This is a series of stories that will highlight some of the more consequential trades made throughout the 18-year history of the EURO League. We aren’t looking for the most one-sided deals or the ones that seemed to help both sides … we’re just looking at the trades and how they affected the league. We were originally intending to identify the Top 10 trades in league history, but that’s just impossible and super subjective. So, instead, we’ll give an overview of everything. No judgments.
Well, some judgments.
PART V: Trade statistics
We’ve talked about many of the trades that have taken place in the history of the EURO League and we’ll leave you with some statistics. We’ll place the trades into a handful of statistical buckets and introduce each with a question.
We already know there was an inordinately high number of trades in Season 1 because that’s when the initial, 26-round draft took place, but what was the trade frequency in the other 17 years?
- Season 1: 59
- Season 2: 48
- Season 3: 28
- Season 4: 29
- Season 5: 27
- Season 6: 34
- Season 7: 26
- Season 8: 12
- Season 9: 23
- Season 10: 13
- Season 11: 19
- Season 12: 22
- Season 13: 11
- Season 14: 26
- Season 15: 16
- Season 16: 30
- Season 17: 31
- Season 18 (so far): 9
Here’s an oddity for you: Not even one of those 26 Season 14 trades occurred during the regular season.
Taking out Season 1 and this season, this is what your line chart looks like:
Which franchises have traded the most and least?
The simplest and clearest way to answer that question is with a chart:
Which type of asset has been traded most often?
You have your straight up, player-for-player trades, and you have the occasional two-for-one deals. But trading wouldn’t be nearly as active if you couldn’t throw future draft picks and salary retention into the mix. In the 461 trades this league has seen, 403 draft picks have moved from one franchise to another. Not including players, here is how the other team assets rank in past trading:
- Third-round draft picks included in trades: 148
- Second-round draft picks included in trades: 145
- First-round draft picks included in trades: 110
- Salary retentions (first possible in Season 11) included in trades: 53
How many players have been involved in more than one trade?
That’s a “simple answer” kind of question, sort of like “Is Commissioner Chuck handsome?” The answer is 240 players have been traded two or more times.
OK, then who has been traded the most often?
One hundred forty-seven players have been involved in two trades, and 69 have been part of three trades. We aren’t going to list them. But we will list the ones who have been traded four, five and six times below, starting with the four-timers.
Traded 4 times (listed in chronological order by his first trade)
- Jordan Staal
- Patrick Kane
- Karl Alzner
- James Neal
- Colton Gillies
- Dave Bolland
- Mark Giordano
- Dmitry Orlov
- Mats Rosseli Olsen
- Darnell Nurse
- Mikko Rantanen
- Marcus Johansson
- Jeff Carter
- Radek Faksa
- Tyson Barrie
- Kevin Shattenkirk
- Adrian Kempe
- Frederik Andersen
Traded 5 times
- Blake Wheeler
- Gabriel Landeskog
- Claude Giroux
- Dion Phaneuf
- Shea Weber
- Shayne Gostisbehere
Traded 6 times
Just one guy. Alexander Ovechkin, the all-time leading goal scorer in the NHL was either a much sought-after commodity or a guy who GMs thought was overrated (or some combination of both), but here is the journey The Great 8 took through the EURO League:
- Season 1: Dublin to Moscow. He and a 2014 1st round pick were traded for Bobby Ryan and Phil Kessel
- Season 2: Moscow to Copenhagen. He and Dave Bolland were traded for Andrew Ladd, Brandon Sutter and Kevin Dallman
- Season 4: Copenhagen to Belfast. It was just Alex for Joe Pavelski, Jonathan Drouin and a 2016 1st round pick
- Season 6: Belfast back to Dublin. He and Cody Hodgson were traded for Evander Kane and Nardo Nagtzaam
- Season 7: Dublin to Bratislava. He and a 2020 3rd round pick were traded for Teuvo Teravainen, Dylan Strome, Leon Draisaitl and a 2020 1st round pick
- Season 9: Bratislava back to Dublin yet again. He, Ryan Suter and Joakim Nygard were traded for Troy Loggins, Colton Gilllies and Mattias Tedenby
