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What's the worst sports trade of all time?

J

JinjoUnchained

Member
It's gotta be the James Harden trade, right? OKC built a superteam from the ground up. They had Durant, Westbrook, and Harden coming into their primes on friendly contracts. That's 3 Top 10 players with excellent shooting, playmaking, and athleticism that broke into the NBA Finals the year before. And they're all playing for a rabid fan base in an era where the best supporting players regularly sign at discount rates for whichever team has the best nucleus.

So what did they do? Build a championship level supporting cast, headhunt a top coach, and count the rings? Nope, they traded away those rings when they ditched Harden for the expiring contract of Kevin Martin and spare change. All because their greedy oil company ownership team was afraid of a luxury tax hit that never came. And one of those owners later committed suicide after being indicted by a grand jury for bid rigging!

What trade tops this cluster-eff?
 
S

see5harp

Member
I don't see that as being all that bad really. They contended for years after they got rid of Harden. I don't even see the Vlade Divac trade for Kobe is that bad either. Divac was an established player and it was years before Kobe was Kobe. Julius Erving was basically given away for money. No assets or anything else in return.
 
L

Leunam

Member
Fernando Alonso leaving Ferrari to go to McLaren. And then McLaren going with Honda power over Mercedes.
 
S

ScatheZombie

Member
Eric Lindros for Steve Duchesne, Peter Forsberg, Ron Hextall, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci and Chris Simon and two First Round draft picks (that would become Jocelyn Thibault and Nolan Baumgartner) and $15 million cash.
 
G

gutter_trash

Banned
Babe Ruth trade duh.

in modern times, probably the Montreal Canadiens trading Patrick Roy to Colorado for garbage that began the Curse of Saint Patrick.
Colorado won the cup twice after that trade, LOL
 
S

SocksAndShoes

Banned
DeaconKnowledge said:
The Herschel Walker trade.
Click to expand...

It's this.

Wikipedia said:
The Herschel Walker trade, a.k.a. the "'Trade that made the Cowboys Dynasty"', was the largest player trade in the history of the National Football League.
Click to expand...

Players/Draft Picks Received by the Minnesota Vikings

RB Herschel Walker
Dallas's 3rd round pick – 1990 (54) (Mike Jones)
Dallas's 5th round pick – 1990 (116) (Reggie Thornton)
Dallas's 10th round pick – 1990 (249) (Pat Newman)
Dallas's 3rd round pick – 1991 (68) (Jake Reed)

Players/Draft Picks Received by the Dallas Cowboys

LB Jesse Solomon
LB David Howard
CB Issiac Holt
RB Darrin Nelson (traded to San Diego after he refused to report to Dallas)
DE Alex Stewart
Minnesota's 1st round pick in 1990 (21) (traded this pick along with pick (81) for pick (17) from Pittsburgh to draft Emmitt Smith)
Minnesota's 2nd round pick in 1990 (47) (Alexander Wright)
Minnesota's 6th round pick in 1990 (158) (traded to New Orleans, who drafted James Williams)
Minnesota's 1st round pick in 1991 (conditional on cutting Solomon) – (12) (Alvin Harper)
Minnesota's 2nd round pick in 1991 (conditional on cutting Howard) – (38) (Dixon Edwards)
Minnesota's 2nd round pick in 1992 (conditional on cutting Holt) – (37) (Darren Woodson)
Minnesota's 3rd round pick in 1992 (conditional on cutting Nelson) – (71) (traded to New England, who drafted Kevin Turner)
Minnesota's 1st round pick in 1993 (conditional on cutting Stewart) – (13) (traded to Philadelphia Eagles, and then to the Houston Oilers, who drafted Brad Hopkins)[1]
 
R

Randolph Freelander

Member
Herschel Walker trade is a good one, for sure. Similarly, Nets sending their entire future to Boston for KG and Paul Pierce.

(Great from the Celtics' side, though.)
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
If we are including all transactions (like selling Babe Ruth) the Jazz gave the Lakers a future draft pick in exchange for signing Gail Goodrich for 3 past his prime, uneventful seasons. That draft pick went on to become Magic Johnson.
 
C

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
Jeff Bagwell trade.

Raiders trading Gruden to the Bucs, stupid move. He puts the Bucs over the top and they win the superbowl the next year.
 
T

Tali'Zorah

Member
in football/soccer the main one that comes to mind is Arsenal letting Ashley Cole go to Chelsea in a swap deal for William Gallas. Letting probably the finest left back of his generation join their main rivals in exchange for only a relatively decent centre back (and £5m, to be fair) is undeniably a key reason in Arsenal's subsequent trophy drought afterwards.
 
HF2014

HF2014

Member
Lots of bad trade, but trading Gretzky at the time for absolutly nothing made the Oilers look really bad.

Roy for Thibault, Rucinsky Kovalenko is one of my worst personal team worst, same with Chelios for Savard.
 
J

Junior Asparagus

Member
Another big one that hasn't been mentioned yet:

Celtics getting Robert Parish and #3 (Kevin McHale) from Golden State for #1 (Joe Barry Carroll) and #13 (Rickey Brown).
 
C

Colonel Nasty

Member
The Harden trade. The NBA looks completely different if OKC keeps him. Hell the next year Russ probably doesn't go down because Hardens Rockets. Yeah OKC was still good but they definitely get at least one with those three guys.
 
M

Mudcrab

Member
rFrK84W.jpg


Spoiler: It was for worse.
 
B

BoogieWoogie

Banned
Albert Haynesworth to the Redskins. They gave him a $100 million dollar seven year contract. After he signed the dotted line, he proceeded to just start skipping practices, got super fat to the point where he couldn't pass basic fitness tests and essentially had to be kicked off the team. Still got the $100 mil though.
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
HF2014 said:
Lots of bad trade, but trading Gretzky at the time for absolutly nothing made the Oilers look really bad.

Roy for Thibault, Rucinsky Kovalenko is one of my worst personal team worst, same with Chelios for Savard.
Click to expand...

Didn't the Oilers win a Cup like a year or two later w/o Gretzky?
 
I

ISWThunder

Member
The New York Mets traded a 24-year old Nolan Ryan and three other players to the Angels for 140 games of 30-year old Jim Fregosi. Fregosi hit .230 in those 140 games. Fregosi was traded to the Rangers the following year... for cash.
 
M

McMoneyman

Member
ScatheZombie said:
Eric Lindros for Steve Duchesne, Peter Forsberg, Ron Hextall, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci and Chris Simon and two First Round draft picks (that would become Jocelyn Thibault and Nolan Baumgartner) and $15 million cash.
Click to expand...

Lindros was an amazing player(when healthy). But yeah that trade pretty much made Nordiques/Avalanche one of the best teams in the late 90s/early 00s. At least the Flyers were pretty good with Lindros, even though they never managed to win the ultimate prize.
 
S

Switch Back 9

a lot of my threads involve me fucking up somehow. Perhaps I'm a moron?
Maybe not the worst but I thought it was fucking awesome watching the Nashville Predators nearly win the Stanley Cup after P.K. Subban got sidelined by the Canadiens.
 
E

ElectricBlanketFire

Member
Not sure if this counts, but the Spirits of St. Louis shutting down their NBA team in exchange for a 1/7 share from each franchise (or nearly 2% of the entire NBA's TV money), in perpetuity.

Wikipedia said:
With network TV deals becoming more and more lucrative, the deal has made the Silnas wealthy, earning them $186 million as of 2008, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and $255 million as of 2012 according to The New York Times. (The NBA nearly succeeded in buying out the Silnas in 1982 by offering $5 million over eight years, but negotiations stalled when the siblings demanded $8 million over five.) On June 27, 2007, it was extended for another 8 years, ensuring another $100 million+ windfall for the Silnas. In 2014, the Silnas reached agreement with the NBA to greatly reduce the perpetual payments and take a lump sum of $500 million. In the last few years before the lump sum agreement, the Silnas were receiving $14.57 million a year, despite being owners of a team that hadn't played one minute of basketball in more than 35 years. The Silnas will, however, still be receiving a now much smaller portion of the television revenue through a new partnership with the former ABA teams the Nets, Nuggets, Pacers and Spurs.
Click to expand...

Tons and tons of free money.
 
Y

yrba1

Member
In terms of bad for both parties, the RG3 trade between the Rams-Redskins.

Redskins got RG3 (bust)

Rams got:

Michael Brockers (good defensive tackle)
Janoris Jenkins (signed by Giants in free agency)
Isaiah Pead (lost part of leg in car crash)
Rokevious Watkins (no longer on team)
Alec Ogletree (good linebacker)
Stedman Bailey (involved in scary off-field incident)
Zac Stacy (no longer on team)
Greg Robinson (benched this year)
 
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