Trading Deadline Becomes Much Ado About a Little

The NBA trading deadline passed Thursday without the flurry of movement that many had expected, but six deals went through involving 15 players and four draft picks.

The Denver Nuggets were the busiest team, making two deals with Indiana and one with Charlotte. The Hornets made two trades.

The biggest trade, in terms of volume, sent Mark Jackson and LaSalle Thompson from Denver back to their former team, the Indiana Pacers. In return, the Pacers sent Vincent Askew and Eddie Johnson to the Nuggets along with two second-round draft choices.

The Nuggets were involved in two other trades. In a side deal with Indiana, Denver sent rookie forward Darvin Ham to the Pacers in exchange for second-year point guard Jerome Allen.

Denver also traded veteran guard Ricky Pierce to the Hornets for guard Anthony Goldwire and former UCLA center George Zidek.

The Hornets made one other deal, sending swingman Scott Burrell to the Golden State Warriors for forward Donald Royal.

Toronto and Milwaukee also made a minor deal shortly before the 3 p.m. PST deadline. The Raptors sent center Acie Earl to the Bucks for guard Shawn Respert.

The biggest surprise was the absence of trades for Jim Jackson, Chris Mullin, Derek Harper, Clarence Weatherspoon and Dominique Wilkins.

Jackson, Mullin and Weatherspoon had been mentioned in trade rumors for weeks, and Harper and Wilkins had been prominent in more recent scuttlebutt. Harper, who wanted to be traded to Houston, vetoed a deal that would have sent him to the Utah Jazz, sources said.

The New Jersey Nets had a plethora of offers for the players they received from Dallas in a nine-player deal.

“Jim Jackson and Chris Gatling drew a lot of attention. George McCloud [traded to the Lakers] drew a lot of attention. Teams also expressed an interest in Sam Cassell and Eric Montross,” General Manager John Nash said.

“It was like I anticipated, it was very hectic, frantic at times because teams were all calling at the same time. There were other opportunities presented, none of which we thought were that attractive.”

The Pacers had struggled this season with Travis Best at point guard. In Mark Jackson, they get back the playmaker who helped them reach the conference finals in 1994 and 1995.

“This was shocking to me to some degree,” said Jackson, who was wearing a leftover Pacer hat with his No. 13 during a news conference before Thursday’s Indiana-Denver game. “I didn’t know where I would wind up or who was calling.

“But I never would have imagined being back here, just because of egos and different things.”

Pacer General Manager Donnie Walsh said Indiana made the deal because the team lost the winning attitude that it once had with Jackson at point guard.

“This trade can help return the kind of feeling that we want on our basketball team,” Walsh said. “We were losing confidence as a club and we needed something to help us get back on track.”

The Hornets had been looking for a point guard to back up Muggsy Bogues, whose sore knees have kept him out of several games this season.

Instead, they gave up an oft-injured swingman in Burrell and two second-year players in Zidek and Goldwire who weren’t seeing much playing time.