ESPN chooses clear winner in DeRozan 3-team trade Spurs helped facilitate

It's difficult to 'win' the offseason, despite the desire to claim a victory after an exciting rash of moves from some organizations. It's what you're supposed to do: take part in transactions designed to improve the roster. Most of the time, you won't truly know who 'won' the offseason until the season begins, and everyone can see how those moves paid off.

But winning trades is a different scenario. There can be a clear winner in a specific trade and the San Antonio Spurs made out like bandits when they enabled the Sacramento Kings and Chicago Bulls in their deal for DeMar DeRozan. When looking at all the moves made this offseason thus far, NBA Insiders have decided that the Kings and Bulls are at the top of the list for the worst moves made by any team in the league.

The Kings made a desperate move that may not work out

For the Bulls part of the deal, it's imperative to understand that moving off DeMar is not a zero-sum situation. The cap relief from moving his contract is valuable, but when looking at the deal as a whole, you're still losing a dynamic player and only receiving two second-round picks and Chris Duarte. Usually, trading a six-time all-star nets you more than a couple of picks that will likely amount to nothing and a four-point-per-game scorer who played 12 minutes a night last season.

The Kings gave up a productive veteran and awesome locker room guy in Harrison Barnes to bring in DeRozan. DeMar is an upgrade in a vacuum, but he has to fit with the team and there should be major questions about that. De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis are league-average three-point shooters, so spacing might be somewhat manageable, but that's not what either of them are best at. They need to be in the paint and midrange areas to be their most effective, and that's DeRozan's sweet space.

He needs the ball to be effective, so you are almost relegating Fox and Sabonis to spot-up shooter status, which is a basketball crime that should be punishable by law. Regardless, that is a situation for them to figure out. The Spurs got a productive veteran who fits perfectly into the offense, and a future pick-swap that has the potential to be very valuable down the line, and all they had to give up was RaiQuan Gray, someone who didn't play and was waived immediately. Sounds like a win to me.