41-25 record (.621) in 2011-2012, and a hmmmmmm 45-37 record (.549) in 2012-2013 that felt worse than it looks, as Kobe’s season ended with an April tear of his Achilles tendon and the team’s blockbuster trade acquisition of Dwight Howard meshed so poorly with the team that he bounced to Houston upon reaching free agency. The already negative trendline tripped over its own shoelaces and began its face-first plummet into the asphalt in 2013-2014, when Kobe fractured his knee six games after returning from rehabbing the Achilles tear. Suddenly, the franchise synonymous with stars was getting a team-leading 33.2 minutes per game from Jodie Meeks. The 2013-2014 Lakers would eventually win 27 games, a lower total than any previous season in Los Angeles.
The Player Context: Congratulations to MarShon Brooks! Sure, it was a bummer that you got traded to an ascendant team and then probably had to commute up and down Highway 17 while splitting identities as a Golden State and Santa Cruz Warrior for a month before being sent to a decaying Lakers squad. But now you’re a Trades Ten Years Later hall of famer as the first player to feature in two separate trades.
Kent Bazemore spent four years as an Old Dominion Monarch before joining the Warriors as an undrafted free agent in 2012. He got into a seemingly robust 61 games in his rookie year, but 23 of those appearances were less than one minute and 6 were less than five seconds (compared to just 5 appearances of more than twelve minutes). None of the appearances of under five seconds were really “garbage time” either; only two were at the end of games and those were in a still-close 116-110 win and a 100-97 win. All of the other appearances were at the end of quarters, where I suppose the idea is that Bazemore would play four seconds of enthusiastic defense while moderately extending another player’s rest. His gametime in 2013-2014 evinced slightly more human decency, with only five of his 44 appearances with Golden State lasting under one minute. After this trade, he played at least 10 minutes in every game with the Lakers and averaged 28 minutes per game.
The Washington Wizards drafted Steve Blake with pick #38 in the 2003 Draft, four picks after a guy named Sofoklis Schortsanitis who is listed at 6’10” and 345 pounds? And Wikipedia says 380 and that he’s called Big Sofo? He never played in the NBA but I cannot wait for his draft rights to be traded on July 15.
Until then, Steve Blake. He’s not going to be as exciting to write about as Big Sofo, despite certainly being a better basketball player, but maybe that’s an effective illustration. A pass-first point guard listed at 6’3” and 172 pounds, Blake bounced around five teams in the first seven years of his career. In those seven years he had the opportunity to sign as a free agent twice; both times he signed with the Portland Trail Blazers and both times he was traded before the expiration of his contract. He could be counted on to run an offense without looking like an idiot and had a few seasons with 3-point field goal percentages above 40% back before it was cool. This paired with a personality aggressive enough that the first video that comes up in a YouTube search for Steve Blake is titled “Toughest White Dude NBA Has Ever Seen,” which starts with a bunch of clips of him trying to fight people, and a game boring enough that the first highlight of the results is just two identical crossovers that feel more like an Evan Turner lowlight to me. This total package was enough for the Lakers to give him a 4-year, $16 million contract in 2010, at which point Blake’s previously clean injury history started to look a little cursed. Blake missed games with chicken pox in the first year, fractured rib cartilage in the second year, kicked off the third year with a foot puncture acquired by stepping on a tire spike strip (which, in fairness, was really tempting to me before I learned how to read), and then tore an elbow ligament in the fourth and final season of his deal. When he returned from the elbow injury on February 4, 2014, the Lakers immediately gave him a hearty helping of gametime that exceeded 36 minutes per game in all but his first game back. This was either an attempt to showcase Blake’s value ahead of the trade deadline or a reflection that they were seriously in short supply of “good players.”
The Trade: Steve Blake was scheduled to participate in a basketball game on February 19, so he showed up to the arena like any other workday. He changed into his warmup attire and started getting ready to play, only to be told about 75 minutes before the game that he was going to be traded. Less than an hour before tip-off, with not much time to process the move, he was in street clothes and talking through his “mixed emotions” about leaving his wife and three children behind for four months to go play for a more competitive basketball team. Immediately pre-game feels like it’s one of the least convenient times you could be traded as a professional athlete.
From the coldblooded perspective, it’s a move that really made sense for both parties. The Warriors were full of young talent and a no-nonsense guard like Steve Blake was an ideal veteran to sub in for Steph Curry. With the Lakers already locked into a season that fell miles below their typical standards, rolling the dice on two cheaper and younger players had greater potential upside than letting Steve Blake play out his contract.
The Reaction: Fellow Lakers guard Nick Young was not thrilled about the trade, bursting from the trainer’s room in front of reporters saying “What just happened?” before being pulled aside by Lakers PR.
Most of the Reddit comments are praising Steve Blake for his effort or Kent Bazemore for his bench celebration abilities. Suddenly, some CBA genius flies from the rafters, asking how this transaction could be allowed if Brooks is a “restricted trade player until the 15th” and “can’t be in deals that involved multiple players from his team.” It seems like a really good question if it’s correct. Somebody responds with “separate individual trades,” which cannot possibly be the correct answer in this two-for-one context that was announced as such. Nobody else provides an answer. It’s probably just a misunderstanding of a salary cap rule (you’re definitely allowed to flip players in the NBA) but I hope they’re right and that everybody involved just missed that this trade was illegal.
The Results: All of the contracts involved in this trade expired at the end of the season and nobody re-signed with either of these teams. Blake moved to a bench role and cut his field goal attempts per game in half. The Warriors gave him plenty of regular season minutes and cut back his role in their sole playoff series that year. They got basically the outcome they were looking for, even if it was a byproduct of not setting expectations for Steve Blake all that high. He left in the summer to sign with the Portland Trail Blazers in free agency for the third and final time in his career.
Strictly speaking, I’m not really sure if this was good for the Lakers. Brooks and especially Bazemore got substantially more minutes in Los Angeles and generally took advantage of the opportunity. But the Lakers were still terrible that season, and then both of these guys left in free agency. The Lakers got the outcome they were looking for, in theory, by trying out two younger players to see if either could play a meaningful role in the NBA. But then Bazemore proved that he could play a meaningful role in the NBA and the Lakers let him leave to do so in Atlanta.
The Aftermath: As anybody who has been in a dysfunctional relationship cycle could already predict, Steve Blake’s third contract with the Portland Trail Blazers ended the same way the first two did – on a different team. Blake was traded for the final two times of his career in the summer of 2015, first to the Nets and then to the Pistons, where he got 3:44 of garbage time in the first NBA game I attended (though it’s quite possible that we left before then). The Pistons made it to the playoffs, where they were gently swept in four close games by the title-bound Cleveland Cavaliers. With 10:14 left in the decisive Game 4, Blake had an assist to Andre Drummond, who was fouled on the play, then was subbed out on Drummond’s free throw shot to end his NBA career. Blake played nine games with the NBL’s Sydney Kings in the fall of 2016 before joining the coaching staffs of Portland (2017-2019) and Phoenix (2019-2020), the end of his run in Phoenix coinciding with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic. He had not posted anything to his Twitter account since April 2020, then broke his silence on December 23, 2023 to weigh in on which vehicle segment he wants Tesla to tackle next (golf carts).
Kent Bazemore went to Atlanta on a two-year contract worth $2 million per year. He played well in a bench role during the first season and then capitalized on a starting opportunity in 2015-2016, contributing across the board as what anyone would agree was a “solid player.” Fortunately for Kent, he had the great timing of entering free agency in the summer of 2016, when the NBA salary cap spiked and every team suddenly had too much money to give to solid players. Bazemore signed a 4-year, $70 million contract with a fourth year player option. Due to the absurd amount of money this is for any entity to spend on Kent Bazemore, it “[came] as no surprise” when he opted in to the final year of that contract, during which he was traded to Portland and then on to Sacramento. As a free agent with more of a $2 million vibe than a $70 million vibe in 2020, Bazemore chose to start retracing his steps, with a season in Golden State followed by a final NBA season as a Laker. That was his last basketball action until uhhhhhhh last Sunday (January 28, 2024), when the Greensboro Swarm of the G League announced that Bazemore was joining the team. If he’s joined in a mentoresque player-coach role, it’s not evident whatsoever from the box scores. He took thirteen shots in his first game (Wednesday) and eleven more in his second game (Friday). Let’s call 2021-2022 Bazemore’s final NBA season for now.
Off the court, Bazemore ended up playing an instrumental role in one of the biggest recruitments in sports apparel history. As an undrafted rookie in 2012, he was signed by the underdog sneaker company Under Armour. Bazemore was essentially used as testimonial marketing by the company, which sent him an unreasonable amount of free merchandise for a guy who was regularly playing four seconds in a game. This lavish treatment attracted notice in the clubhouse, particularly among the whale Under Armour hoped to land: Steph Curry. It helped that Bazemore proved to be a natural salesman, earnestly and enthusiastically telling Steph that he could get a signature shoe with the brand if a benchwarmer like him was getting such great treatment. The plan worked – Curry became the face of Under Armour in 2013 and Bazemore was rewarded with “an unusually high figure for a player of his profile” as well as a lucrative UA uniform contract for his Old Dominion Monarchs. “Stephen is one of the greatest talents of our generation," said Kevin Plank, Executive Chair and Brand Chief of Under Armour, in a 2023 announcement of the partnership’s extension. "He is an integral part of the Under Armour family.” Bazemore seems to still be a part of the family as well, serving as a coach at Steph Curry’s Under Armour camp in 2022.
I wrote about MarShon Brooks’ post-trade career a month ago and since then he’s played nine more games for the Guangdong Southern Tigers (3-6 in that timeframe with an active 3-game losing streak). Additionally, I learned that he tore his Achilles in March 2021, making his continued presence in the Southern Tigers rotation at age 35 a cooler comeback story. Since I pointed out recent games where he had limited playing time in January and now feel bad, I’ll instead highlight the 19-point performance in a 116-111 win over the Jilin Northeast Tigers where he helped overcome a 60-point, 12-rebound effort from the Northeast Tigers’ QJ Peterson. Brooks also played well in Guangdong’s most recent game, a 126-122 loss to the Zhejiang Golden Bulls. The Southern Tigers made 56.8% of their shot attempts, but the Golden Bulls were even better at 59.2%, and I’m starting to suspect the Southern Tigers might keep losing because they’re horrible at defense.
After posting a “worst in local history” 27-win season in 2013-2014, the Lakers went 21-61 in 2014-2015 and 17-65 in 2015-2016.
February 7, 2024:
Atlanta Hawks receive: Antawn Jamison
Los Angeles Clippers receive: Draft rights to Cenk Aykol
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