Reluctance to deal first-round picks stalls trade action

	The Lakers balked at including promising young center Andrew Bynum (17) in a trade for All-Star point guard Jason Kidd. John W. McDonough/SI
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So the trade deadline has come and gone with little significant movement. It's a surprise, really; over the previous three years an average of 10 trades were consummated in February, with several big names moved in deals that shook the balance of power.

Not so much this year, as teams showed a surprising reluctance to pull the trigger. Why? Let's take a look.

• The biggest variable at the deadline was draft picks. Virtually every major deal that was on the table involved the swapping of first-round picks, including potential megadeals involving Jason Kidd and Pau Gasol. General managers, however, were loath to surrender a 2007 pick because the June draft is universally regarded as the deepest in a decade. Most felt that the talent they would receive coupled with the player cost was not worth including a pick that could be a potential franchise player. Interestingly, a lot of executives feel that a "building block" player could come late in the first round, making even the lower picks valuable.

• One minor trade I'm told fell through involved Atlanta Hawks guard Salim Stoudamire, who was close to being dealt to the Knicks. Stoudamire became expendable when the Hawks acquired Anthony Johnson from Dallas (a deal that was effectively completed on Wednesday), but they were unable to work out compensation with New York.

• Don't believe the hype: Andrew Bynum was never on the table in Los Angeles. The Lakers kill me. They remind me of that Seinfeld episode where George thinks he is about to become the Yankees' assistant GM and devises trades that would have netted New York Ken Griffey Jr. and Barry Bonds "without giving up too much." The Lakers offered New Jersey a plateful of garbage (Kwame Brown, Aaron McKie) hoping to score one of the league's premier point guards. It wasn't going to happen without Bynum, and for Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak, that was never an option.

• Lot of smokescreens going up in Chicago, which tried just about everything to acquire Gasol. Rumors of a deal for Sacramento's Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Portland's Zach Randolph were little more than an attempt to get Memphis president Jerry West to come down off his asking price, which was Bulls forward Luol Deng. I'm not so sure Chicago made the right move standing pat; Deng is an incredible talent with a huge upside, but Gasol would have made the Bulls instant title contenders.

• Cleveland was working hard to acquire Mike Bibby, but the Cavs felt they didn't have the pieces Sacramento was interested in, and a failure to involve a third team torpedoed the deal.

• Perhaps the most disappointing deadline team was Boston, which desperately needed to shake things up but came away with nothing. I'm told a potential Gasol deal was never a legitimate option based on Memphis' insistence on receiving power forward Al Jefferson in return. I'm a Jefferson fan -- the man has been a walking double-double since Jan. 1 -- but Gasol would have made the franchise viable again and given Boston a legitimate second star for the next 4-5 years.

• Finally, one player who won't be helping a team down the stretch is former Nets guard Kendall Gill, who had expressed interest last season in returning to the NBA. Bumped into Gill in Chicago on Thursday, and he seemed perfectly content with his new life, a life that included a new bride and baby. Gill, however, will return to boxing one last time this summer, a sport he took up two years ago and what he calls "the most difficult training" of his life.