Was this trade deadline the worst ever?

The 2013 NBA trade deadline has passed, and it was not particularly exciting. After weeks of rumors and speculation, we have been left with a handful of deals unlikely to make much difference to the postseason.

Yes, the Milwaukee Bucks added J. J. Redick in the hopes of shoring up their spot near the end of the East playoffs, the Boston Celtics added a high-volume shooter in Jordan Crawford instead of standing pat, and a bunch of other teams rearranged their finances by swapping human beings for minor assets and "considerations. " The big names, like Josh Smith, went nowhere.

The deadline was a little anticlimactic, then, and should go down as a relatively meaningless sequence of events in NBA history. But was it the worst ever? After the jump, check out the five dullest deadlines since 1987.. The Cleveland Cavaliers trade big man Ben Poquette to the Chicago Bulls for a future second-round draft pick.

Over 10 NBA seasons, Poquette developed a career as a capable shot blocker and interior defender. After this trade, he played only 21 games for the Bulls, averaging 8. 0 minutes per game and contributing absolutely nothing in the team's first-round sweep at the hands of the Boston Celtics. Poquette left for Italy the next offseason, thereby confirming the essential irrelevance of 1987's lone deadline deal. Like this season's deadline, 1990 brought us a fair amount of deals that amount to very little in the way of meaningful movement. The names in these trades amount to notorious flops, goofy curiosities, and the sort of trading-card filler you forget about until your parents force you to throw out most of the clutter in your childhood room. As ever, the trade deadline is a hands-on lesson in not confusing activity for progress. While we now know him as the head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Scott Brooks was once a well-respected and not-very-good reserve point guard. This trade — for the wonderfully named Wiley and a pick that became much-derided Duke center Erik Meek — is pretty much the definition of unimportant. Unless, of course, you believe in the butterfly effect, in which case the Rockets' decision to deal Brooks may have begun a succession of events culminating in their sweep of the Orlando Magic in that June's NBA Finals.

On Thursday afternoon, our Kelly Dwyer told a story of this deadline. As a young college student, on his first trade deadline as an NBA writer for the dearly departed OnHoops website, Kelly hunkered down in his dorm room anticipating a long day of writing trade reactions and various hot takes on the future of a forever changed NBA. Of course, all he got was this deal involving a journeyman guard and one of the least valuable assets a team can trade. Let this be a lesson to aspiring writers everywhere: the excitement you anticipate will rarely come.