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What began as the conclusion to the endless Carmelo Anthony rumors and the surprising Deron Williams trade quickly escalated into a full-blown NBA swap meet. The 2010-11 season clearly has shifted the landscape in professional basketball, and brought about perhaps the busiest trade deadline ever.

Boston and Oklahoma City pulled off the most shocking move of the day. The Thunder acquired Kendrick Perkins and Nate Robinson for Jeff Green and Nenad Kristic. OKC also got Nazr Mohammed from the Bobcats in a separate trade for D.J. White and Mo Peterson. The Celtics weren’t done with this move either. They sent away Luke Harangody and Semih Erden to Cleveland for draft picks, presumably to open up roster space for buyout candidates. Marquis Daniels was also traded to Sacramento for cash considerations.

The rumored trade involving Gerald Wallace from Wednesday came to fruition on deadline day. Wallace joins Portland in exchange for Joel Pryzbilla, Dante Cunningham, and draft picks. Phoenix picked up Aaron Brooks from Houston for Goran Dragic and a 1st round pick. Houston also dealt Shane Battier back to Memphis for Hasheem Thabeet and another 1st round pick. Late Wednesday night also brought about Baron Davis being sent to Cleveland in exchange for Mo Williams.

AccuScore re-simulated the rest of the regular season after the flurry of trades had passed.

BT = before trade deadline
AT = after trade deadline

Here are some key findings:

• Boston obviously still remains a lock for the playoffs, but its per game win percentage dropped -2.9 percent. More importantly, the Celtics’ chances of winning the No. 1 seed fell from 36 to 32 percent. Miami is in firm control of the East.

• Oklahoma City only improved its per game winning percentage slightly at 1.3 percent, but the full benefit of picking up two centers in Perkins and Mohammed will be more evident in the playoffs agaisnt teams like the Spurs, Lakers and Mavericks. The Thunder have long coveted a defensive center, and now have the size to deal with the Lakers and Spurs in the West.

• Charlotte is currently in 9th in the East trailing Indiana by 1.5 games. While the Bobcats lost their best player and are projected for fewer wins, they actually gained two percent in playoff probability due to the overall movement at the deadline.

• Shane Battier is not projected for big numbers with Memphis, but the Grizzlies did improve their playoff chances the most at +8.8 percent. He will serve as a nice replacement to the player he was originally traded for, Rudy Gay. Memphis also unsuccessfully tried to trade O.J. Mayo to Indiana for Josh McRoberts.

The Nets-Knicks rivalry just might come to fruition after New Jersey pulled off the shocker of the trade deadline by acquiring All-Star point guard Deron Williams from Utah.  The Nets sent rookie Derrick Favors, Devin Harris, two first-round picks, and cash to the Jazz for Williams.  The Nets then sent Troy Murphy and a second-round pick to the Warriors for Dan Gadzuric and Brandan Wright.

The deal came as a big surprise, and reportedly came together very quickly in the wake of the Carmelo Anthony trade.  While that trade barely moved the needle with regard to AccuScore’s projections for this season, the Williams trade is much more impactful.  The Jazz are currently holding on to the 8th spot in the West just half a game ahead of Memphis.  In 10,000 simulations after the trade, Utah’s playoff chances dropped from 53.4 percent to just 32.3 percent.

NEW JERSEY NETS
The Nets are significantly better with Williams manning the point guard position, and now have a true marquee player to anchor their move to Brooklyn and attract other players.  Williams is still not eligible to sign an extension, and could potentially be a free agent after the 2011-12 season.

This season though, New Jersey has virtually no shot at the playoffs trailing the 8th seeded Pacers by 9.5 games.  They would likely need to win 20 of their remaining 25 games just to reach 37 wins and have a decent chance of overtaking Indiana.  While that’s not likely, the Nets do improve by about six percentage points per game with Williams at the point.

PLAYOFF PAIRINGS AFTER TRADES
The Eastern Conference had no change in playoff standings but the Knicks’ chances did increase +7.6 percent.

In the West the Nuggets dipped after the Carmelo trade, but Utah’s decline resulted in an improvement overall by the Nuggets.  More importantly, the Memphis Grizzlies now have the eighth highest chance at the playoffs in the West.

The Grizzlies were dealt a huge blow Wednesday when it was revealed that forward Rudy Gay would miss at least a month due to a shoulder injury. Gay was in the middle of a career year averaging career bests in every major category except points.

Gay’s more efficient game this season had led Memphis to a 31-26 record heading into the All-Star break, tied with the Jazz for 8th in the West, and just a game behind the Nuggets. The Grizzlies have won 8 of their last 10 games, and a 13-5 record over the last month. The injury to Gay probably knocks Memphis out of serious playoff contention.

Even with the improved overall play, AccuScore had projected the Grizzlies to only average 11.4 wins over the rest of the season even with Gay in the lineup. This is due to a schedule jampacked with playoff teams coming out of the break. Here is the projected impact of this injury:

Memphis is likely to play between 12-14 games minimum without its star forward. Over that stretch, the Grizzlies are forecasted to lose 0.8 more games, and are 9.2 percent less likely to make the playoffs. Immediately coming out of the All-Star break they will face Denver, San Antonio (twice), New Orleans, Dallas, Oklahoma City, New York (twice), and Miami in less than a 20 day span.

Expect Memphis to compensate by playing Sam Young and Tony Allen together in the starting lineup. Another option would be to play Tony Allen at the small forward spot, and reinstate O.J. Mayo, who is coming off a 10-game suspension, back to the starting five. Although Allen and Young have played some of their best basketball in recent games, any combination of those three wing players are unlikely to be able to make up for the loss of Gay.

Before Tony Parker’s injury, the Spurs were projected to finish 6th in the West with 49.3 wins – just ahead of the Thunder and the Blazers.  Now with the news that Parker will miss 6 weeks with a wrist injury San Antonio is projected to finish – 6th in the West.

Despite losing Parker, a 3-time All-Star, for possibly the rest of the regular the forecast for San Antonio does not change significantly. His absence will mean more minutes for George Hill and Roger Mason with Manu Ginobili assuming more ball-handling duties. Keith Bogans and Malik Hairston could see increased minutes on the wing as well. 

The non-change in the forecast is less an indictment on Parker – currently averaging 16.5 points and 5.7 assists – and more circumstances beyond his influence at this point in the season. The Spurs are basically locked into one of the final three playoff spots in the West. They currently sit 1.0 game behind Oklahoma City and 1.5 ahead of Portland.  More importantly, the Spurs are 5.5 games ahead of 9th place Memphis.  With only 22 games remaining, it would take a complete collapse for San Antonio to fall out of playoff position.  The presence of Hill, Ginobili, and Tim Duncan makes that scenario extremely unlikely.

As you can see, Memphis has only a 3% chance of passing one of the three teams ahead of it including San Antonio. In the West, only the seeding is left to be determined at this point.

San Antonio’s closing schedule is very tough featuring road games against Boston, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Orlando, and the Lakers. The upside though is that San Antonio would be underdogs in all these road games even with a healthy Parker. The home schedule is no cake-walk either with the Cavs, Lakers, and Magic but the situation here is similar as well.  The overall forecast remains the same so Spurs fans shouldn’t worry about the rest of the regular season too much.  Instead, the team just needs to get Parker healthy for the playoffs.

The Grizzlies made an under-the-radar deal at the wire getting swingman Ronnie Brewer from the Jazz right at the deadline for a draft pick.  Interestingly, this deal might have made the biggest impact basketball-wise of all the trades made in the past few days.

Brewer is on an expiring deal, but will be a restricted free agent.  That means Memphis will probably be able to resign him on the cheap if it chooses to.  He is making a big impact on the Grizzlies – +1.5 wins over the rest of the season including a 10% boost in their playoff chances – because the bench has been so bad.  Brewer will easily outplay the likes of Sam Young and DeMarre Carroll as the first wing off the bench.  Great move for Memphis.

The Jazz dump salary, get another mid-first round pick, and open minutes for C.J. Miles, Kyle Korver, and Wes Matthews with very little change to their season projection.