The trade deadline ended at 3 PM ET Thursday, but that doesn’t mean the news of just-completed trades is going to stop coming in. Here are a few deadline deals that broke just before or after the league cutoff.

Blazers acquire Gerald Wallace. (Ken Berger, CBSSports.com)
The Bobcats get Dante Cunningham, Joel Przybilla and two first round picks. Since Przybilla’s deal is expiring, this is a salary dump for Charlotte. They’ll come away with Cunningham and two first rounders out of the deal. Wallace can play either forward spot, so he could play alongside LaMarcus Aldridge and Nicolas Batum if the Blazers want to play small ball.

Nate Robinson and Kendrick Perkins to OKC for Jeff Green and Nenad Krstic. (Adrian Wojnarowski, Y! Sports)
Interesting trade for the Thunder, who are going to have trouble shooting the ball if they start Perkins, Serge Ibaka and Thabo Sefolosha. They’ll have plenty of size down low and appear to be gearing up for a potential matchup with the Lakers and/or Spurs. Perkins is widely regarded as one of the best defensive centers in the league and Ibaka is no slouch either. The C’s must feel like they have plenty of size with Shaq and Glen Davis, who usually finishes games for Doc Rivers. Green will back up Paul Pierce and/or Kevin Garnett. Krstic is a serviceable center as well, and there are rumors that Boston will be looking to add Troy Murphy if he clears waivers.

Aaron Brooks to Phoenix for Goran Dragic. (Marc Stein, ESPN)
Brooks was thought to be a cornerstone of Houston’s youth movement, but one temper tantrum and one suspension later and he’s on his way to the Suns for Dragic, who was thought to be the point guard of the future in Phoenix once Steve Nash moved on. But Dragic’s three-point shot has disappeared (28% this year after 39% last season) and his numbers are down as a result. If he gets back to form, the 24-year-old could be a steal — and the Rockets got a first round pick to boot.

Rockets send Shane Battier to Memphis for Hasheem Thabeet. (Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports)
The Rockets get another first round pick as part of this deal. Thabeet isn’t ready for prime time, but maybe the Rockets still see potential in him. Battier’s contract is expiring and he obviously wasn’t in Houston’s long-term plans so they got what they could for him. The first round pick should be useful, even if Thabeet is not.

In another trade that “almost-was,” O.J. Mayo was going to be moved to the Pacers for Josh McRoberts and a first round pick, but the NBA didn’t receive the fax in time, so the trade was nullified. Insert Michael Heisley joke here.

Per Jonathan Feigen…

Just visited with Aaron Brooks. Said he’ll be out four to six weeks.

The Rockets are 1-5 and can ill-afford to lose Brooks for any length of time, though they have one of the best backup point guards in the league in Kyle Lowry.

Complicating matters, the Rockets play five of their next six (and 14-of-23) games on the road.

Houston is scoring well (112.0 ppg, second only to the Lakers), but they’re giving up the second-most points as well. Their FG% allowed (44%) isn’t bad, but the Rockets are 26th in the league in defensive rebounding, so teams are getting loads of extra possessions.

This year, I’m going to preview the NBA season by starting with the lowest of the low and working my way up to my Finals picks. If a franchise is a legitimate championship contender, I’ll focus on what stars have to line up for a title run. If a team is a playoff also-ran, I’ll identify the weaknesses that have to be shored up via trade, free agency or draft over the next couple of seasons to make it a contender. If a team is likely to miss the playoffs, I’ll take a look at the salary cap, and provide a blueprint for how the team should proceed in the near future to get back in the postseason.

#15: New York Knicks
The Knicks missed out on LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh this summer, but they did land Amare Stoudemire, and also acquired Raymond Felton to run the point. David Lee is gone, but New York did get a good young player in Anthony Randolph to take his place. In other words, this Knicks team is going to look a lot different than last year’s club, and probably for the better. Newcomers Ronny Turiaf, Kelenna Azubuike, Roger Mason, (promising) Russian center Timofey Mozgov along with Wilson Chandler and Toney Douglas will round out Mike D’Antoni’s rotation. Cap-wise, the Knicks are still in good shape. Eddy Curry’s $11 M expiring deal can be used as trade bait or the franchise can just let it come off the books, creating around $18 million in cap space next summer, which they could use to sign Carmelo Anthony if he hits free agency. The only big contract on the payroll is Stoudemire’s deal, and the Knicks really need him to stay healthy in order to get their money’s worth. This looks like a franchise on the rise, but they need to land one more star to threaten the upper echelon of the East.

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Per the Houston Chronicle…

Yao will play no more than 24 minutes per game, Rockets vice president and athletic trainer Keith Jones said. There will be no exceptions. If Yao has played his 24 minutes and the Rockets have the ball and eight seconds on the clock to make up a one-point deficit, Yao will not play those eight seconds.

Yao’s playing time will not average 24 minutes; it will end there. If he plays 22 minutes in one game, he will not play 26 the next. For that matter, if he plays two minutes one game, he will not play 26 the next. When Yao reaches his 24 minutes, he will be through for that game.

The article goes on to suggest that things could change in the playoffs, but the Rockets are bound and determined to get their big man to April fully healthy.

After missing just two games in his first three seasons, Yao has missed 173 of the next 410 games over the following five seasons, or 42% of his team’s games. What good is a franchise center if the guy can’t make it through the season without some sort of season-ending ailment?

That’s why the Rockets are so intent on limiting his workload. They hope that by reducing his minutes throughout the season, it will enable him to be healthy enough in the postseason.

According to Marc Stein, the Nuggets are telling interested teams thanks but no thanks.

Yet sources tied to five potential Anthony suitors, reached in recent days by ESPN.com, all relayed the same story about the Nuggets’ response: They’re pretty much ending these conversations before they even start by saying that they don’t want to engage in Melo talks.

Ujiri’s Denver superiors instead want him to lead the club’s mountain climb of a bid to try to reconnect with the 26-year-old scoring machine before they even consider trading him, hoping that some sort of positive karma exists in the reunion of Ujiri, a former Nuggets scout, and Anthony, who both arrived in Denver in 2003 and spent several formative seasons together in the organization.

I explored the various trade scenarios last week, and the main issue is that whatever team that trades for Anthony will want a long term commitment. Carmelo wants the three-year extension, so an extend-and-trade is the best way to go for all parties involved. So why he technically doesn’t need to sign off on a new trade destination, the still-unsigned extension gives him the power to do exactly that.

Ujiri has been described as a very positive person, so he’s doing his due diligence here in the hopes of convince Anthony to stay while he tries to reshape the roster. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If Carmelo starts the season as a Nugget, he’ll likely finish it as a Nugget. It will be very difficult to trade him in February if the Nuggets are in the middle of the playoff pack in the West. (Just look at what happened to the Raptors.)

With the news that the Nuggets’ latest meeting with Carmelo and his camp didn’t go that well, it’s time to start looking at Anthony’s short list of teams to see what they can offer in the way of trade.

Per Adrian Wojnarowski, the Nuggets are looking for “young players and draft picks,” so we’ll keep that in mind as we discuss the various trade scenarios.

That Wojnarowski piece also listed five teams as potential landing spots for Anthony: New Jersey, L.A. (Clippers), Houston, Golden State and Charlotte (due to Anthony’s shoe deal with Brand Jordan). Let’s fire up the Trade Machine and go team-by-team to see what they can offer. Keep in mind that it’s virtually impossible to get equal value for a disgruntled star, so most of these trades are going to look better from the point of view of the team receiving Anthony. That’s just the way it is.

New Jersey (soon to be Brooklyn) Nets
New Jersey has four young(ish) players that might appeal to the Nuggets: Brook Lopez, Derrick Favors, Terrence Williams and Devin Harris. I don’t see the Nuggets getting Lopez out of this deal, but one idea is a simple swap of Troy Murphy and Derrick Favors for Anthony, with one or two first round draft picks to sweeten the deal if necessary. This would leave the Nets very thin at power forward, but they’d get a Top 15 player to build around while retaining Harris, Williams and Lopez. The Nuggets would get a power forward with a ton of potential to form a nice one-two punch with their best young piece, Ty Lawson.

If the Nuggets aren’t sold on Lawson for some reason, they could ask for Harris, Williams and Kris Humphries (to even out the salaries). Harris, Favors and Humphries is another possibility. So is Harris, Favors and Williams, which looks like the best of the bunch. The Nuggets could hold onto Favors and Williams, and if they’re set with Lawson at point guard, move Harris in another trade.

Would the Nets give up Harris, Favors and Williams? They should. It’s not often that a player of Carmelo’s stature comes on the market while in his prime. Teams should do whatever they can to get him, and worry about fixing the roster later.

Los Angeles Clippers
Hmm. Maybe the Clips will get their star after all. If they do, they have Anthony’s wife, LaLa Vasquez, and her burgeoning ‘entertainment career’ to thank.

To make the numbers work, it appears that Chris Kaman would need to be involved in any trade for Anthony, unless the Nuggets were willing to take on Baron Davis (but he doesn’t exactly fit the ‘young player’ criteria). So how about Kaman, Eric Gordon and Al-Farouq Aminu? I’d be shocked if the Nuggets were able to wrest Blake Griffin away from the Clippers, so this may be the best they can do. L.A. could throw in a first round draft pick or two to get the Nuggets to bite. Denver could even throw in Chris Andersen if it wanted to dump more salary and give the Clips a center back in the deal.

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Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports has the details:

Denver was furnished with a short list of teams and told to get to work. Yes, this is how William Wesley and Leon Rose of CAA work now, thick with threats and ultimatums and a swagger suggesting that the sport belongs to them. After Anthony told owner-in-waiting Josh Kroenke that he still wanted out of Denver during a Sunday meeting, the Nuggets appear done trying to sell their All-Star forward on a contract extension.

This wasn’t a productive, nor particularly pleasant, meeting and multiple sources said it could turn out to be the point of no return for Anthony and the organization. Sources insist it’s no longer a matter of if the Nuggets trade Anthony, but when, where and for whom he’s traded for.

One thing I really like about Wojnarowski is how he infuses a little opinion, even if the story is more news than commentary.

So where might he land?

The Nuggets made it clear to teams they want young players and draft picks for Anthony, league executives said. The New Jersey Nets and Los Angeles Clippers have emerged as the two most probable destinations for Anthony because they have assets that appeal to Denver. The geography works for Anthony because of his wife LaLa Vazquez’s entertainment career.

Golden State and Houston are contenders, too. What’s more, the Charlotte Bobcats are a sleeper because of Anthony’s Brand Jordan shoe deal and the team’s ability to give the Nuggets a salary-dump proposal.

What about the Knicks?

With nothing to trade for Anthony, though, New York isn’t considered a strong contender in the eyes of Denver management.

Don’t tell that to a Knicks fan who recently commented on this post, saying that my idea to offer up Danilo Gallinari and Anthony Randolph was “absurd.” That just goes to show how differently two sides can view the same player(s). The Nuggets seem to view Gallinari and Randolph as ‘nothing,’ while that aforementioned Knicks fan thinks they are the second coming of Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins.

Later today I’ll go team-by-team and come up with a few (objective) trade scenarios.

Per the Denver Post:

Former Nuggets scout Masai Ujiri will become the team’s new general manager, according to an NBA source.

The door opened for Ujiri when the Nuggets were unable to reach an agreement with David Griffin, a former Phoenix Suns director of basketball operations.

Ujiri, 39, has been a rising star in NBA executive circles. He worked for four seasons in the Nuggets’ scouting department, which included being named director of international scouting for the 2006-07 season. Prior to that, Ujiri worked as an international scout with the Orlando Magic in 2002-03.

A native of Zaria, Nigeria, Ujiri attended prep school in Seattle, went to junior college in North Dakota and attended Montana State. He played basketball in college and then professionally for six years in Europe.

Want to know more? David Thorpe knows Ujiri well and discussed his career with TrueHoop.

One value he definitely brings is that he knows everybody and has no enemies. That’s how deals get done in the NBA. He’s not out late clowning around. He’s very classy. He values character. And I’d bet that one of the biggest things he brings to the Nuggets right now comes in how the team relates to Carmelo Anthony. It’s interesting that the two finalists for that job — David Griffin and Masai — are both from teams that just lost stars in free agency. Going through that is a great learning experience, with tremendous lessons for how to handle the biggest challenge facing the Nuggets in the year ahead. I’m sure Masai will have a very smart approach to convincing Carmelo to stay. He’ll be really good at that.

If the hire does indeed go through, Ujiri will be the first African-born GM in the NBA.

The first order of business is crystal clear — Ujiri has to convince Carmelo Anthony to stay put.

The big fella is moving around well in this recent workout:

…just as soon as they hire a new GM.

Nuggets management is expected to sit down with Melo some time after the team names a general manager, which it is expected to do next week. Former Suns executive David Griffin is the leading candidate.

Denver is certainly taking its sweet time hiring a GM and whoever they hire will be walking into a veritable sh*tstorm. They’ll have the same task that New Orleans GM Dell Demps had when he had to convince Chris Paul that he had a plan to turn the Hornets around. We haven’t heard much about Paul lately because both sides said that the meeting went well, and Paul said that he was hoping to stay in New Orleans.

Will the Nuggets have the same success in their meeting with Carmelo?

First things first — hire a GM already!