NBA trade deadline sees Irving, Durant bolster West teams

First it was Kyrie Irving to Dallas. Then came Kevin Durant to Phoenix. The breakup in Brooklyn is rebuilding some contenders in the West.

Trade deadline day in the NBA arrived Thursday with news of a blockbuster. The Nets had agreed overnight to deal Durant to the Suns for a package that included Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jae Crowder — who later tweeted he was headed to Milwaukee — four first-round picks and additional draft compensation. A day earlier, the Lakers agreed to send Russell Westbrook to Utah as part of a three-way deal with Utah and Minnesota that brought D’Angelo Russell back to Los Angeles.

“Just like that it’s a war in the West!” Sacramento Kings guard Terence Davis II tweeted. The Lakers stayed busy up until the deadline with a couple more moves as they try to build a contender around NBA career scoring leader LeBron James. They added another big man in Mo Bamba from the Orlando Magic for Patrick Beverley, a second-round pick and cash considerations, according to a person with knowledge of those negotiations.

The Magic are not expected to keep Beverley, said the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition anonymity because the trade did not yet have league approval. The deadline was 3 p.m. EST, though most of the deals won’t be approved by the league office until much later; agreed-to deals were confirmed to AP on condition of anonymity because they were not yet official.

“I’ll show you how wrong I was,” said Cleveland president of basketball operations Koby Altman, whose team was one of few that made zero moves. “I thought it was going to be a quiet, quiet deadline. But this is the NBA, and the NBA never stops.