Zach Lowe: What we learned at the trade deadline

There just isn't another national basketball writer as good as Zach Lowe. For whatever reason, he was good at SI but he's even better at Grantland.

In this column he considers the new CBA and it's apparent affect on teams' willingness to hang onto first round picks, even late first-rounders. I've been talking about this very subject for a while, I think the long, inexpensive contracts of first round picks has to be viewed as cheap, valuable assets. But Lowe's not quick to buy the argument. He writes about it thoughtfully.

Later on he goes into some of the specifics of the trades that didn't happen... like the Utah-Clipper trade: How big a disaster is it that the Jazz didn't deal Paul Millsap or Al Jefferson. (A big disaster thinks I... but Lowe thinks it might not be a disaster at all.