He got more in return for Peter Forsberg, whose career may be over, than King got for Allen Iverson, who remains an elite player.
He made a deal for a solid goaltender, shoring up an area of serious concern.
He took advantage of a salary dump by the Nashville Predators to acquire Kimmo Timonen and Scott Hartnell for draft picks.
The moment free agency opened, Holmgren landed Danny Briere, one of the top players on the market and a key contributor on the defending conference champion Buffalo Sabres.
King, meanwhile, drafted a 19-year-old small forward to add to the Sixers' collection of similar-sized and skilled players.
Advantage Holmgren, obviously.
But it's worth pointing out that Holmgren works in the National Hockey League, which allows open trading and real free agency. Compare the opening days of the NHL market, when a number of stars moved all over the country, to the opening days in the NBA, when most of the big names re-upped with their former teams.
You have to be David Stern or someone on his payroll not to see that the NBA's system renders it the most stagnant of the major North American sports leagues.
In the last two decades, a total of six franchises have won NBA championships. Six: The Lakers, Pistons, Bulls, Rockets, Spurs and Heat. That's stagnation.
The Michael Jordan Bulls won six titles. They probably would have won eight if Jordan hadn't taken his two-year break to play baseball. The Hakeem Olajuwon Rockets won both titles while Jordan was with the White Sox organization.
The Tim Duncan Spurs have won four. Shaquille O'Neal has won four, three with the Lakers and one with the Heat. The Lakers and Pistons won a couple of titles each in the late 1980s, then made a resurgence to win a few in this decade.
In the same time frame, 12 teams have won the Stanley Cup, 12 teams have won the Super Bowl, and 13 teams have won the World Series.
