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It’s already been an eventful off-season in that seven trades went down before the NBA’s draft, and most of those trades involved players with sizable impacts in fantasy and/or real life. Let’s take a look at each trade and break down the expected ramifications for the affected teams and players. A reminder that you can view updated team depth charts here.

Phoenix trades Shaquille O’Neal to Cleveland for Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, 2010 second-round pick, and cash
Cleveland moves spare parts for Shaq, pairing two of the most physically dominating players in the game at an uprecedented level. The details need to be worked out - issue No.1 being how Zydrunas Ilgauskas adjusts to life as a reserve - but you can’t blame them for making the move at this price. The Cavs were already in the league’s bottom-third in terms of pace, so it’s not quite the adjustment the Suns had to make - even though I expect LeBron James’ usage to fall slightly, he remains my second overall pick (after Chris Paul). As for Shaq, he’ll get more planned games off this coming season and will dip under 30 minutes, but he should post a similar per-game impact.

The Suns will once again let the reigns go under Alvin Gentry, so you can hand out upgrades across the board. Steve Nash has a few “very good” seasons left in him and you can’t help but love Amar’e Stoudemire if his eye injury heals completely and he doesn’t get traded. Where things get interesting is after the two headliners. As it stands now, there will be plenty of stats to go around for the following group of players: Jason Richardson, Leandro Barbosa, Earl Clark, Jared Dudley, Robin Lopez, Louis Amundson, Goran Dragic, Taylor Griffin, and Sasha Pavlovic. You know J-Rich and Barbosa are ready, but fantasy difference-makers could also emerge from further down the list.

Orlando trades Rafer Alston, Courtney Lee, and Tony Battie to New Jersey for Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson
The Nets have now made a clean break from the past and move forward with a nice young core that includes Devin Harris, Brook Lopez, Lee, Chris Douglas-Roberts, and Terrence Williams, and Yi Jianlian. The Magic are likely hoping that Carter can fill the hole that would be created if Hedo Turkoglu does not return. While you can argue that Carter is a finer individual talent, I don’t believe his positive impact within the Magic gameplan will be as substantial as Hedo’s was. Michael Pietrus is the obvious upgrade at this point, as he’ll likely take over as the starting small forward. One thing to not expect with VC around is Dwight Howard’s offensive touches rising exponentially. Anderson immediately becomes a deep sleeper - his inside/outside game should fit in well in Orlando and he’s the first (and only) big off the bench as it stands.

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