​That feeling when you get traded to a title contender. PPAThe 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.Click here for the MLP official Trade Deadline transaction listClick here for the MLP official Waiver period moves.This week at the trade deadline, the following transactions were announced:Major Move Number One: Los Angeles acquires Connor GarnettConnor Garnett could be a game changer for LA.MLPLos 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: 21-6Parenteau/Kawamoto Women’s: 15-12Johns/Kawamoto Mixed-1: 20-6Freeman/Parenteau Mixed-2: 11-13So, 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: 19-19Garnett: 31-28Parenteau: 21-11Kawamoto: 2-6Parker: 14-10Garnett should marginally improve the LA DreamBreaker performance, which has been carried by Parenteau this