Welcome back to Small Ball with Kenny Beacham on today's episode. I'm going to wrap up the NBA

trade deadline. I understand it was about four or five days ago, but it is a very important part

of the NBA calendar. At least traditionally, this is a time when teams get better, teams get

worse, teams

show their direction. So I want to wrap it up by talking about some of the things that I

thought about over the last couple of days dealing with the trade deadline. A lot of the people

that did get traded end up having their first game with their new team. We'll talk about

that. And then I want to pose a question about tanking. Because right now, tanking is going rampant. And it's not anything new, but we'll get to that a little bit later. If you are watching on the YouTube, be sure to leave a like. If you are watching on the Peacogs, it is not too late to scan the QR code and get in on the live show that we're doing at All-Star weekend in Los Angeles. It's not too late. It's not too late. So let's get into it. Let's get into it. Let's get into it. So I think overall, you know, I pose this question on numbers on the board, but y'all know numbers on the board a lot of the times on our shorter episodes, I'm more of a mediator and a host and a guy that would give like a full-fledged opinion. So one of the questions I asked the guys, like, how would you grade the 26

NBA trade deadline? So a few of the guys, like, I'm giving it an A. I heard an A plus. And I think

ultimately, ultimately, I'm going to give it like a B. It was fun. The one thing that I enjoyed the

most about the trade deadline was the surprise element of like the

Jaron Jackson Jr. trade, the Anthony Davis trades, those trades were out of nowhere, right?

I said that if you are going to make John Moran available, it makes no sense to keep

Jaron on the team. Literally that we know Jaron was going to be the guy traded and not

John Moran. I'm sure that a trade happened in the

deadline or the offseason everything. And though we had rumors all season long about Anthony Davis,

nobody pinpointed that the Washington Wizards were going to be the team and they get in on the fun.

I remember early in the season, there were so much Chicago Bulls, Anthony Davis bus.

The Bulls started off like five and no. It was like, oh, should they be buyers instead of sellers? You know, AD did once upon a time say he wanted to play at home before his career's over. Is this the time? And I swear to you, I hated every time that popped on the timeline. I'm so happy you won't the other direction. But ended up being the Washington Wizards, another not-so-great team buying in on the talents of Anthony Davis. But also, one of the reasons why this trade

deadline wasn't an A-plus or an A for me is that a lot of the teams that are competing for

the 2026 Larry O'Brien Trophy didn't do anything significant. A few weeks ago on this show, we did an episode where I did

my updated contender ranking. This was January 26th. So just a few weeks ago. I'm going to read you

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