The winners and losers of the Rockets, T-Wolves, Nuggets and Hawks 12-player trade

Who won and lost this huge deal?

We have our first major action of the 2020 NBA trade deadline.

Four teams — the Houston Rockets, Atlanta Hawks, Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets — got together and made a massive 12-player deal that involves first-round picks and expiring contracts, plus (most importantly) some of the bigger names available ahead of Thursday.

Center Clint Capela is off to the Hawks.

Wing 3-and-D man Robert Covington went from the T-Wolves to the Rockets.

The Timberwolves acquired Malik Beasley, Juan Hernangomez and Jarred Vanderbilt from the Nuggets.

The Wolves got the Hawks’ first-round pick they own from the Nets, and the Nuggets got a first-rounder from the Rockets.

You follow all that? But wait! There’s more! From USA TODAY Sports:

Other components of the deal include Jordan Bell going from Minnesota to Houston; Nene (who hasn’t played this season) going from Houston to Atlanta; Evan Turner going from Atlanta to Minnesota; Keita Bates-Diop, Noah Vonleh and Shabazz Napier going from Minnesota to Denver; Gerald Green (who’s been out all season with a foot injury) going from Houston to Denver.

Whew. Let’s sift through this one and declare some winners and losers.

Winners

The Rockets’ small-ball concept

Remember the “South Beach Five” last year? It’s back and has been working for Houston with P.J. Tucker (more on him later) filling in at center. Capela was more valuable for Houston when he was running more pick-and-rolls with James Harden. Now, they’ll have some stifling wing defense thanks to Covington.

The Hawks

I love the idea of Capela with Trae Young, picking-and-rolling all day long. The Hawks’ rebuild suddenly took a big step forward with this acquisition, and although I’m curious how Atlanta fits in Capela with John Collins, I think it works with Collins continuing to stretch the floor and letting Capela do more of the defensive dirty work.

Robert Covington

Hey, anytime you can go from a hapless franchise to a playoff team, you’re a winner.

NBA fans

It feels at the moment like some bigger names — Andre Drummond, D’Angelo Russell, Kevin Love — may not be on the move unless something changes. So it’s a win for die-hards to see a massive deal they can chew on, especially a day before the deadline.

Tilman Fertitta

Bye bye tax bill!

Losers

The Nuggets (for now)

It’s not that I hate the deal for Denver. They got something back for Beasley and Hernangomez, two restricted free agents at the end of the year who the Nuggets might not have been able to re-sign. It’s that I just hope there are more trades coming for one of the NBA’s deepest teams. Maybe they can deal some more assets, hang on to Michael Porter and get a high-impact starter. If they don’t? They’re still super-deep. But do they have enough to beat one of the West’s elite teams in the postseason? I worry.

P.J. Tucker

His name was trending on Twitter Wednesday morning as NBA fans said stuff like this:

I think Tucker can handle some of the load. But what happens when teams go big against Houston? He’ll have to deal with Anthony Davis or Nikola Jokic or Rudy Gobert. Yikes.

Karl-Anthony Towns

He last won a basketball game on Jan. 9, and boy, he doesn’t seem happy about what just went down:

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