That feeling when you get traded to a title contender.
PPA
The Major League Pickleball (MLP) season trade deadline has come and gone, and after weeks of speculation, both teams that pundits though had flaws in their pursuit of the league favorite St. Louis Shock made moves to try to shake up the playoffs. We’ll discuss those moves, as well as the 5th and final waiver deadline, and do some analysis as to whether they’ll change the outcome of the 2026 MLP playoffs.
Here’s links at the official MLP site for the two transaction periods.
This week at the trade deadline, the following transactions were announced:
Major Move Number One: Los Angeles acquires Connor Garnett
Connor Garnett could be a game changer for LA.
MLP
Los Angeles finally made a trade to try to upgrade its component parts, acquiring Connor Garnett from Utah in a 3-team deal.
My sources tell me Garnett will just play mixed alongside Parenteau, while Freeman will continue to play with Johns, which seems like folly to me; Garnett is a top 15 Men’s doubles player (currently ranked No. 13 on the PPA) and is a huge upgrade over Freeman (ranked 32nd). A Johns/Garnett doubles pair can absolutely go toe-to-toe with the league’s top men’s pairings, while a Garnett/Parenteau pairing puts Catherine back on the right side and should improve on their terrible 11-13 record in Mixed-2 matches this season. The bigger question is simple: is this “enough” for LA to compete?
Before the moves, here were the records of the component parts for LA this season (all the records in this story are courtesy of Picklekey.com):
- Johns/Freeman Men’s: 21-6
- Parenteau/Kawamoto Women’s: 15-12
- Johns/Kawamoto Mixed-1: 20-6
- Freeman/Parenteau Mixed-2: 11-13
So, assuming that you slot in Garnett like-for-like for Freeman, this move is a direct attempt to slightly improve on a 21-6 Men’s Doubles record, but more importantly to try to improve on a Mixed-2 partnership that has really struggled. Garnett is just 12-14 himself in Mixed this year, but with players much less accomplished than Catherine. A Garnett/Parenteau partnership puts Catherine back on the right and should improve their performance in Mixed-2 matches (which, in theory, go against the weaker Mixed pairing of the other team).
The bigger problem for LA though is this: why are Parenteau and Kawamoto “just” 15-12 together in Women’s this year? We’re talking two of the absolute best women’s doubles players in the world. Is it possible that LA was trying to solve the wrong problem here?
One last comment: DreamBreaker performance. Here’s the singles performance for all the LA connected players this season:
- Johns: 24-23 (this is kind of shocking actually)
- Joseph: 19-19
- Garnett: 31-28
- Parenteau: 21-11
- Kawamoto: 2-6
- Parker: 14-10
Garnett should marginally improve the LA DreamBreaker performance, which has been carried by Parenteau this season (they’re 3-1 in DBs this season, with wins over StL, Atl, and PB and a loss to Dallas last weekend in San Diego).
Conclusion? The LA strategy is simple: win both Ben Johns matches, try to steal one of the others, then grind out a DreamBreaker win where they put out three of the best singles players in the game. Will Garnett help with that strategy? Marginally; if Johns was 21-6 with Freeman, what would he have been with Garnett? In reality, LA will rise or fall with the performance of Parenteau in doubles, and if Garnett can get CP to dominate in Mixed-2 LA will be a tough out.
Side-effects of the Garnett move: Utah gets Tyler Loong back from Miami, Miami gets LA’s former bench player/singles specialist Gabe Joseph, and Utah gets (reportedly) $125k of cash from LA to make the deal happen. Loong likely goes back to Utah’s bench, since they’re now running with the Tama & Yuta show, while Joseph was, in true Miami fashion, heading out the door as soon as he was acquired.
Before we get to “big move No. 2,” let’s talk about the fall-out from the first trade.
- Miami immediately flips Joseph to Bay Area for James Delgado. Delgado is a better fit as a more rounded player than Joseph, and as we’re about to see Joseph isn’t done moving on the trade deadline day.
- Bay Area then flipped Joseph to Las Vegas in exchange for Brandon Jacobson. LV upgrades their singles specialist in time for the playoffs, while Jacobson moves to a team where he may get some playing time.
Major Move Number Two: New Jersey acquires Federico Staksrud
The final move of the Trade Deadline, which was extended a few hours to allow for player notification, was a huge one: Orlando unloaded the biggest trade asset out there in Federico Staksrud, threw in their starting female Milan Rane, and moved them to New Jersey for the 5’s two bench players Martin Emmrich and Lina Padegimaite, along with cash (presumably the max allowed cash amount in trade, or $400k for the two starter-level players).
New Jersey now has an embarrassment of riches with Howells, Khlif, and Staksrud all on the same team (the rule that bars a team from having three players ranked within the top 20 is foiled thanks to Howell’s early season injury and his lack of ranking points).
The big question will be: how will Staksrud fit into this team? The answer may become obvious once we look at the component parts of the team pre move:
- Howells/Khlif Men’s: 14-12
- Waters/Johnson Women’s: 25-1
- Waters/Khlif Mixed-1: 23-3
- Howells/Johnson Mixed-2: 15-6
Clearly the problem here is with the 2026 pairing of Will Howells & Noe Khlif. After going 13-8 together last season, they’re just a .500 team, which just is not good enough in the face of the competition. The question becomes; who do you think is “responsible” for the NJ men to be just a 500 team, and who would you line up as a replacement? Staksrud plays the left, and could replace Khlif like-for-like with Howells staying on the right, and that’s what I initially suspect will happen. New Jersey may leave well-enough alone and continue to run out Waters/Khlif, making Staksrud a Men’s doubles and DreamBreaker specialist.
Speaking of DreamBreakers, take a look at the DB performance of the NJ players:
- Howells: 22-18
- Khlif: 14-30
- Waters: 25-9
- Johnson: 16-16
- Staksrud: 31-28
- Rane: 22-26
Despite being nearly a top-10 ranked singles player on tour, Khlif has been shockingly bad in DreamBreakers this season, and Staksrud will clearly step in here. New Jersey is 2-2 when going to the DreamBreaker (wins over Orlando and Dallas, losses to StL and Texas). Khlif went 2-10 against Acevedo in the Texas DB loss, and 5-7 against Goins in the StL DB loss, and Staksrud could have made the difference.
I do not suspect Rane will get into any lineup, save for injury, as the team rides or dies with its two top females.
Conclusion: NJ’s strategy is identical to LAs: get two wins from your star, try to steal one other doubles match, but if you have to go DreamBreaker lean on your top singles players. Adding Staksrud should greatly improve their Men’s team’s performance, and should greatly improve the DreamBreaker. It may just be enough to oust St. Louis, as long as NJ can counter their isolation strategy. That 1 loss in Waters/Johnson’s 25-1 record? To St.Louis and Bright/Fahey’s icing-out strategy.
As a side-effect of the Big Trade No.2, Orlando is gutted. Jack Sock now is set to play with either Greg Dow (waiver pickup, see below) or Yates Johnson, while on the female side the loss of Rane and the likely season-ending injury to Schneemann means Orlando will be playing Padegimaite and a waiver pickup or onsite stub in the final event of the season, which they’re hosting and will have them on the show court every match. I’ll be surprised of Orlando wins another game this season. Not match, game.
Orlando currently holds 12th place/the final playoff spot, but keeping that spot seems like a pipe dream now, and the 12th spot now seems like it is California’s for the taking. There are 3-4 other teams in contention for that last playoff spot, but of them: Chicago is going young, Utah just traded their best veteran, and California is the only one of this group trying.
The Final Waiver period was held on 7/21/26 with a few picks, mostly by teams upgrading or modifying their bench players.
- Miami picked up the versatile and high-energy Anderson Scarpa, dropping the more singles focused Zane Ford.
- California picked up Craig Johnson, dropping Aussie Joey Wild. I’m guessing here, but Wild’s travel schedule may have proven difficult to work around.
- Orlando picked up broadcaster extraordinaire Greg Dow and dropped Martin Emmrich, just acquired in trade.
- California then said to themselves, “hey I like Emmrich more than Johnson” and made a second waiver claim. As Jimmy Miller likes to say, “Once a Bear, always a Bear.” Well, Craig Johnson was a Bear for roughly 30 minutes.
MLP Week 8 starts up Thursday from Chicago, with a few of these teams in action, but most of these new-look lineups will not be seen until Orlando and the regular season finale.