Trade specific: New Orleans Hornets acquire Carl Landry; Sacramento Kings acquire Marcus Thornton and cash.
NBA Trades: Hornets, Kings Both Earn ‘C’ Grade In Carl Landry Deal
New Orleans Hornets: So this is the finality of Dell Demps’ season-long quest to move all his assets for short-term help before Chris Paul becomes a free agent. The Hornets started the summer with two of the league’s top 2009 rookies (Darren Collison, Thornton), two 2010 draft picks (Craig Brackens and Quincy Pondexter) and a number of expiring contracts, most notably Peja Stojakovic at around $14 million. Their ultimate return for those assets? Ariza, Jack, Willie Greene and now Landry. That’s a bit underwhelming. This specific trade isn’t nearly as bad as the Ariza or Jack trades, but it’s still not great.
Landry is a good player that was stuck in a legitimately toxic situation in Sacramento, and a trade to a playoff contender should revive him. However, he plays the same position as David West, the team's mainstay at power forward, so it's unclear when he'll play. He played well in small lineups when he was with the Rockets, so he could play a lot with West, but that would require him getting back to focusing on playing in the paint. His shot attempts from 16-23 feet jumped significantly when he was traded to Sacramento, and that has to be curbed if this is going to work. He's also not much of a rebounder, which is problematic on this team. Grade: C-
Sacramento Kings: Thornton is a promising player that just fell out of favor with Hornets coach Monty Williams, but I'm not sure how he fits in with this team. At his best, Thornton is a very high-usage, average-efficiency offensive player that doesn't pass much and plays very poor defense. The Kings' backcourt is already filled with one very high-usage combo guard in Tyreke Evans, and the team as a whole doesn't play defense. Essentially, the Kings have downgraded from Kevin Martin to Thornton in the span of the year (though they have more cap space, I guess). Grade: C+
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