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2016-17 NBA Awards: The Billy King Award for worst trade
Sacramento Kings GM Vlade Divac traded All-Star DeMarcus Cousins to the New Orleans Pelicans for Buddy Hield and draft picks. Rocky Widner/Getty Images

2016-17 NBA Awards: The Billy King Award for worst trade

Monday night, the first televised NBA Awards show takes place. Finally, some two months after the end of the 2016-17 NBA regular season, we'll find out who takes home MVP, Rookie of the Year, Executive of the Year, Sixth Man, Coach of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and more. However, the annual honors bestowed on players, coaches and executives alike leave something to be desired.

If you're going to have an awards show, you may as well go all out with the type of awards fans really care about. Luckily for you, we at Yardbarker are here to help. In addition to the annual awards the league hands out, we've added a few of our own.

Just this week, we've seen our share of major trades in the NBA. It began with the Boston Celtics trading the No. 1 overall draft pick to the Philadelphia 76ers for a package of picks, followed by the Los Angeles Lakers trading former No. 2 overall pick D'Angelo Russell to the Brooklyn Nets, Dwight Howard being shipped to Charlotte, Jimmy Butler getting dealt to the Minnesota Timberwolves and a plethora of draft night moves. There undoubtedly will be more moves to come.

Only time will tell how those trades work out. Chances are a couple of those moves will turn out poorly for at least one party involved. The same is true of the trades made during the 2016-17 NBA season. So in honor of former Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets GM Billy King — a general manager known for making extremely bold and ultimately fruitless deals for both squads — we present the Billy King Award for worst trade of the 2016-17 NBA season:

Alex Wong: Vlade Divac's DeMarcus Cousins trade. Forget about all of the chemistry issues concerning a volatile superstar like Boogie. The Kings, a franchise that's been in disarray for years, decided suddenly on All-Star Sunday, after years of back and forth, that they absolutely needed to get rid of their best player by day's end. They did and ended up getting a return from New Orleans that included Buddy Hield and draft picks, which, yeah. It's never a great trade when the first reaction from editors is to ask if you want to put together a worst trade ever listicle, which is what happened in this case.

Joe Boland: Kings give away DeMarcus Cousins: When you admit you had a better deal two days ago, as Vlade Divac did, that's about as bad as it gets.

Jason Clinkscales: The DeMarcus Cousins trade is going to win out of this one, no matter what. Yet, can we get a nod for whatever Chicago attempted to do with its deadline trade with Oklahoma City? It was believed that the Bulls traded Doug McDermott and Taj Gibson for someone who might become the point guard of the future (Cameron Payne), but Rajon Rondo decided to salvage his own value late in the year. On a team with no shooters, having a logjam in the backcourt — again with no shooters — won’t help matters next season, either. Well, unless they have a plan for that.

Shiloh Carder: Vivek Ranadive and Vlade Divac. Anything the Sacramento Kings do seems to go wrong. The DeMarcus Cousins deal just doesn't make sense to me. They didn't have to do it now, and they most likely could have gotten a better haul than some expiring contracts, a first-round pick (which is a good one) and Buddy Hield. I mean, they couldn't get anything better than that?

Daniel Tran: You would think with three good centers, the Philadelphia 76ers would be able to competently trade one of them. That was a little too much belief in the process. Not only did they ship off Nerlens Noel, a more developed center than Jahlil Okafor, but they basically gave him away to the Dallas Mavericks for nothing: Andrew Bogut was bought out almost immediately after the trade, a protected 2017 first-round pick that never came and Justin Anderson, who is still a project. Philadelphia dumped an instant rotation player for basically a bag of chips. Solid work, guys.

Sean Keane: The Nuggets traded Jusuf Nurkic and a first-round pick to the Blazers for Mason Plumlee and a second-round pick, in hopes of propelling themselves to the playoffs. Instead, Nurkic ignited the Blazers, who blew past Denver and into the eight seed. To make matters worse, Plumlee will be a restricted free agent and is due a big raise, whereas the disgruntled Nurkic is still on his rookie deal. The lesson, as always, is don't trade for a Plumlee — something that Charlotte learned to its chagrin after trading for Mason's brother, Miles.

The current front-runner for worst trade of this offseason is the Hawks, who traded Dwight Howard to move from pick 31 to 41 and pick up Miles' onerous three-year contract in a salary dump that didn't actually save salary. If you're going to deal for a white center, make it a Zeller or a Bosnian Beast.

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