Is chemistry the reason no NBA title winner has added a centerpiece player via midseason trade since the defending champion Houston Rockets dealt for Clyde Drexler in 1995?
Sure, teams have made trades for role players en route to other championships, including the Detroit Pistons adding Rasheed Wallace at the 2004 trade deadline, and more recently, the Toronto Raptors picking up Marc Gasol in 2019 and the Milwaukee Bucks dealing for P.J. Tucker in 2021.
None of those trades, however, were similar to the kind of blockbuster deals we saw this week sending Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns and Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks.