The NBA trade deadline passed Thursday with several more deals completed.
Deadline day started with a few notable moves, including sharpshooter Buddy Hield going from the Indiana Pacers to the Philadelphia 76ers and former All-Star Gordon Hayward joining the first-place Oklahoma City Thunder in a deal with the Charlotte Hornets.
The New York Knicks bolstered their postseason chances by trading for Detroit Pistons duo Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks in exchange for four players (Evan Fournier, Malachi Flynn, Quentin Grimes, Ryan Arcidiacono) and two second-round draft picks.
The Phoenix Suns also strengthened their lineup by adding versatile winger Royce O'Neale in a three-team deal involving the Brooklyn Nets and the Memphis Grizzlies, while the Dallas Mavericks acquired P.J. Washington from the Hornets for Grant Williams.
The day before the deadline, the Pistons made a deal with the Utah Jazz to acquire Simone Fontecchio and made a trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves for Monte Morris in exchange for Shake Milton and Troy Brown Jr.
The Miami Heat acquired veteran guard Terry Rozier from the Hornets on Jan. 23 for six-time All-Star Kyle Lowry and a 2027 first-round pick.
In early January, the Toronto Raptors sent two-time All-Star Pascal Siakam to the Pacers in a three-team trade also involving the New Orleans Pelicans. The Raptors received forward Bruce Brown, guard Kira Lewis Jr., Jordan Nwora, two 2024 first-round picks and a 2026 first-round pick, while New Orleans got cash considerations from the Pacers. Indiana also received a future second-round pick in the deal. In December, Toronto traded for RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley while sending OG Anunoby to the New York Knicks.
We grade those trades -- and all the big trades! -- below:
Jump to notable grades
Mavs send Williams, first rounder to Hornets
OKC trade for veteran Hayward | 76ers land Hield from Pacers
Knicks pull off six-player deal | Adams to Rockets
Rozier to Heat | Early season blockbusters
FEB. 8: DEADLINE DAY DEALS
O'Neale to Suns in three-team deal with Nets, Grizzlies
Phoenix Suns get:
F Royce O'Neale
F David Roddy
Brooklyn Nets get:
G Jordan Goodwin
F Keita Bates-Diop
Three second-round picks (two via Memphis)
Memphis Grizzlies get:
F Yuta Watanabe
C Chimezie Metu
Phoenix Suns grade: A-
When I wrote about the biggest needs for contending teams last month, I argued that adding another 3-and-D wing was more important for the Suns than their ballyhooed lack of traditional point guards. Evidently, Phoenix agreed, landing O'Neale as their big addition at the deadline.
Aside from Phoenix's stars, O'Neale might be the strongest role player on the roster with balanced contributions at both ends. Limited because of his 6-4 stature and lack of athleticism, O'Neale is certainly a better defender than the Suns' best shooters (Grayson Allen and Eric Gordon), and with his career 38% from 3, he is more of a perimeter threat than Phoenix stoppers Josh Okogie (27% this year) and Bates-Diop (31%).
Since O'Neale isn't elite at either end of the court, it's possible he's squeezed out of Phoenix's postseason finishing five in favor of Okogie for defense or Allen's superior shooting. (Allen leads the NBA by making 49% of his 3s this season.) Still, O'Neale has a better chance of finishing games than a point guard who would have been stuck spotting up with the Suns' offense running through Bradley Beal and Devin Booker.
As a bonus, O'Neale is an underrated passer who's averaged better than four assists per 36 minutes each of the past two seasons. He might not have as many assisting opportunities, but with Goodwin's departure, no Suns reserve has averaged more than Gordon's 2.7 assists per 36 minutes.
The mechanics of how Phoenix acquired O'Neale without including any players making more than the minimum salary are interesting in their own right. By including Memphis in this deal, the Suns were able to take Roddy into their trade exception from last year's deadline deal that sent Dario Saric to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Then all four minimum contracts were aggregated, giving just enough spending power to add O'Neale.
Because Phoenix's salary will exceed next year's second luxury tax apron, Thursday was the last day the Suns could aggregate salaries together. Now, they can re-sign O'Neale -- an unrestricted free agent at season's end -- for any amount and potentially trade him for smaller salaries down the road.
That creativity comes with a luxury tax cost. Before Phoenix fills either of the roster spots created by this trade, their tax bill has already increased $13.5 million with this trade to a total of $64 million -- third highest in the NBA behind the Golden State Warriors and LA Clippers.
Brooklyn Nets grade: B+
Getting any kind of pick value for O'Neale is a positive for the Nets, who are on the wrong side of the cut line for the play-in tournament at 11th in the East. The players they got in return could have some value too.
Bates-Diop looked like a strong minimum signing for the Suns after shooting a career-high 39% from 3-point range for the San Antonio Spurs last season. But, that performance is starting to look like the outlier, limiting Bates-Diop to a bench role in Phoenix. He holds a player option for 2024-25 at the minimum.
Goodwin got off to a strong start as the Suns' backup point guard before fading, also because of shooting. He's making just 29% of his 3-point attempts and hasn't been accurate enough inside the arc to compensate after showing promise with the Washington Wizards in 2022-23. Brooklyn has a team option for Goodwin in 2024-25.
Memphis Grizzlies grade: C+
This trade reflects the Grizzlies moving on from Roddy, who they selected as the No. 23 pick in the 2022 draft. Roddy started 13 games for a Memphis team hit hard by injuries, but failed to show enough progress in year two to suggest a long-term future as a rotation player.
Roddy hasn't developed into a consistent 3-point shooter and was making just 47% of his 2s after hitting 53% as a rookie. At worst, this trade is salary neutral for the Grizzlies in 2024-25 if Watanabe exercises a player option. He's yet another minimum signing for Phoenix who took a step back this season after hitting a career-high 44% of his 3s last season with the Nets.
Unlike the other Suns traded in this deal, Metu got just a one-year minimum deal and is not under contract for 2024-25.
Bucks land Beverley in deal with Sixers
Milwaukee Bucks get:
G Patrick Beverley
Philadelphia 76ers get:
G Cameron Payne
2027 second-round pick (via Milwaukee)
Milwaukee Bucks grade: B
It's unusual to see two East contenders make a deadline trade involving a rotation player. In this situation, it's the Bucks who are loading up for the playoffs. At 6-2, Beverley isn't exactly the defensive stopper Milwaukee sought on the perimeter, but his versatility will allow him to play with Damian Lillard (also listed as 6-2) in the Bucks' backcourt as undoubtedly the team's top on-ball defender.
Per analysis of Second Spectrum data, Beverley has matched up with shooting guards on 30% of his defensive possessions and small forwards 19%, nearly as often as he's defended point guards (34%) -- meaning he can cover the opposition's most dangerous threat even if they're bigger. Offensively, although Beverley will probably be the smallest player on the court when Lillard is on the bench, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton will initiate the offense with Beverley spotting up.
Because both Beverley and Payne are on one-year deals for the veteran's minimum, this deal has no financial impact. The cost to Milwaukee is strictly the second-round pick, one of just two the team had available to trade. The Bucks did hang on to the more valuable second-rounder, coming this year from the Portland Trail Blazers, to use at the draft.
Philadelphia 76ers grade: B
From a value standpoint, this deal was clearly worth doing for the 76ers. It clears room in the backcourt rotation for a post-deadline addition, perhaps Philadelphia native Kyle Lowry if he reaches a buyout with the Charlotte Hornets or Spencer Dinwiddie after he was waived by the Toronto Raptors.
Still, the Sixers better hope they don't match up with Milwaukee in the playoffs. Beverley would surely relish the opportunity to show up his favorite team, and having him lock up Tyrese Maxey for any period of a series would be a tough look for Philadelphia.
76ers get under luxury tax by trading House
Philadelphia 76ers get:
2028 second-round pick (via Detroit, top-55 protected)
Detroit Pistons get:
F Danuel House Jr. 2024 second-round pick (via New York)
Philadelphia 76ers grade: A
Dealing House got the 76ers out of the luxury tax, which not only grants them a share of this year's tax distribution -- projected at a minimum of $11.5 million per team pending post-deadline signings -- but also means they won't be subject to the repeater tax next year. Philadelphia probably won't be a taxpaying team in 2024-25 anyway, but going another year as such would take the repeater tax out of play until at least the 2028-29 season.
Detroit Pistons grade: B+
The Pistons took advantage of the roster spots they needed to clear to make a deal earlier Thursday with the New York Knicks to take on House's $4.3 million salary for the remainder of the season in exchange for the Knicks' second-round pick. That's less than Detroit would have had to pay for a pick in this range on draft night. House has already been waived.
Celtics get intriguing prospect in Springer
Boston Celtics get:
G Jaden Springer
Philadelphia 76ers get:
2024 second-round pick (via better of Chicago and New Orleans)
Boston Celtics grade: B-
The 21-year-old Springer is an interesting pickup for the Celtics. A defensive dynamo who's averaging 2.4 steals and 1.1 blocks per 36 minutes, Springer didn't provide enough on offense to earn consistent minutes in Philadelphia. Boston is surely hoping Springer can develop as a shooter, having shot 82% at the line this season but just 8-of-37 (22%) on 3s.
Because the Celtics dealt Dalano Banton to the Portland Trail Blazers in a separate deal Thursday, they didn't add appreciably to their luxury-tax bill. They did give up a pick that should fall in the middle of this year's second round. It would be No. 41 if the season ended today.
Philadelphia 76ers grade: A
This deal helps replace the 2024 second-round pick the 76ers sent to the Indiana Pacers for Buddy Hield in addition to having financial benefits. Although Philadelphia had already gotten under the tax line, moving Springer gives the 76ers more wiggle room to offer a buyout candidate like Philly native Kyle Lowry more than the veteran's minimum using their mid-level exception. Additionally, being free of Springer's $4 million salary for 2024-25 gives the Sixers more potential cap room this summer.
Mavs get Daniel Gafford in deal with Wizards
Dallas Mavericks get:
C Daniel Gafford
Washington Wizards get:
C Richaun Holmes
2024 first-round pick (via second least favorable of Houston (top-4 protected), LA Clippers, Oklahoma City or Utah (top-10 protected))
Oklahoma City Thunder get:
2028 first-round swap rights (via Oklahoma City's own for Dallas' own)
Dallas Mavericks grade: C-
This is the Mavericks' latest attempt to upgrade at center from veteran Dwight Powell, now in his 10th season in Dallas and hard to replace. Already, rookie Dereck Lively II has seized the starting job, but the Mavericks have struggled any time both Lively and Powell are on the bench. In those 822 minutes, Dallas has been outscored by 10.4 points per 100 possessions according to analysis of lineup data from NBA Advanced Stats.
The 25-year-old Gafford gives the Mavericks a longer-term backup for Lively than Powell, as well as 48 minutes of rim protection and above-the-rim finishing. Gafford is a 69% shooter, primarily on dunks (his average shot distance is 3.2 feet, per Basketball-Reference.com) who is more involved in the offense than Powell (whose usage rate has dropped to a career-low 9%).
Defensively, Gafford isn't as strong a presence around the rim as his above-average block rate would suggest. Like Lively, Gafford has seen opponents finish at a fairly average rate for a shot blocker as a primary defender inside five feet. According to NBA Advanced Stats, they've shot 58% against Gafford and 59% against Lively -- both far better than Powell's 67% mark.
Gafford's $12.4 million salary is more than Lively ($4.8 million on his rookie contract) and Powell's ($4 million) combined, but it's reasonable for a backup and a wash with what Dallas was paying Holmes after acquiring him in a salary-clearing deal with the Sacramento Kings. Holmes played just 237 minutes all season as the fourth option at center and holds a $12.9 million player option for 2024-25 he's sure to exercise.
The real cost of this deal is the 2028 swap with Oklahoma City. Already, a swap in this year's draft would move the Mavericks back at least 10 spots with their pick currently 17th and the Thunder in a three-way tie for 27th. And Oklahoma City has the youngest team in the league, while both Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving can be unrestricted free agents by the 2027-28 season. There's a lot of potential downside to this swap.
Washington Wizards grade: B
The issue with the Wizards making a two-team deal with Dallas is that a 2028 swap isn't necessarily valuable for Washington, which is still in the early stages of a rebuild. Instead, the two teams brought in the Thunder for a creative deal that returns the Wizards a guaranteed first-round pick.
The pick coming from Oklahoma City will be the second-worst of the four the Thunder potentially hold this year. That means it's either Oklahoma City's own pick or one from the LA Clippers. Either way, it will fall in the bottom 10 of the first round and likely the bottom five.
Still, getting that pick is an accomplishment for the Wizards, who were guaranteed no other first-round picks besides their own entering the deadline. Washington does have a 2030 first-round pick from the Golden State Warriors, but only if it falls outside the top 20.
Oklahoma City Thunder grade: A
The Thunder continue to be opportunistic in using their stockpile of first-round picks to turn late-rounders into higher-value bets. No team is a better bet to be good in 2028 than Oklahoma City, meaning there's a good chance of using this swap and an outside possibility it returns the Thunder a prime pick.
Nets get Dennis Schroder from Raptors
Brooklyn Nets get:
G Dennis Schroder
F Thaddeus Young
Toronto Raptors get:
G Spencer Dinwiddie
Brooklyn Nets grade: B
This is basically a challenge trade of 30-year-old point guards, with the Nets swapping out Dinwiddie a year after getting him at the deadline in exchange for Schroder. Dinwiddie will be a free agent at season's end, while Schroder is under contract for $13 million next season.
Assuming Brooklyn did not plan to re-sign Dinwiddie, getting a starting-caliber point guard under contract gives the Nets more spending power this summer. They can re-sign Nic Claxton and utilize their midlevel exception without much danger of going into the luxury tax. Additionally, because Brooklyn can fit both players into existing trade exceptions, the Nets have the potential to create a new exception for Dinwiddie's $20.4 million cap hit.
With Dinwiddie dropping to 32% from 3-point range after hitting 37% a season ago, his scoring inefficiency became an issue for Brooklyn. Schroder is an upgrade as a playmaker and his .559 true shooting percentage is better than Dinwiddie's .530 mark, despite being responsible for a slightly larger share of the Toronto offense.
The downside is the Nets get smaller. The 6-5 Dinwiddie was a key part of a system that has switched on the most pick-and-rolls in the NBA, per Second Spectrum tracking. Dinwiddie switched on 39% of the picks where he defended the ball handler, as compared to just 22% with Schroder for the Raptors.
Young is largely in this deal to match salary in the final year of his contract, but he may be able to help as a backup big man. Young is returning to Brooklyn after spending two seasons with the Nets nearly a decade ago.
Toronto Raptors grade: B-
The Raptors immediately waived Dinwiddie, ensuring that he won't reach a $1.5 million incentive in his contract for playing at least 50 games. Fortunately, Dinwiddie -- who has played 48 games this season -- will be able to replace some of that lost bonus by signing with a new team as a free agent. Despite his downturn as a shooter, Dinwiddie will still be an attractive option for contending teams.
Essentially, this move was simply for Toronto to get out of the second year of Schroder's contract. Signed to be the Raptors' starter after they lost Fred VanVleet in free agency, Schroder lost his starting job when Toronto acquired Immanuel Quickley in the OG Anunoby trade and might not have been as happy coming off the bench.
How helpful being free of Schroder's 2024-25 salary will depend in part on whether the Raptors decide to use cap space this summer, though their other deadline deal for Kelly Olynyk implies that may not be Plan A.
Raptors acquire Olynyk and Agbaji from Jazz
Toronto Raptors get:
G Ochai Agbaji
F Kelly Olynyk
Utah Jazz get:
G Kira Lewis Jr.
F Otto Porter Jr.
2024 first-round pick (via least favorable of Houston (top-4 protected), LA Clippers, Oklahoma City or Utah (top-10 protected))
Toronto Raptors grade: C
The Raptors were not on the board as a destination for Olynyk, a veteran in the last season of his contract who seemed like a fit for a contending team rather than one bound for the lottery. Instead, this could be a case of so-called "pre-agency," -- acquiring a player on an expiring contract in order to use Bird rights to re-sign him.
For that to make sense, Toronto will have to exercise Bruce Brown Jr.'s $23 million team option for 2024-25 after deciding against trading him prior to the deadline. In that scenario, the Raptors would have Bird rights on Olynyk, Gary Trent Jr. and restricted free agent Immanuel Quickley. The alternative scenario is declining Brown's option or trading him to a team with cap space, enabling Toronto to create about $40 million while retaining Quickley's rights.
Olynyk's skill set makes him a useful fit on a Raptors team that is thin in the frontcourt after trading Precious Achiuwa to the New York Knicks with OG Anunoby. His season-plus with Utah shows how well Olynyk can complement young talent with his shooting (43% from 3, 37% career) and passing ability from the high post.
Agbaji, 23, is a more conventional fit on a team building around young talent. After being a lottery pick in the 2022 draft, Agbaji finished his rookie season strong, averaging 13.6 PPG over the final 20 games. Agbaji was in a smaller role as the backup to since-departed Simone Fontecchio at small forward. He shot just 33% from 3-point range, which isn't going to be good enough to cut it as a low-usage wing (just 12% this season after 16% usage as a rookie).
The inclusion of Agbaji means Toronto isn't just giving up a first-round pick for a player on an expiring contract. Still, Agbaji alone wouldn't have merited a first-rounder at this stage of his career, so the Raptors are clearly placing value on being able to re-sign Olynyk to a reasonable contract this summer.
Utah Jazz grade: B
In conjunction with Wednesday's trade sending Fontecchio to the Pistons Detroit Pistons, this deal reflects the Jazz prioritizing accumulating draft picks over a spot in the play-in tournament.
Agbaji, Fontecchio and Olynyk were playing a combined 63-plus minutes a game for Utah and the latter two will be difficult to replace with current younger options.
Entering Thursday, the Jazz held the 10th and final play-in spot, one game ahead of the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors now become the favorite to reach the play-in, though they'll have to hold off the Houston Rockets -- a game behind them.
A play-in spot never figured to be paramount for the Jazz, who have straddled the rebuilding line by virtue of the team's veteran talent. Utah has now added two picks likely to be in the top 32 of this year's draft, which could be useful if the Jazz send their own first-rounder (top-10 protected) to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
That pick is less likely to convey now. Utah entered Thursday 13th in the draft standings, but 2.5 games up on the Atlanta Hawks for 10th. If the Jazz enter the lottery 10th, they'll keep their pick unless a team behind them moves into the top four.
This first-round pick, the weakest of four that once belonged to Oklahoma City -- including, hypothetically Utah's own -- has taken a circuitous route. Traded to the Indiana Pacers last summer, it's since gone to Toronto in the Pascal Siakam trade and now the Jazz.
Moving Agbaji so early in his career is a bit surprising, but remember Utah did not originally draft him. Agbaji was taken by the Cleveland Cavaliers and included as part of the return for Donovan Mitchell, suggesting the Jazz might not have been as invested in him as their own picks.
Mavericks send Williams, first rounder to Hornets for Washington
Dallas Mavericks get:
F P.J. Washington
Two second-round picks
Charlotte Hornets get:
G Seth Curry
F Grant Williams
2027 first-round pick (via Dallas, top-2 protected)
Dallas Mavericks grade: D
Both Washington and Williams are 25, in their fifth NBA seasons and play primarily power forward. Washington is listed at 6-foot-7, 230 pounds and Williams at 6-foot-6, 236 pounds. There may not be many more superficially similar pairs of players in the NBA.
Coming off their rookie contracts, Washington and Williams hit restricted free agency last summer. As part of a sign-and-trade deal with the Boston Celtics, the Mavericks gave Williams a deal worth an average of $13.3 million over four years. After an extended impasse with Charlotte, Washington landed a deal worth $15.5 million over three years.
Somehow, a half-season later, Dallas found enough difference between the two players to give up a lightly protected first-round pick to upgrade from Williams to Washington.
I can see how the Mavericks found Williams lacking after viewing him as an important piece last summer. Having begun the year as Dallas' starting 4, he bounced in and out of the lineup and had come off the bench the last three games. Because Williams is such a low-usage offensive player, he has to score with above-average efficiency to be a contributor on offense, and that wasn't the case after two higher-percentage seasons in Boston.
This year's 38% 3-point shooting may better reflect Williams' underlying ability than the 41% he hit for the Celtics in 2021-22 or last season's 39.5% mark. Overall for his career, Williams is a 38% 3-point shooter -- good but not great. And Williams' addition hadn't helped the Mavericks' defense as much as they might have hoped. They're still a bottom-10 team in defensive rating.
The question here is what problem Washington is solving. Five years into his career, I'm still not sure what Washington is as an NBA player, in part because he's had so little stability around him with the Hornets.
Washington does a variety of different things, and is clearly an upgrade on Williams as a shot creator. He averaged a career-high 15.7 points per game in 2022-23, and this year's drop-off is more about playing fewer minutes than being less productive. Yet Williams' best season came largely as an undersized center in 2021-22, a role he's unlikely to play in Dallas with rookie Dereck Lively II's emergence, and after the team also added Daniel Gafford from the Washington Wizards in a separate deal on Thursday.
As a power forward, Washington's shooting is a limitation, particularly on a team that needs space for Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. He's a career 36% shooter, but trending the wrong direction at 35% last season and 32% thus far this year. And although Washington supplies more rim protection, he's an overall defensive downgrade from Williams.
If this were a like-for-like challenge trade, I'd get it. However, the 2027 first-round pick was the last one the Mavericks could trade. As a result, Dallas had to trade swap rights on its 2028 first-rounder as part of the Gafford trade. The pick also comes the season after Luka can become an unrestricted free agent by declining his 2026-27 player option, meaning the Mavericks may be rebuilding the roster by that point.
Given the urgency to win now and convince Doncic to stick around, Dallas could only afford to give up a first-round pick for a real difference-maker who could help the Mavericks make a multi-round playoff run. I don't think Washington's track record supports viewing him in that light.
Charlotte Hornets grade: A
Like Williams, Washington lost his starting job early in the season when Miles Bridges returned from suspension following a no-contest plea on a felony domestic violence charge. With Bridges telling the Hornets he would not approve any trade at the deadline while playing on a one-year qualifying offer, according to ESPN's Brian Windhorst, Washington became the odd man out.
Whether Charlotte re-signs Bridges this summer or not, this kind of value in return for Washington was a no-brainer trade. Williams is back in his hometown of Charlotte, his shooting and defense will fit alongside the developing young Hornets and his modest salary won't hamper their cap flexibility over the next two offseasons.
This is also a homecoming for Curry, who grew up in Charlotte, where his father Dell starred for the Hornets before becoming the team's color analyst. Because Curry's 2024-25 salary is non-guaranteed, this could be a short return, though he's a respected veteran who could make sense as a locker room presence on a young team.
Tre Mann and Davis Bertans to Charlotte for Gordon Hayward
Oklahoma City Thunder get:
F Gordon Hayward
Charlotte Hornets get:
G Tre Mann
F Davis Bertans
Oklahoma City Thunder grade: A
This trade accomplishes two very different objectives for the Thunder, and it would be interesting to know which one was really the greater priority. In the short-term, Oklahoma City adds a versatile veteran in Hayward, who seems to fit their vision for spacing the floor with skill at the expense of size. The Thunder also opened additional cap space this summer, giving them a projected $30 million or so in free agency.
Let's start with Hayward, who hasn't played since Dec. 26 due to a calf strain. On Monday, Charlotte coach Steve Clifford told reporters that Hayward was "pretty close to being able to come back," and there will be somewhat more urgency to do so in Oklahoma City than with a Hornets team headed for the lottery.
Health has been the biggest issue for Hayward in the back half of his career. During three-plus seasons in Charlotte, he missed an average of nearly 28 games per season due to injury. That's manageable for a Thunder team that has plenty of depth and didn't sacrifice much in this deal. Micic was on the fringes of coach Mark Daigneault's rotation, while Mann and Bertans had played a combined 210 minutes all season.
As a luxury addition for Oklahoma City rather than a necessity, Hayward makes sense. At 6-foot-8, he's bigger than the Thunder's other power forward options without compromising skill. Though his usage rate has dropped to around league average in recent seasons, Hayward remains a capable 3-point shooter and strong playmaker. This season's 5.2 assists per 36 minutes are a career high for Hayward and something Oklahoma City surely valued looking ahead to a first playoff run with this young core.
With Hayward making $31.5 million in the final season of his contract, this deal adds to the Thunder's payroll. However, Oklahoma City shed some $18 million in 2024-25 guaranteed salary between the $5.25 million Bertans was guaranteed and the full salaries for Mann and Micic. That takes the Thunder from likely being better off staying over the cap to having enough room to pursue a starting-caliber player.
With Oklahoma City's payroll set to jump in 2026-27, when Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams will be off their rookie contracts, I'd be surprised if the Thunder actually used that cap space to sign a long-term deal. It's more likely Oklahoma City will make moves like last summer, when taking on Bertans' salary using cap space allowed the Thunder to move up two spots and draft Cason Wallace at No. 10. Oklahoma City could also stay over the cap and re-sign Hayward to a deal that allows using him as matching salary in a trade down the road.
Whatever the Thunder end up doing with their payroll flexibility, it came at a low cost. Oklahoma City previously had 21 tradable second-round picks, per ESPN's Bobby Marks.
Charlotte Hornets grade: B-
From the Hornets' perspective, this was much more clearly a case of taking on salary in exchange for draft picks. Whether via trade or buyout, Hayward was headed elsewhere, tying a bow on an expensive signing that didn't fit Charlotte's rebuilding timeline.
The Hornets could have interest in Mann and Micic as players as well. With Terry Rozier traded to Miami and LaMelo Ball sidelined by lingering effects of his ankle injury, Charlotte played much of Wednesday's loss to the Toronto Raptors without a traditional point guard.
Micic, the 2020-21 EuroLeague MVP and a two-time EuroLeague final four MVP, hasn't carried over that production as an NBA rookie at age 30. Poor 3-point shooting (11-of-45, 24%) has limited Micic's role and effectiveness, but European players do tend to improve in their second season stateside, so the Hornets might get an improved version next year.
Mann, the 18th pick in the 2021 draft, played frequently as a backup point guard during his first two seasons before losing his role to Micic and Wallace this season. To stick in a rotation, Mann will have to improve his efficiency after posting a .501 true shooting percentage (TS%) during his Thunder career.
76ers land Buddy Hield from the Pacers
Philadelphia 76ers get:
G Buddy Hield
Indiana Pacers get:
G Furkan Korkmaz
F Doug McDermott
2024 second-round pick (via TOR)
2029 second-round pick (via POR)
San Antonio Spurs get:
F Marcus Morris Sr.
2029 second-round pick (via LAC)
Philadelphia 76ers grade: A-
The Sixers' options at the trade deadline were presented as choosing between using their expiring contracts to add long-term salary or saving them to maximize cap space this summer. I've always felt a middle strategy made sense for Philadelphia, and that's exactly what this trade accomplishes. Because Hield is in the final season of his contract, like both Korkmaz and Morris, the 76ers still have the potential to clear more than $50 million in cap space. More likely, with the pool of impactful free agents likely to change teams drying up due to extensions and trades, Philadelphia will focus on re-signing its own talent using Bird rights -- including Hield.
Hield ending up with famously analytical Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey is so logical it's surprising it didn't happen earlier. Morey was early to champion the value of 3-point shooting with the Houston Rockets, who pushed their 3 attempts to totals that once seemed extreme but are now commonplace. Outside two-time MVP Stephen Curry, no player has made better use of the 3-point line than Hield, who finished second in the league in total 3s made in each of the past four seasons.
Hield ranks 15th in total 3s, a product of decreased playing time. With younger Indiana wings Bennedict Mathurin and Aaron Nesmith growing into larger roles, Hield's 25.7 minutes per game are his fewest since 2017-18. Hield is still launching 9.6 3s per 36 minutes, just above his career mark, a number that might increase in Philadelphia.
Despite Morey's reputation and track record, this year's 76ers rank just 25th with 31.4 3-point attempts per game. They had plenty of shooters capable of spacing the floor for MVP Joel Embiid, but no true threats like Hield, who would appear at the top of opposing scouting reports. If Embiid returns this season, he should benefit from Hield's gravity as a shooter.
For now, Philadelphia could use Hield's scoring punch to help fill in for Embiid. Moreover, the Sixers just needed more healthy bodies with Embiid joined on the sideline by fellow starters Nicolas Batum and De'Anthony Melton, plus reserves Morris and Robert Covington. As long as Melton is out, Hield should get all the minutes he wants in Philly.
It will be interesting to see how 76ers coach Nick Nurse deploys Hield when Melton and Batum are back. Starting Hield with All-Star Tyrese Maxey in the backcourt would tilt Philadelphia's lineup in an offensive direction at the expense of defense, with only one spot available for a more defensive-minded option (Batum or Melton). Hield may make most sense in a sixth man role.
Although he's in the last year of his contract, Hield may become more than a rental. It's going to be difficult for Philadelphia to upgrade from starting forward Tobias Harris in free agency, meaning staying over the cap may end up the best play for the 76ers. In that case, having Hield's full Bird rights will help Philly re-sign him.
As a side benefit, this trade saves the Sixers about $2.5 million after factoring in some of Hield's incentives (including for making the playoffs, per ESPN's Bobby Marks), which go from unlikely to likely by virtue of changing teams. Add in Philadelphia moving the salary of backup forward Danuel House Jr. to the Detroit Pistons in a separate trade, and the 76ers have now moved out of the luxury tax.
Besides the financial implications, that's also meaningful because Philly no longer has to worry about restrictions on taxpaying teams signing players waived midseason who were making more than the non-taxpayer midlevel exception. That makes the Sixers, who now have two open roster spots, an attractive destination for players on the buyout market -- most notably Philadelphia native Kyle Lowry, should he reach a buyout with the Charlotte Hornets.
To make this move, the 76ers did have to give up a solid pick in this year's second round that involves multiple swaps. Ultimately, that pick will likely come from the Raptors, making it 37th overall if the season ended today. By sending two more distant second-rounders, Philadelphia is running low on tradable picks, period. Nonetheless, the Sixers were able to upgrade and save money without giving up a first-round pick, leaving their limited stockpile available for a bigger move down the road.
Indiana Pacers grade: B
Given the Pacers are competing for the sixth and final guaranteed playoff spot in the East -- they're currently one game up on the Miami Heat and 1.5 games ahead of the Orlando Magic -- it's a bit surprising to see them moving on from a key player. The explanation is probably a combination of pragmatism and taking care of Hield after his role was reduced this season.
Adding Pascal Siakam via trade made it less likely Indiana would re-sign Hield as an unrestricted free agent this summer because of luxury tax concerns. And though Hield started at shooting guard as recently as a week ago, the younger Mathurin, Andrew Nembhard and rookie Ben Sheppard are the Pacers' future at the position.
For the rest of this season, Indiana will hope the young options can replace Hield's production. This summer, getting a prime second-round pick helps replace the top-three protected first-rounder the Pacers are sending in the Siakam deal. Indiana already had two second-rounders in the 2024 draft but none projected in the top half of the round.
Folding San Antonio into this three-team deal helped offset some of the shooting Indiana lost. The bigger McDermott has been a more accurate shooter than Hield (41% career from 3-point range, 44% this season), albeit on lower volume (his 8.9 attempts per 36 minutes in 2023-24 are a career high) and without as complete a game. Still, the Pacers can plug McDermott into the same off-ball screens they use to generate Hield shots.
After sending one of the three second-round picks coming from Philadelphia to the Spurs, Indiana still picks up two picks. The 2024 second-round pick from the Raptors is a prime pick that helps replace the top-3 protected first-rounder the Pacers sent the Raptors for Siakam. Indiana already had a couple of second-rounders in this year's draft, but none that projected in the top half of the round.
San Antonio: B+
Nearly five years after Morris reneged on a verbal agreement to sign with the Spurs, they finally got their guy. Well, not exactly. ESPN's Tim Bontemps reported San Antonio will buy out or waive Morris, ending up with a second-round pick for its trouble.
Knicks, Pistons connect for six-player deal
New York Knicks get:
F Bojan Bogdanovic
G Alec Burks
Detroit Pistons get:
G Evan Fournier
G Malachi Flynn
G Quentin Grimes
G Ryan ArcidiaconoTwo second-round picks
New York Knicks grade: A
There's a lot to like about this deal from the Knicks' perspective. Having gone 16-3 since OG Anunoby debuted on New Year's Day, New York has moved into a crowded race for the second seed in the Eastern Conference with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Milwaukee Bucks and maybe the reeling Philadelphia 76ers.
The winner of that competition will have a more favorable first-round matchup against a team from the play-in tournament, as well as home-court advantage in a potential conference semifinals series. The team that finishes fourth draws one of the others in the first round and the top-seeded Boston Celtics in the second round, meaning there's much at stake.
Although they haven't yet shown up in the Knicks' record, injuries to Anunoby (who has missed the past five games with bone spur irritation in his right elbow) and Randle (out the next week or two after suffering a shoulder dislocation) have begun to fray New York's depth. Precious Achiuwa, acquired in the Anunoby trade as a backup center, has logged at least 40 minutes each of the past four games, primarily as Randle's replacement at power forward.
Moreover, the Knicks having only All-Star point guard Jalen Brunson as a primary shot creator has led defenses to trap Brunson more aggressively. The Los Angeles Lakers were able to take the ball out of Brunson's hands down the stretch of their come-from-behind win at Madison Square Garden last Saturday, during which New York was limited to 19 points in the fourth quarter.
Even at full strength, the Knicks sacrificed some of their guard depth and second-unit scoring punch by sending Immanuel Quickley to the Toronto Raptors in the Anunoby trade. Enter Burks, who has been one of the NBA's better reserves this season amid Detroit's struggles, as well as Bogdanovic. Suddenly, New York again has one of the NBA's best benches at full strength, as well as capable fill-ins for Anunoby and Randle during their absences.
Burks, who spent two seasons with the Knicks before being traded to Detroit in the summer of 2022 as they cleared cap space to sign Brunson, is averaging a career-high 21.6 points per 36 minutes -- similar to the 22.5 Quickley had averaged prior to the trade. Burks' efficiency (.592 true shooting percentage (TS%) in two seasons with the Pistons) is also in the same ballpark as Quickley (.598 TS% this season in New York).
Add it up, and Burks ranked 13th in my wins above replacement (WARP) metric among players who have started fewer than half their games and are eligible for Sixth Man of the Year, five spots behind Quickley -- last season's runner-up for the award. His versatility is also a plus; Burks can play alongside Miles McBride, who has been backing up Brunson since the Quickley trade, or serve as the Knicks' backup point guard if coach Tom Thibodeau wants to cut his playoff guard rotation.
But Burks isn't really the centerpiece of this trade. That's Bogdanovic, who was one of the most coveted players at last year's deadline. Bogdanovic missed this season's first 19 games, including the majority of Detroit's record 28-game losing streak, due to a calf strain. Since returning, Bogdanovic has averaged 20.2 PPG on an above-average .600 TS%, the latter right on his career mark.
The biggest question for Thibodeau will be finding enough minutes for Bogdanovic when New York has Anunoby and Randle ahead of him in the forward rotation, as well as Josh Hart coming off the bench. For now, Bogdanovic slides into the starting lineup and provides shot making that will punish defenses who trap the ball out of Brunson's hands.
With Bogdanovic and Burks, the Knicks should head into the playoffs with a robust eight-man rotation as deep as any in the league while also having added high-end talent in the form of Anunoby. The path to the conference finals will be challenging no matter where they finish in the East standings, but New York has improved its chances of reaching the East finals for the first time since 2000.
Financially, this deal works well for the Knicks, too. They've saved enough room ($2.5 million) to fill the three open roster spots on their bench and likely stay under the luxury tax line. If New York makes the NBA Finals, a $250K incentive for Donte DiVincenzo will kick in, per ESPN's Bobby Marks, which could push the Knicks into the tax.
Next season, Bogdanovic's $19 million salary is just $2 million guaranteed until July 4, giving New York similar flexibility to Fournier's $19 million team option. If guaranteed, Bogdanovic can serve as an expiring salary in a possible trade for a star while also helping the Knicks if he sticks around. Given a likely raise for Anunoby (who can become an unrestricted free agent by declining a $19.9 million player option), re-signing Burks would surely push New York into the tax next season, but that's an option too.
Remarkably, the Knicks have pulled off both this trade and the one for Anunoby without dipping into their stash of first-round picks. Instead, New York has relied on young talent developed in-house. Grimes has outperformed his No. 25 draft spot, but his role diminished this season with the emergence of newcomer DiVincenzo, and Grimes has only one year left on his bargain rookie deal. Giving him up is a small price to pay for everything the Knicks accomplished with this move.
Detroit Pistons grade: C+
Compared to the rumored two first-round picks the Pistons turned down for Bogdanovic a year ago, not getting a single one for him and Burks looks like a disappointing outcome. Detroit should have moved Bogdanovic while his value was highest, but in this trade they prioritized Grimes over adding picks more valuable than the second-rounders they got.
Some of the shine is off Grimes as a prospect. After hitting 39% of his 3s and 64% of his rare 2-point attempts last season -- when he started 66 of his 71 games on a playoff team -- Grimes has been less accurate from both areas in 2023-24. Because he relies so heavily on 3s (nearly three-quarters of his shot attempts this season), he needs to be a plus 3-point shooter to have offensive value. This year's 36% accuracy isn't cutting it.
Before being boxed into a 3-and-D role in the NBA, Grimes was a big-time scorer in college, averaging 17.8 PPG in his final junior season at Houston. The Pistons surely give him more opportunities to make plays with the ball, and even this year's version of Grimes' shooting will be a welcome addition to a Detroit team losing two of its best floor-spacers.
Getting a quality young player and a pair of second-round picks to replace the high second-rounder the Pistons sent to the Utah Jazz on Wednesday for Simone Fontecchio is undoubtedly better than sticking it out with Bogdanovic and Burks as veterans on a rebuilding team.
The Fontecchio deal made the most sense if it freed Detroit up to deal Bogdanovic and Burks without worrying too much about the possibility of finishing with single-digit wins this season.
Still, I'd probably rather have a first-rounder in the bottom 10 of this year's draft than Grimes. If things go well, Grimes will be due for an extension this offseason or will become a restricted free agent in the summer of 2025 and quickly command a raise. Based on how well New York made out in this trade, it feels like Detroit came away with too little.
Feb. 7
Timberwolves acquire Morris from Pistons for Milton, Brown
Detroit Pistons get:
G Shake Milton
F Troy Brown Jr.
2030 second-round pick
Minnesota Timberwolves grade: A
Entering play Wednesday, the Timberwolves are one of four teams atop the Western Conference standings. The LA Clippers have the best winning percentage of the group, with one fewer win and one fewer loss than Minnesota, the Denver Nuggets and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The tight race means even a small upgrade could make the difference between the Timberwolves having home-court advantage through the West finals or only having it for the first round.
This trade is an admission that Minnesota's offseason additions didn't work. The Timberwolves used their non-taxpayer midlevel exception to sign both Brown and Milton, who have played a combined 139 minutes since Jan. 1 while on the fringes of coach Chris Finch's rotation. Minnesota didn't spend much on the two players, who make a combined $9 million and have non-guaranteed salaries for 2024-25, meaning they were easily tradable.
In return, Timberwolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly is reunited with Morris, one of his many draft finds during nine years with the Nuggets. Taken 51st overall in 2017, Morris developed into one of the league's best backup point guards and a capable fill-in starter during Jamal Murray's absence due to an ACL tear in 2021.
Morris replaces Jordan McLaughlin as the backup to veteran Mike Conley Jr., offering a tad more size at 6-foot-2 than the 6-foot McLaughlin and -- crucially for Minnesota's spacing -- more shooting. McLaughlin is hitting 40.5% of his 3s this season, but that's out of line with his career 35% mark. Morris is a career 39% 3-point shooter. Both players will help Minnesota manage the 36-year-old Conley's workload down the stretch of the regular season.
For this season, Morris' $9.8 million salary is close enough to what Brown and Milton were making that the Timberwolves should be able to temporarily fill their 14th roster spot using 10-day contracts and avoid paying the luxury tax as long as they don't win the championship, which would trigger a $750,000 incentive for Conley. (And if the Timberwolves do hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy for the first time in franchise history -- and having not won a playoff series since 2004 -- they surely won't sweat the tax.)
This summer, Minnesota will have full Bird rights on both Conley and Morris. Given the coming financial crunch for the Timberwolves, who already sit $9 million over the projected 2024-25 tax line with extensions for Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Karl-Anthony Towns kicking in, re-signing both Conley and Morris seems unrealistic. Nonetheless, having another, younger option at point guard is a positive for Minnesota, which likely won't have access to the taxpayer midlevel exception.
Detroit Pistons grade: B+
Morris seemed like precisely the player the Pistons should have targeted last summer: a steady veteran whose unselfish play and quality shooting would amplify their young talents in the backcourt, Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey. Alas, a severe quadriceps strain in the preseason sidelined Morris through late January, and Detroit made ignominious history with a 28-game losing streak in his absence.
By the time Morris returned to the lineup, the Pistons already had a crowd in the backcourt with sixth man Alec Burks, former starter Killian Hayes and promising rookie Marcus Sasser behind Cunningham and Ivey. Morris averaged just 11.3 minutes per game in the six he played for Detroit. Having given up a 2027 second-round pick to get Morris from the Washington Wizards last summer, the Pistons recouped some of that value with a distant second-rounder from Minnesota. Since Brown and Milton have non-guaranteed 2024-25 salaries, Detroit can take a look at them the rest of the season without it affecting the team's plan for cap space.
Celtics acquire Xavier Tillman from the Grizzlies
Boston Celtics get:
F/C Xavier Tillman
Memphis Grizzlies get:
F Lamar Stevens
2027 second-round pick (via Atlanta)
2030 second-round pick (via Dallas)
Boston Celtics grade: A
What do you get the team that has everything? The Celtics are the title favorites at ESPN BET, and for good reason. They boast the NBA's best record, rank in the league's top three in both offensive and defensive and have an airtight top-eight rotation when healthy.
The latter two criteria were the lone fault lines in Boston. Centers Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford have combined to miss 23 games this season, and while Horford's absences are primarily precautionary and the Celtics are being cautious with Porzingis, they can't count on having them throughout every game of an anticipated long playoff run.
It counts as a concern in Boston that the team's lowest on-court net rating for any player comes with third center Luke Kornet in action. The Celtics are still outscoring opponents by 2.7 points per 100 possessions with Kornet, according to NBA Advanced Stats, but amazingly they're at least plus-8.0 with every other player who's seen at least 250 minutes.
Enter Tillman, a proven playoff veteran who started all six games Memphis played last postseason and another six in the Grizzlies' 2021-22 run. If Horford or Porzingis miss a game in the playoffs, or even just get in foul trouble, Joe Mazzulla can turn to Tillman with somewhat more confidence than Kornet. Beyond that, another big man will help Boston manage the minutes for Horford and Porzingis the rest of the regular season while attempting to secure home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.
From a financial perspective, Tillman is an ideal fit on a taxpaying team. He's making just $1.9 million in the last year of his rookie contract, meaning the Celtics actually cut their tax bill by swapping him for the seldom-used Stevens. Tillman will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. Boston can re-sign him for any amount using full Bird rights, useful given the Celtics won't have access to the midlevel exception so long as they retain Jrue Holiday, which will push them above the NBA's second luxury-tax apron.
The one question Boston will have to answer before considering a new contract for Tillman is what to make of his curious decline as a finisher this season. After hitting 71% of his shots in the restricted area in 2022-23, Tillman is down to 56%, a dreadful mark for a 6-foot-8 center. Add in 23% accuracy on 3s -- a shot the Celtics would do well to discourage -- and Tillman is hitting 41% from the field overall.
Tillman had a similar drop-off in 2021-22 according to NBA Advanced Stats, shooting 56% in the restricted area after 71% as a rookie. And Tillman's other athletic indicators are strong, including smashing his career high by blocking 4.6% of opponents' 2-point attempts. So odds are Tillman will finish in Boston, particularly with the benefit of better floor spacing and more playmaking around him.
Adding Tillman using matching salary also means the Celtics won't have to dip into the $6.2 million trade exception they created by sending Grant Williams to the Dallas Mavericks via sign-and-trade last summer. Boston could use that exception in another trade before the deadline or, more likely, save it for an offseason move.
Memphis Grizzlies grade: C+
As much as Tillman fits the Celtics financially, his free agency was more tenuous for the Grizzlies. Despite moving fellow center Steven Adams to the Houston Rockets last week, Memphis still projects over the luxury tax line next season. Declining Luke Kennard's team option will barely get the Grizzlies under the tax line, meaning Memphis must be judicious in its spending.
If Tillman planned on leaving this summer, the Grizzlies had to get whatever value they could for him now. Tillman certainly isn't helping Memphis the rest of what has become a gap year due to injury. Still, the return feels light considering Boston might have had to give up a second-round pick just to move Stevens' salary before the deadline.
Since the Celtics don't have any especially promising second-round picks in the near future, the Grizzlies went for distant picks with more upside. Trae Young will already have a chance at unrestricted free agency before Atlanta's 2027 second-round pick conveys, while Luka Doncic may be long gone from Dallas by 2030.
For now, however, the picks won't help Memphis fill out a 2024-25 roster with only injured Brandon Clarke under contract as primarily a center and limited resources to add players.
Pistons acquire Simone Fontecchio in trade with Jazz
Detroit Pistons get:
Utah Jazz get:
F Kevin Knox II
2024 second-round pick (more favorable of MEM and WSH)
Draft rights to Gabriele Procida
Detroit Pistons grade: C
This is the second trade the Pistons have made in the past month sending out draft picks, a reversal of what we'd typically expect from the team with the NBA's worst record. And while the previous one was partially about shedding the 2024-25 salary of Marvin Bagley III, this trade is much more explicitly about adding to the current roster.
That could make sense if this is part of a two-pronged strategy ahead of Thursday's NBA trade deadline. If adding Fontecchio enables the Pistons to part with one of their older players, either guard Alec Burks (in the final season of his contract) or forward Bojan Bogdanovic, it might be a way for Detroit to get value without hurting the team's chances of getting to 10 wins this season and avoiding the ignominy of finishing with the worst 82-game record in league history.
Fontecchio certainly projects as a long-term player for the Pistons, who inherit his rights as a restricted free agent this summer. Since Fontecchio is making just $3 million this season as part of a two-year contract he signed with the Jazz as an NBA rookie, his cap hold will be modest, which allows Detroit to use cap space before re-signing him and going over the cap.
Exactly what that cap hold is depends on whether Fontecchio starts at least seven more games the rest of the season, qualifying for "starter criteria" in the collective bargaining agreement that would increase his cap hold from $4 million to $5.2 million. Either way, that's surely less than Fontecchio will command after a breakthrough second NBA season.
After shooting just 37% from the field as a rookie, Fontecchio has improved dramatically both inside and outside the arc in Year 2. He's hitting 56% of his 2s and 39% of his 3s, good for an above-average .592 true shooting percentage. At 6-foot-8, Fontecchio has the size to occasionally play power forward like the 6-7 Knox has for the Pistons, though his length is better used to match up with wings.
This might be as good as Fontecchio gets, however. An international veteran before coming to the NBA, he turned 28 in December, making him unusually old for a restricted free agent. Although Fontecchio's value should largely hold on his next contract, it might not be a bargain, making a quality second-round pick a lot to give up.
Detroit is sending Utah the better pick of the Memphis Grizzlies and Washington Wizards. If the season ended today, that would be the 32nd overall pick. If the Pistons improve as much as they hope the rest of the way and pass Washington, it could end up the top choice in the second round. Having already traded away its own second-round pick, Detroit is now left without any, an unusual state for a nominally rebuilding team.
That makes it imperative to me that the Pistons turn around and trade either Burks or Bogdanovic, a scenario in which they could get younger and cheaper without cratering their rotation. We often categorize teams at the deadline as either adding or subtracting talent, but it's possible Detroit could find a middle path that accomplishes both, in which case I'd feel more positive about this trade.
Utah Jazz grade: B+
The interesting thing about this trade from the Jazz's perspective is the discussion of how Fontecchio's small cap hold can help the Pistons also applies to Utah. The Jazz currently project as having a maximum of about $40 million in cap space, which Knox doesn't affect because he's on a one-year contract.
Due to his combination of size and skill, Fontecchio had become a crucial player for the Jazz. Lineups with Fontecchio at small forward had played just about even over the course of the season (minus-0.5 net rating), per my analysis of lineup data from NBA Advanced Stats -- easily the best mark of any Utah player who's seen more than 50 minutes of action at small forward.
Lauri Markkanen opened the season as the Jazz's starting small forward, but coach Will Hardy found that playing Markkanen with both John Collins and Walker Kessler left Utah's spacing too cramped and Markkanen has largely played power forward. Meanwhile, backup Ochai Agbaji has taken a step backward in his second season, shooting just 33% from 3-point range after hitting 35.5% as a rookie.
Barring another trade before the deadline, this looks like a second straight year a Jazz team in play-in contention will take a step back. That's great news for the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Laker -- the three other teams battling for what looks like two spots in the West play-in.
From Utah's perspective, sliding down the standings could be less beneficial this season because the team owes a first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder that's protected if it falls in the top 10. Right now, the Jazz would enter the lottery in 13th position and need to jump into the top four to keep the pick, though they could easily climb as high as ninth by the end of the regular season.
For the most part, this looks like pragmatism on the part of Utah CEO of basketball operations Danny Ainge, who has operated patiently since taking control of the Jazz. Given Fontecchio was an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2022, getting an early second-round pick in return is a huge win.
Additionally, Utah gets a lottery ticket in the rights to Procida. Fontecchio's Italian countryman was the 36th pick in 2022 and won't turn 22 until June. Currently playing for Alba Berlin, Procida will likely need to improve his 3-point shooting to become a legitimate NBA player.
Feb. 1
Grizzlies send Steven Adams to Rockets for Victor Oladipo, pick
Memphis Grizzlies get:
G Victor Oladipo
Two 2024 second-round picks
One 2025 second-round pick
Houston Rockets get:
Memphis Grizzlies grade: B-
The timing of this trade -- featuring two players who have not played all season due to injury and coming days after a slightly lower projected figure for the 2024-25 salary cap -- might not be a coincidence. With Steven Adams and a team option for guard Luke Kennard on the books, the Grizzlies projected to be some $20-plus million over the new $171 million tax line after factoring in a likely lottery pick. Now, they'll wipe out Adams' $12.6 million by dealing for Victor Oladipo in the final year of his contract.
The last time Memphis paid the luxury tax was 2005-06, back when the system was far less punitive than it is now. At some point, the small-market Grizzlies may find it worthwhile to pay the tax to build a contending team around Desmond Bane, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Ja Morant. However, pushing beyond the second apron would have been difficult to justify what turned into a season filled with disappointment and injuries to Bane, Morant and Marcus Smart.
Adams' injury was a factor in Memphis' fall from the No. 2 seed a year ago to 13th in the Western Conference thus far. The Grizzlies announced in October that Adams' right knee, which sidelined him the second half of the 2022-23 campaign, required season-ending surgery. Without both Adams and backup Brandon Clarke, who hasn't played since an Achilles rupture last March, Memphis has been searching for consistent play at center all season.
The Grizzlies gave 27 starts to Bismack Biyombo in between signing him in November and waiving him last month to make room for two-way standout Vince Williams Jr. on the full roster. Although Clarke should be back for the start of the 2024-25 season, they will have to utilize some of their newfound financial flexibility -- or their lottery pick -- to replace Adams' physical presence alongside Jackson in the frontcourt.
How Memphis operates this offseason will depend on Kennard's $14.8 million team option. Declining the option would give the Grizzlies just enough wiggle room to utilize the taxpayer portion of their mid-level exception while staying under the current tax projection. If Memphis decides to keep Kennard, the most accurate outside shooter on a team that ranks 28th in 3-point percentage, the Grizzlies would operate over the tax line and other money-saving moves might be in store.
One other option for Memphis: utilizing a trade exception for Adams' $12.6 million salary generated by this trade. Because Oladipo is in the last year of his contract, the Grizzlies can fit him into the Morant disabled player exception, meaning they're essentially treated as sending Adams out for nothing. That may come to nothing because of luxury-tax concerns, but it's an interesting wrinkle to the deal.
It would certainly help Memphis if the cap comes in higher than projected, often the case in past seasons. The current projection, however, might have helped convince the Grizzlies that rising league revenues wouldn't bail them out of a challenging financial future.
Houston Rockets grade: B+
A trade like this one was why the Rockets were reluctant to waive guard Kevin Porter Jr. after his arrest last September on assault charges against his former girlfriend Kysre Gondrezick, which resulted in a deal where Porter subsequently plead guilty last month to misdemeanor assault and a harassment violation.
Instead, Houston traded Porter's contract to the Oklahoma City Thunder in October -- who immediately waived him -- in exchange for Oladipo, who underwent surgery last April to repair his patellar tendon and has yet to return to the court. That allowed the Rockets to use Oladipo's $9.45 million expiring contract as matching salary.
Although Adams won't help Houston on the court this season, he could have an important role in 2024-25 as a backup to rising star Alperen Sengun. Before his injury, Adams was the kind of defensive-minded veteran Houston sought to add in the middle by attempting to sign Brook Lopez of the Milwaukee Bucks in free agency last summer. We'll see whether Adams can return to that level next fall, 21 months after his last NBA game.
Alternatively, the Rockets could turn around and include Adams in yet another trade in pursuit of a star player. By adding Adams' $12.6 million expiring salary to 2024-25 team options for Jeff Green ($9.6 million) and Jae'Sean Tate ($7.1 million) -- along with Jock Landale's $8 million non-guaranteed salary -- Houston will have some $37 million in contracts to offer with no guaranteed money beyond next season.
Jan. 23
Miami Heat acquire Rozier in exchange for Lowry
Charlotte Hornets get:
G Kyle Lowry
2027 first-round pick
Miami Heat get:
Charlotte Hornets grade: A
Rozier has been one of the few success stories for the Hornets in recent years. Acquired as part of a sign-and-trade when Kemba Walker left for the Boston Celtics, he outplayed his initial three-year, $58 million contract and retained positive trade value even after signing the largest possible extension to that deal. It's an encouraging change of direction for Charlotte to part with Rozier via trade at what is likely the peak of his value.
The Hornets have resisted rebuilding in order to chase as many wins as possible, which has limited their ceiling. With Ball on the roster, a full teardown is unrealistic for the team, but ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski's report on the front office's plan to use the cap flexibility created by this deal to add more picks in future trades is positive news.
There are a couple of ways the Hornets can do that. In Lowry and Gordon Hayward ($31.5 million), Charlotte now holds two of the largest expiring contracts in the NBA. Trading either player to a team looking to shed future obligations could return the Hornets a first-round pick while getting their new team a veteran who could provide value the rest of this season.
Since Lowry was acquired so close to the Feb. 8 trade deadline, the Hornets can't combine his salary with other players in a trade, but they could still bring back players making up to $37 million-plus in return under expanded salary matching rules in the new collective bargaining agreement.
If the Hornets don't find a deal between now and the deadline, they'll head into free agency with around a projected $50 million in cap space, allowing them to take on a big contract from a team looking to shed salary.
This is a normal operation for teams positioned in the lottery like Charlotte, whose 10-31 record is fourth-worst in the NBA. The Hornets have rarely added significant draft capital, however. The first-round pick Charlotte picked up in this deal is the only one besides the team's own on the ledger going forward, while the Hornets still remain obligated to send out their own 2025 first-round pick in the scenario where they make the playoffs next season. (If Charlotte is in the lottery each of the next two years, that pick converts into second-rounders in 2026 and 2027.)
Admittedly, dealing Rozier also makes it more likely the Hornets' own 2024 pick is again near the top of the lottery. Lowry should rent in Charlotte, with a buyout as a reasonable expectation if no deal materializes before the deadline. The Hornets will miss Rozier's shot creation as a backstop for Ball, as lineups with neither player on the court ranked in the fourth percentile league-wide in offensive rating, per Cleaning the Glass analysis.
With this season already lost, Charlotte shouldn't be worried about salvaging competitiveness the rest of the way. The Hornets instead need to find ways to build around a core of Ball and 2023 No. 2 pick Brandon Miller. Both the first-round pick Charlotte picked up and whatever results from increased cap flexibility will help the Hornets do so.
Miami Heat grade: B
Rozier, who will turn 30 in March, is quietly on track for the best season of his nine-year NBA career. Taking on an increased shot creation role when LaMelo Ball was sidelined, Rozier has bumped both his usage (27%) and assist rate (9.1 per 100 possessions) to career highs without hampering his efficiency. Rozier's .574 true shooting percentage (TS%) is a fraction off his career high of .575 set in 2020-21.
Looking only at those key offensive indicators, Rozier arguably belongs in the All-Star conversation. His advanced offensive stats are remarkably similar to those of Philadelphia 76ers guard Tyrese Maxey, a likely reserve pick who has posted a .579 TS% on 27% usage with 8.6 assists per 100 possessions.
The natural question is how much we should discount Rozier's impressive box score stats for the dreadful team environment in which he's operated. Much of Rozier's high-usage success has come as a point guard in the absence of Ball. Rozier averaged 25.0 PPG and 7.4 APG during that month and a half stretch, but the Hornets went 3-15 without Ball.
Digging into the numbers, that drop-off was actually about the defensive end of the court, where opponents have been red-hot from 3 against the Hornets. Charlotte averaged 109.4 points per 100 possessions with Rozier at point guard, per analysis of lineup data from NBA Advanced Stats, not a massive decline from the Hornets' 112.1 offensive rating with Ball at the point.
That's an encouraging sign for Miami, which presumably will slide Rozier into Lowry's role as the nominal point guard. Given Jimmy Butler's ability to play point forward and the option of running the offense through center Bam Adebayo, the Heat will be far less reliant on Rozier to set up his teammates than Charlotte was without Ball.
The fit issue will be how Rozier complements guard Tyler Herro in the Heat backcourt. There is a high degree of similarity between the two players, both of whom can handle the ball but are also off-ball threats because of their 3-point shooting (37% for Rozier and 40% for Herro, a bit better than his 38.5% career mark).
Shifting a bit of Herro's career-high 29% usage to Rozier, who will surely take more shots than Lowry (13% usage), should be a positive. Herro has never posted a TS% as strong as Rozier's current mark and he's slumped a bit to .549 this season because of career-low 46% accuracy inside the arc.
Defensively, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra could face more of an adjustment fitting in Rozier. Although Rozier (6-foot-1) is an inch taller than Lowry, his slighter frame gives him less defensive versatility. About 47% of Rozier's defensive matchups this season have been against point guards, per analysis of Second Spectrum tracking data, nearly as many as Herro (23%) and Lowry (26%) combined.
The good news is Rozier has experience in switch-heavy defenses like Miami often employs. Although Rozier has switched on just 11% of the picks he's defended this season, according to Second Spectrum, he did so more than twice as often (23% of picks) in 2021-22 under Hornets coach James Borrego -- more frequently than Lowry (17%) and Herro (16%) have this season.
Rozier and Herro could still find themselves somewhat challenged against backcourts with too much size to hide either of them on less threatening options -- like the East-leading Boston Celtics. This could mean one of them ends up on the bench down the stretch in favor of bigger lineups, with Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Cody Martin flanking Adebayo and Butler.
It's a risk the Heat are willing to take to improve their offense, which ranks 20th in per-possession scoring this season and 28th so far in January. Miami went from 25th in offensive rating in the regular season to seventh in the playoffs en route to the 2023 NBA Finals, but a similar leap isn't likely because the Heat aren't underperforming from 3-point range like they did when ranking 27th in accuracy during the 2022-23 regular season. (Miami is currently seventh in 3-point percentage.)
Rozier will help, but this deal alone doesn't seem like enough to lift the Heat out of the crowded second tier in the Eastern Conference that includes the Cleveland Cavaliers, Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks. Miami will again have to pull a couple of playoff upsets over better teams on paper to return to the Finals for the third time in the Butler-Adebayo era.
Down the road, the Heat may still be able to work a bigger deal. Matching salary might actually be easier with Rozier on the books for $24.9 million in 2024-25 and $26.6 million in 2025-26, salaries that look reasonable based on his current level of play. Miami would have lost Lowry as matching salary when his contract expired this summer.
After dealing a lottery-protected 2027 first-rounder and unprotected in 2028 in this trade, the Heat are now a bit more limited in the picks they can offer via trade. After making this year's pick, on draft night Miami could offer that player's rights, an unprotected pick in either 2029 or 2030 and potentially a third first-rounder in 2031 conditional on the pick sent to Charlotte not rolling over to 2028. Given how distant most of that pick value is, the Heat will probably be relying more on the young talent currently on their roster -- most notably Jaquez -- to get in the bidding if Cleveland's Donovan Mitchell comes available for trade within the next year.
Adding salary could also put Miami in the luxury tax next season. The Heat currently project $2.6 million above the tax line if the salary cap raises the maximum possible 10%, including player options for multiple contributors. Martin will likely decline his $7.2 million player option in favor of free agency, and re-signing him at a higher number would make it difficult for Miami to avoid the luxury tax.
Meanwhile, if the cap comes in closer to the NBA's current projection of 4% year-to-year growth, the Heat will be challenged to re-sign Martin and avoid exceeding the punitive second apron. This deal does offer Miami substantial savings this year, as trading Lowry's $29.7 million salary for Rozier's $23.2 million cuts the Heat's tax bill from $29.4 million to about $14 million.
With a 34-year-old Butler, Miami didn't have the luxury of waiting around to see whether a Mitchell trade materialized after striking out on a possible deal for Damian Lillard last summer. Nonetheless, one wonders whether adding Rozier will ultimately be unsatisfying by costing the Heat a precious draft pick and salary flexibility without moving the needle in terms of championship contention.
Jan. 17
Pacers land Siakam in three-team deal with Raptors and Pelicans
Indiana Pacers get:
F Pascal Siakam
Future second-round pick (via worse of Chicago and New Orleans)
New Orleans Pelicans get:
Cash considerations (via Indiana)
Toronto Raptors get:
F Bruce Brown
G Kira Lewis Jr.
F Jordan Nwora (via Indiana)
Two 2024 first-round picks (via worst of Houston 5-30, LA, Oklahoma City and Utah 11-30)
2026 first-round pick (via Indiana)
Indiana Pacers: B-
The brilliance of All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton this season has masked that the Indiana Pacers aren't as young a team as they seem. After Haliburton, their next three leaders in my wins above replacement player metric this season are Buddy Hield (31), Myles Turner (28 in March) and T.J. McConnell (31).
With 2022 lottery pick Bennedict Mathurin moving to the bench early in the season, the youngest of Indiana's five most common starters besides Haliburton is Obi Toppin, who will turn 25 in March.
All of that is to say that the Pacers couldn't necessarily count on internal development moving them up the Eastern Conference ranks. Mathurin and 2023 lottery pick Jarace Walker, who has played sparingly (127 minutes logged this season) haven't yet shown they can become the second All-Star Indiana needs as Haliburton's running mate.
Enter 29-year-old Siakam, who's easily the best player to play with Haliburton since his 2022 trade to the Pacers. Siakam figures to become a hub for lineups with Haliburton on the bench that have struggled to score as efficiently. Per Cleaning the Glass data, Indiana's league-leading offense goes from ranking in the 98th percentile of all lineups leaguewide with Haliburton on the court to the 56th percentile -- slightly better than league average -- without him.
The Pacers can surround Siakam with more spacing than has he enjoyed at any point since becoming a go-to scorer for the Toronto Raptors after Kawhi Leonard's departure in the summer of 2019. Siakam often had to grind his way to volume scoring against packed-in defenses, one factor in the two-time All-Star not scoring with above-average efficiency in terms of true shooting percentage (TS%) at any point from 2019-20 through 2022-23.
That has changed to a degree this season with Siakam being tasked with creating less offense thanks to the emergence of Scottie Barnes as a scorer. This season's 25% usage is Siakam's lowest since he was a role player on the Raptors team Leonard led to a championship. At the same time, Siakam's .600 TS% is a dramatic improvement on the .565 that was his previous high-water mark as a high-usage scorer.
Siakam's iffy outside shooting hasn't shown any improvement. He's hitting 32% from 3 this season, a tad below his career mark of 33%. It's not reasonable for the Pacers to expect that to improve, which might be acceptable in the context of their offense. Indiana has Turner as a stretch-5 and hasn't gotten high-volume 3-point shooting from power forwards Toppin (5.1 attempts per 36 minutes) and Jalen Smith (4.7) -- although both are shooting better than 40% on 3s, substantially above their career averages (32% for Smith, 34.5% for Toppin).
One interesting proposition is whether the Pacers will put the ball in Siakam's hands at times to leverage Haliburton's shooting threat off the ball. Indiana's pick-and-roll offense has been almost exclusively run through the team's point guards. Per Second Spectrum tracking, Haliburton has been the ball handler in 70% of the Pacers' ball screens while on the court. Siakam-Turner pick-and-rolls with Haliburton spacing could yield good shots, and coach Rick Carlisle should also experiment with Haliburton screening for Siakam in inverted pick-and-rolls.
There's little question that adding Siakam will make Indiana a better team. He fills a positional need and is athletic enough to replace the high-percentage finishing the Pacers were getting from their forward options while simultaneously adding shot creation and playmaking and upgrading Indiana's defense. The Pacers will get bigger by sliding 6-foot-8 Siakam to the 3 at times in place of 6-4 Brown, who didn't make the kind of impact Indiana was hoping after adding him in free agency.
The real bar for this trade is whether Siakam will improve the Pacers enough to justify throwing in many of their chips. That starts with the three draft picks, a rarity for Indiana. The risk-averse Pacers previously traded away their first-round pick ahead of the draft only once in the past decade: in 2020, when they used what became the No. 24 pick to acquire Malcolm Brogdon in a sign-and-trade with the Milwaukee Bucks.
Because Indiana had an extra pick coming from a deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder last June -- the worst of the first-rounders Oklahoma City owns this year, currently the Thunder's own at No. 29 -- the Pacers were able to complete this deal without dipping too far into their own draft picks. Indiana is hoping adding Siakam assures sending Toronto a non-lottery pick this season.
Indiana has to re-sign Siakam this summer to make this deal worth it. Because he was traded, Siakam no longer qualifies for a supermax contract, but even a regular max (a projected $260 million over five years, assuming the largest possible 10% increase in the NBA's salary cap) would be pricey for a player who will be 30 in April. Adding a player of Siakam's caliber via free agency was always going to be challenging for Indiana because of the combination of a smaller, colder market and the limited number of star players who make it to free agency unrestricted. At the same time, the Pacers now run the risk of overpaying Siakam to justify giving up multiple first-round picks.
Indiana will potentially begin bumping up against the luxury tax next season if Haliburton makes an All-NBA team (he needs to play in at least 65 games to qualify) and boosts his own salary on a rookie contract extension to 30% of the cap rather than 25%.
This trade might put a relatively low ceiling on how good the Pacers can be throughout Haliburton's prime. To truly contend for championships, Indiana will almost certainly need Mathurin or Walker to max out his development. And even in the latter scenario, a fully realized version of Walker's game might look a lot like what Siakam is now.
There was no obvious alternative move in getting the Pacers to that level, so I get why the franchise was ready to take this swing. It couldn't count on adding another undervalued star as it was already fortunate to do with Haliburton. And in the scenario where Haliburton can recruit another star to Indiana, the Pacers will still be able to offer multiple first-round picks in return as soon as this summer.
Toronto Raptors: A-
This trade is an interesting complement to the one the Raptors made with the New York Knicks for OG Anunoby in late December. After coming away with no first-round picks in that deal, centered primarily around young contributors RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley, Toronto took the opposite approach here.
Before dealing Siakam, the Raptors might have wanted to explore whether adding an explosive scorer in the backcourt and improving their depth could turn this into a dangerous playoff team. Toronto's 3-1 start after that trade gave hope to that notion, but the Raptors have subsequently lost four consecutive games to drop 1.5 games back of the last play-in spot.
If this season was no longer worth salvaging, Toronto needed to get value for Siakam before he hit unrestricted free agency, and this deal provides it. The Raptors have gone from being out one first-round pick net (this year's, top-six protected to the San Antonio Spurs to complete last year's ill-fated deal for Jakob Poeltl) to plus-two.
The bad news is none of the picks Toronto got will likely have as much upside as the one it could send San Antonio this year. Both of this year's first-rounders will likely be outside the lottery, and Indiana should be a playoff team in 2026 provided Siakam re-signs this summer. Still, the Raptors can use more cost-controlled rookie contracts to complement a core of Barrett, Quickley -- due a new deal this offseason as a restricted free agent -- and Barnes, who will become extension-eligible July 1.
Additionally, moving Siakam for expiring contracts gives Toronto some flexibility this offseason. Nwora and Siakam are both in the final season of their deals, and the creative contract the Pacers gave Brown has a $23 million team option for 2024-25. The Raptors can now exercise that option and keep Brown on an expiring contract or decline it and create about $25 million in cap space while retaining Quickley's small cap hold.
Given Toronto's options to add talent, I like the return for Anunoby much better when paired with this one. Together, they've yielded the Raptors two young contributors, three first-round picks and another just outside this year's first round.
This is the end of an era for Toronto. Siakam was the last remaining link to the rotation that won the Raptors' first NBA title. (Reserve Chris Boucher was on the 2019 team as well, but he saw just four minutes of action in the playoffs.) However, if Toronto can use the first-round picks acquired in this trade as well as by drafting Siakam at No. 27 in 2016, trading him could help produce a new era of Raptors success.
New Orleans Pelicans: A
The Pelicans were in the right place at the right time to help the Pacers complete this trade without giving up another rotation player. Because Indiana was under the cap before adding Siakam, the Pacers were able to take on Lewis' $5.7 million salary using space and immediately package him with other players to Toronto.
A Lewis trade was perhaps the single most inevitable move on the board ahead of the deadline. New Orleans' team salary was previously $2.9 million above the luxury tax line, and Lewis had played just 144 minutes this season, making him expendable. Had Indiana not been so motivated to add a player to the deal now, the Pelicans would likely have had to include far greater draft compensation to move Lewis' salary and save $18 million in salary, taxes and tax distribution, per ESPN's Bobby Marks.
Now, New Orleans is $2.8 million from the tax line with 13 players under contract. The Pelicans can fill the required 14th spot up through the deadline using 10-day contracts and then explore their options via trade or buyout to add to a team that's currently sixth in the Western Conference.
Jan. 14: Gallinari to Pistons, Bagley to Wizards
Detroit Pistons get:
F Danilo Gallinari
C Mike Muscala
Washington Wizards get:
F Marvin Bagley III
F Isaiah Livers
2025 second-round pick
2026 second-round pick
The most interesting aspect of this deal is how it signals the Pistons might handle the Feb. 8 trade deadline. Reports have indicated Detroit could be interested in adding talent rather than subtracting it in the name of avoiding the ignominy of finishing with the worst record in NBA history after losing a league-record 28 consecutive games earlier this season.
At 3-36 (.077), the Pistons are on pace to finish with six or seven wins, putting them in jeopardy of falling short of the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats, who went 7-59 (.106) in a season shortened by the NBA's lockout -- as well as the 9-73 (.110) 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers, the only team in league history to fail to win at least 10 games during a full 82-game schedule.
Giving up meaningful draft assets to upgrade the roster now would have been short-sighted for Detroit, which instead seems to have found a middle path. Gallinari and Muscala should be upgrades now, while shedding Bagley's $12.5 million salary for 2024-25 gives the Pistons max-level cap space next summer -- even if they land the No. 1 overall pick and retain forward Bojan Bogdanovic, whose $19 million salary has just $2 million guaranteed.
Bagley's contract stands as an example of how Detroit has mismanaged this rebuild. The Pistons traded for Bagley just before he hit restricted free agency, when the three-year, $37.5 million contract they gave him surely would have pried him away from the Sacramento Kings.
Although the second-round picks Detroit gave up in that deal haven't proved particularly valuable -- the first was No. 55 in last year's draft, with the Kings also getting back their own pick in the 2024 draft's second round (currently No. 53) -- both players Sacramento walked away from the trade with have been better than Bagley. The Pistons sent Trey Lyles, a useful rotation player, while the Kings also nabbed guard Donte DiVincenzo, now a productive starter for the New York Knicks.
Averaging 20 points per 36 minutes on 59% shooting, Bagley is enjoying perhaps his best offensive season. Yet he has still found himself out of Monty Williams' rotation this month because of the fit challenges his game presents. Since Bagley lacks 3-point range (1-of-6 this season), he needs to be paired with another shooter in the frontcourt. At the same time, Bagley is incapable of protecting the rim as a center alongside floor-spacing power forwards, a conundrum that has left him without a good NBA position.
By contrast, Gallinari and Muscala should better complement Detroit's remaining non-shooting big men, promising starter Jalen Duren and James Wiseman. Neither Gallinari (31%) nor Muscala (27.5%) has been particularly accurate from downtown this season, but their career marks are far stronger: 38% for Gallinari and 37.5% for Muscala.
Defensively, Gallinari could be a tricky fit with the Pistons. He has been playing extensively at center this season (84% of his minutes, per my analysis of lineup data from NBA Advanced Stats) for Washington after an ACL tear in the summer of 2022 compromised his remaining mobility at age 35. Playing closer to the basket defensively hasn't resulted in Gallinari blocking any more shots -- just three in 385 minutes.
As an adequate interior defender who also spaces the floor, Muscala has a better chance of helping Detroit the rest of the way. He was good enough last season that the Boston Celtics gave up a pair of second-round picks to add him at the deadline.
Most importantly, Gallinari and Muscala both have expiring contracts. The main value of the second-round picks the Pistons sent the Wizards is undoubtedly freeing themselves of Bagley's salary, allowing them to upgrade the roster in the name of unlocking their young talent the way the Houston Rockets did using cap space last summer. As compared to giving up more valuable picks to add players on long-term contracts, that's a wiser approach to the deadline for Detroit.
Unlike the Pistons, the Wizards are accumulating second-round picks during the beginning of their rebuild under new management rather than sending them out in trade. This deal adds more to the pick Washington got with Gallinari and Muscala in the deal sending Kristaps Porzingis to the Celtics.
Adding Bagley cuts into the cap space the Wizards could create this summer, but given the space will be useful mostly for adding salary via trade, Washington is better off trading its expiring contracts -- most notably starting point guard Tyus Jones, as well as his backup, Delon Wright -- for long-term deals now while picking up draft picks along the way.
Perhaps the Wizards have some hope they can reinflate Bagley's value before the end of his contract with regular playing time -- a process that hasn't gone so well thus far with guard Jordan Poole. Bagley figures to slot in as Washington's backup to Daniel Gafford at center, and he'll be surrounded by more shooting than he was in Detroit.
Additionally, the Wizards get a free look at Livers, the No. 42 pick of the 2021 draft who's in the final season of the contract he signed ahead of his rookie campaign. Livers' biggest challenge has been staying healthy. He has missed more than 40% of the Pistons' games over the past three seasons because of injury. Much of that was from a foot injury Livers suffered at Michigan but even since getting clear of that, he has missed time with a variety of ailments.
To have value in the NBA, Livers will likely have to become a plus shooter. He hit 36.5% of his 3-point attempts in 2022-23, when he started 22 games, but has slumped to 29% in the 23 games he has played thus far this season.
Dec. 30: Anunoby to Knicks, Barrett and Quickley to Raptors
New York Knicks get:
F OG Anunoby
C Precious Achiuwa
G Malachi Flynn
Toronto Raptors get:
F RJ Barrett
G Immanuel Quickley
2024 second-round pick (via Detroit)
New York Knicks: A-
This is an interesting trade for many reasons, not least the Knicks playing against their history by prioritizing a role player who's effective at both ends of the court over bigger names potentially available for trade.
Too often throughout New York's history of underperforming its market, the Knicks have gone after All-Stars just as they're about to hit the decline phase of their career, from Bob McAdoo to Amar'e Stoudemire. Having peaked at 17.1 PPG, Anunoby is both not that kind of star and, at age 26, just reaching his NBA peak.
Anunoby gives the Knicks the ace perimeter defender they've lacked in the Tom Thibodeau era. An All-Defensive second-team pick a year ago, Anunoby was still probably underrated at that end of the court after leading the league in steals per game. I had him on my first team.
Offensively, New York is giving up a lot of shot creation in this deal. Barrett (27%) and Quickley (24%) were third and fourth on the team in usage, respectively, behind leading scorers Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle. Only once in his career has Anunoby's usage rate been higher than league average (20%), and it's down a bit to 18% this season as Toronto has shifted more of its offense to ascending star Scottie Barnes.
In terms of the starting lineup, that's surely not a bad thing. Barrett has never scored with anything approaching league-average efficiency. This season's .536 true shooting percentage, a career high, still ranks 52nd of the 57 NBA regulars who have a usage rate of 25% or higher this season. A 34% career 3-point shooter (33% this season), Barrett did little to space the court for Brunson and Randle. Opponents will have to give more respect to Anunoby, who's at 37.4% this season and 37.5% for his career.
The real question is how this trade affects the Knicks' strong bench lineups. For the third consecutive year, Quickley has the best on-court net rating among New York full-season regulars, per NBA Advanced Stats. (And, last year, when Quickley was bested by trade deadline pickup Josh Hart, Hart too was part of the Knicks' second unit.)
To some degree, that says less about Quickley vis-à-vis New York's starters -- particularly Brunson -- and more about how the Knicks were able to beat up on weaker opposing benches. To maintain that same success, Thibodeau will probably have to change his approach on staggering the minutes of Brunson and Randle to mix them in with the reserves.
Brunson and Randle have played 986 minutes together, per NBA Advanced Stats, accounting for about 90% of their total playing time this season. For the most part, they've played separately only because of foul trouble. With two of New York's other best shot creators from the second unit promoted to the starting five (Donte DiVincenzo and Isaiah Hartenstein, the latter because of Mitchell Robinson's injury) and Quickley gone, the Knicks would be wise to keep one of their leading scorers on the court at all times.
It would be a nice bonus if New York got significant contributions from either Achiuwa or Flynn, making them more than throw-ins to this trade. There's an opportunity for Achiuwa to play at center, with the Knicks losing both Robinson for the long term and backup Jericho Sims (ankle sprain) in the short term. New York is down to Thibodeau-security-blanket Taj Gibson behind Hartenstein. New York could also use Achiuwa as a power forward in bigger lineups that shift Hart to his natural position on the wing.
Flynn was only adequate as Toronto's backup point guard this season after Fred VanVleet's departure. A plus shooter in college, he has never hit better than league average from the NBA line, limiting his value as an undersized defender. Similar players have thrived at times in Thibodeau's pick-and-roll-heavy offense, but the Knicks' coach may well prefer to use Miles McBride, a better defender, as Quickley's replacement at point guard.
Just how well Thibodeau can prop up second units without Quickley will determine how much upgrading the starting lineup with Anunoby helps New York this season. A small upgrade could make a big impact. Having gone 5-5 since Robinson's injury, the Knicks have dropped a half-game back of the Cleveland Cavaliers for the last guaranteed playoff spot in the East.
At the same time, New York is just two games back of the fourth seed and home-court advantage in the first round. Although a deeper playoff run than last year's loss to the Miami Heat in the conference semifinals appears unlikely, the Knicks have the ability to win a playoff series for a second straight season, something they haven't done since the year 2000.
The best part of this deal for New York is the way it maintains future flexibility. The Knicks didn't dip into their stockpile of additional first-round picks, giving up only the Detroit second-round pick (likely to be Nos. 31-33) they nabbed in a draft-night trade down that landed Quentin Grimes as well. Notably, New York didn't have to give up the contract of Evan Fournier, maintaining the possibility of using him as expiring salary in a trade through next season (if the Knicks exercise their team option).
Given those factors, New York hasn't exactly punted on adding a star down the road by making this trade. Assuming the Knicks can sign Anunoby to a contract extension -- completing this trade Saturday would make him eligible for a four-year deal June 30, the last day extensions are possible, ESPN's Bobby Marks notes -- or re-sign him as an unrestricted free agent, he will likely be more attractive to other teams as the centerpiece of a return than Barrett.
As a result, I think this was a deal New York couldn't pass on. The Knicks will surely miss Quickley, but his trade value was at its highest leading up to this year's trade deadline. Having failed to agree to a contract extension before the October deadline for players in the last season of their rookie contracts, Quickley will command a massive raise on his current bargain $4.2 million salary as a restricted free agent next summer.
If they can replace Quickley's production, it's possible New York could improve both the rest of the season and in terms of trade flexibility with this deal, which would make it an enormous win.
I'd love to give the Raptors' front office truth serum and see how they rank the two players and pick they received in this deal in terms of importance. For most observers, Barrett will be the key part of what Toronto is getting back.
It's a homecoming for Barrett, a native of the GTA and the No. 3 pick in 2019 behind All-Stars Zion Williamson and Ja Morant. Though the book is not closed on Barrett's development at age 23, a similar outcome seems unlikely. Barrett's scoring average has declined each of the past three seasons, and part of the benefit for the Knicks making this deal now might be moving before his trade value slips.
The expectation when Barrett was drafted was that he would excel at creating his own shot. That's never proven the case. Based on analysis of shooting data from NBA Advanced Stats, Barrett peaked at a 46% effective field goal percentage last season on shots with more than two seconds of touch time, which typically represent self-created shots. That was still nowhere close to the league average of 50% on these shots.
Over time, Barrett has decreased the rate of his shots that are self-created from 62% in 2021-22, prior to Brunson's arrival in New York, to 53% this season. But that hasn't made him any more efficient because, aside from fluky 40% 3-point shooting in 2020-21, Barrett has been below average beyond the arc. It's possible Barrett can improve in this regard, with fellow Canadian Andrew Wiggins' development into an All-Star with the Golden State Warriors as a template. With each passing year, however, the odds of Barrett becoming a star decrease.
I think Quickley has the best chance of making this a positive trade for the Raptors. Because he's exclusively come off the bench after starting 21 games last season, Quickley's minutes per game are down to 24.0 from the 28.9 he averaged as the runner-up in Sixth Man Award voting in 2022-23. Yet Quickley is scoring the same number of PPG (15.0 vs. 14.9), which means his per-minute scoring is up dramatically to 22.5 per 36 minutes -- the same as Barrett, with more playmaking and better efficiency.
The worst true shooting percentage of Quickley's four-year career (.543) was better than Barrett's best (.536). He's up to .598 this season thanks to career-best 39.5% accuracy beyond the arc. That shooting makes Quickley an intriguing fit with Barnes, capable of providing him more floor spacing than current Toronto starting point guard Dennis Schroder. Given how much both are playing, we'll surely also see some of Schroder and Quickley together in the Raptors' backcourt.
With Toronto mired out of the play-in at 12-19, moving Anunoby before the deadline was undoubtedly the right decision ahead of his unrestricted free agency. The lingering question is how much the Raptors' desire to compete now motivated making a deal built primarily on young players rather than picks -- or whether pick-heavy offers were no longer available for Anunoby in the last season of his contract.
Although not landing a single first-round pick in this trade is surely a disappointment for Toronto fans dreaming of a draft bounty, the Pistons' second-rounder has plenty of value in its own right as one of the top picks in the round and possibly No. 31 overall.
It's possible the Raptors believe they can be more competitive with better depth, and while that's not unreasonable given Toronto's point differential (minus-1.3) has been far better than a 12-19 record that's tied for 11th in the East, that shouldn't be the goal. Instead, the Raptors would be wise to continue tearing off the bandage by trading All-Star forward Pascal Siakam, also an unrestricted free agent at season's end.
Given the top-six-protected pick Toronto owes the San Antonio Spurs from the Jakob Poeltl trade, the best course would be losing enough games to have a reasonable chance of keeping their pick. The Raptors would need to have one of the league's two worst records to assure that outcome, but they would have better than 50-50 odds if they finish in the bottom five.
As a result, trading Anunoby should only be the first step toward Toronto remaking its roster to build around Barnes.
Oct. 31: Harden, Tucker and Petrusev to the LA Clippers for Covington, Batum, Morris, Martin and picks
LA Clippers get:
G James Harden
F P.J. Tucker
F Filip Petrusev
2027 Least favorable first-round pick swap with Oklahoma City or Denver (if 6-30)
Philadelphia 76ers get:
F Robert Covington
F Nicolas Batum
F Marcus Morris
F Kenyon Martin Jr.
2026 first-round pick (the least favorable of OKC, LA Clippers and Houston (if 5-30)
2028 unprotected first-round pick from LA Clippers
2024 second round pick from either Indiana, Toronto, Cleveland or Utah
2029 second round pick from LA Clippers
2029 first-round pick swap via LA Clippers
2027 first-round pick swap via Clippers
LA Clippers: B-
So after months of speculation, how does Harden fit with the Clippers? That depends largely on whether -- or perhaps more accurately for how long -- they get the happy-to-be-here version of Harden we saw take on a pass-first persona when he first arrived in Brooklyn and Philadelphia.
That kind of playmaking is surely something that will help the Clippers, who haven't had a player average even 6 assists per game over a full season since Paul George and Kawhi Leonard arrived in 2019-20. (Russell Westbrook averaged 7.6 assists in 21 games late last season, and is at 6.7 APG through the first three games this season.) Harden has averaged more than that for a decade running, including a league-high 10.7 last season.
With Harden in the role of lead ball handler, there will be an adjustment for George and Leonard. They combined to possess the ball 51% of the time they were on offense last season, per Second Spectrum tracking on NBA Advanced Stats, with George at 28% and Leonard 23%. That frequency won't likely be possible with Harden, whose 8.6 minutes time of possession (47% of the time he was on offense) was second highest in the NBA.
In their case, however, the change appears a welcome one they've already begun to make. With Westbrook in the starting lineup, their combined possession percentage had dropped to 42% over this season's first three games, with each at 21%. The results have been positive, with George and Leonard getting the best shots of their Clippers careers, according to Second Spectrum's quantified shot probability metric, which considers the distance and type of shot as well as the location of nearby defenders.
It's Harden who will likely be asked to sacrifice the most, at least among the stars. None of the role players the Clippers are trading had a usage rate higher than 18% this season, making it hard to fit in Harden's 25% usage in last season's pass-first role -- already his lowest since being traded to the Houston Rockets in 2012. Granted, some of that will come from Westbrook, but even Westbrook's usage had dropped to 17% in the early going playing alongside both George and Leonard.
Perhaps the Clippers hope to resolve the issue by letting Harden and Westbrook lead the offense in games George and Leonard miss while putting them in smaller roles (Westbrook presumably off the bench) when at full strength. That could work, at least for a time. Eventually, Harden has seemed to tire of playmaking, one apparent factor in his decision to seek a trade from the 76ers.
For the Clippers, that shoe dropping may not matter because of their timeline for winning during the late primes of George (33) and Leonard (32). It's not exactly now or never for the Clippers in the George-Leonard era, but it's awfully close.
Although the Clippers came up short in a comeback attempt in Utah on Friday, only the Dallas Mavericks have a better offensive rating through three games. And while the Clippers' top-five defensive rating is due in part to a favorable schedule opening against three teams projected to be in the lottery, they've shown enough so far to believe they can legitimately contend in the West so long as George and Leonard are healthy.
I suspect that the fourth quarter against the Jazz was a factor in the Clippers' decision to push forward with the Harden trade. Down 10 with 9:58 left, they went to a five-out lineup with no traditional center, similar to the one they used to eliminate Utah during the 2021 playoffs without the injured Leonard, reaching the conference finals for the first time in franchise history.
Spacing the floor and switching every screen, the Clippers took a one-point lead in the final minute before Jordan Clarkson won the game for Utah with a late 3-pointer. They did so with Westbrook, a non-shooter, crimping their spacing. (He did not score in this stretch and missed his only shot attempt, in desperation at the buzzer.)
Replace Westbrook with Harden, and the Clippers have the makings of a devastating small-ball unit similar to the ones we saw the Nets deploy in 2021 before dealing with injuries to Harden and Kyrie Irving in their seven-game loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. Tucker, now tethered to Harden with a third different team after playing together with both Philadelphia and the Rockets, also fits into that vision as the undersized 5 the Clippers lacked with the decline in Marcus Morris Sr.'s play.
Tucker's addition is particularly interesting as the Clippers think about a possible playoff matchup against the Denver Nuggets, who have owned them since pulling off a comeback from a 3-1 deficit in the 2020 bubble conference semifinals. Counting those three wins, the defending champs are 12-2 in their past 14 games against the Clippers, and the past five wins have all come by double digits.
Notably, the 76ers used Tucker to defend Nikola Jokic down the stretch of a win over Denver in January in which Jokic had more turnovers (three) than points (two) in the fourth quarter. Of course, there's a big difference between defending Jokic with Joel Embiid lurking as a help defender than as the nominal center in small-ball lineups, but Tucker adds a wrinkle to a matchup that has been one-sided of late.
To even worry about beating the Nuggets, the Clippers must first prove they can stay healthy throughout the playoffs. Harden should help relieve the pressure on George and Leonard to stay on the court during the regular season by giving the Clippers another hub for efficient offense in their absence. That, in turn, could help the Clippers be better positioned going into the playoffs after finishing as the fifth seed last season.
The Clippers almost have to contend to justify the cost of this trade, both financial and in terms of precious draft picks. Having finally rebuilt their store of first-rounders depleted by the George trade, the Clippers are now sending out an unprotected first-round pick and swap rights on two others, leaving them in full control of only their 2030 pick -- which is still tradable.
By taking back Harden and Tucker, the Clippers have added approximately $30 million to their total payroll, including repeater luxury taxes. They can save some money this year by trading Petrusev, whose salary is partially guaranteed for $560,000 according to ESPN's Bobby Marks, which would also create two open roster spots. Though the Clippers are limited by new restrictions from signing players who are waived while making more than the $12.4 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception this season, that could still allow for useful buyout options.
Down the road, the financial cost will likely be higher as stiffer penalties kick in with the repeater tax and second apron restrictions. The Clippers didn't give up precious picks to let Harden walk after the season, so they're replacing four expiring contracts with Tucker (due an $11.5 million player option) and Harden's new deal. Adding Harden also seems to herald likely extensions for George and Leonard to ensure they'll stay with the Clippers beyond their player options for 2024-25.
The fascinating counterfactual here is whether the Clippers would have had to give up multiple swaps if they'd simply waited out Philadelphia until the trade deadline. I can understand why the Clippers felt urgency to make a move now. They now get nearly a full season to integrate Harden (and Tucker), while also benefiting from more games of an upgraded roster to boost their seed positioning. I think this was a move worth making -- despite the risk.
As with the Clippers, the Sixers were likely pushed toward making a deal now by the results from the season's first week -- specifically, in their case, the strong start by Eastern Conference Player of the Week Tyrese Maxey. Maxey averaged 30.3 PPG and 6.3 APG as Philadelphia opened 2-1 without Harden, the lone loss coming at Milwaukee against another East contender.
No, Maxey won't keep shooting 56% from 3-point range, as he has thus far on massive volume (8.3 attempts per game). His ability to shoulder a heavy offensive load (26% usage thus far) still suggested the 76ers offense didn't need Harden to operate at a high level during the regular season, allowing Daryl Morey to grab value for his disgruntled star now and figure out the rest later.
All along, the reporting has suggested Morey was unwilling to trade Harden unless he got the necessary ammo to deal for another star. By adding two first-round picks, the Sixers now have three tradable first-rounders -- the two acquired in this deal and their own in 2030.
To go with that, Philadelphia has multiple options in terms of expiring salaries. Batum, Covington and Morris are all in the final seasons of their contracts and all in the sweet spot ($11.7 million for Covington, $17.1 million for Morris) where they can be combined after 60 days -- still well before the trade deadline -- to acquire a highly paid contributor, if not a star. Add in Furkan Korkmaz's $5.4 million and the 76ers have $45 million worth of expiring salaries not in their rotation to date.
If Philadelphia can't find a deal, this trade very much preserves the option of opening up cap room next summer. None of the four players the Sixers added are under contract for 2024-25, while Philadelphia shed Tucker's possible player option, leaving Embiid for the moment as the only fully guaranteed salary for next season on Philadelphia's roster. (Paul Reed's $7.7 million salary guarantees if the 76ers reach the conference semifinals, per the terms of a toxic offer sheet from the Utah Jazz, while Philadelphia must decide Tuesday on Jaden Springer's $4 million team option for 2024-25.)
It's even possible the Sixers could have their cake and eat it too by using some of the draft compensation they acquired to deal for another player on an expiring contract, like Buddy Hield of the Indiana Pacers, who could help this season with the possibility of re-signing using Bird rights as a backup plan next summer.
To that end, Philadelphia won on the margins not only by shedding Tucker but also by landing Martin, whose minimum salary will give him a minuscule cap hold as an unrestricted free agent next summer. The Sixers could retain the rights to Martin, Maxey and De'Anthony Melton with a combined $30 million in cap holds, far less than what they will surely command on the open market.
In the here and now, it will be interesting to see whether Philly can get away with playing Martin as a backup 4 alongside Reed in lineups that are long on athleticism but short on shooting. That's one option for filling the minutes Tucker was playing in the Sixers' rotation. Batum is perhaps the strongest candidate to replace Tucker, while Covington -- returning to where he started his career as Embiid's teammate during the Process era -- is also an option.
As compared to the team the 76ers have put on the court this season, they're undoubtedly deeper after this trade. They're also far more dependent on the duo of Embiid and Maxey for shot creation, and an injury to either of their stars could accelerate Philadelphia's timetable for making a deal using expiring contracts and the newly added picks.
Certainly, the best version of the 2023-24 Sixers involved Harden putting aside his differences with Morey and playing normally the rest of the season. It's impossible from the outside to say exactly how realistic that option was. If Philadelphia didn't believe that outcome was realistic, this version of the trade at least seems to spin Harden's value forward in a way that could help rebuild a championship contender around Embiid. (Harden's salary was $176.7 million, and combined with a tax bill of $19.8 million was costing the team $196.5 million total.)
The value of adding a third team to this deal is more apparent now that we see its full structure. The Sixers don't own their 2027 first-round pick outright to swap with the Clippers, as they'll potentially either send it to the Thunder themselves (who else?) or as a top-8 protected pick to the Brooklyn Nets from the deal to add Harden.
By contrast, Oklahoma City may be able to benefit from swapping the weakest of their potential 2027 first-round picks -- including the one from Philadelphia, if it hasn't conveyed already, and another protected one from the Nuggets -- for the Clippers' pick.
It's likely the worst of those picks will be the Thunder's own. A lot can happen between now and then, but Oklahoma City probably has the league's most favorable outlook for that season, which will see Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the thick of his prime at age 28. The Thunder's other young talented players project to just be peaking then, with Jalen Williams age 26 and Chet Holmgren and Josh Giddey playing the season at age 24.
Already, Oklahoma City ranked third in ESPN's Future Power Rankings, which cover the three seasons prior to 2026-27, based on a talented young core and stockpile of draft picks. That stockpile also means the 2026 first-round pick the Thunder are giving up is unlikely to be in the lottery. Derek Bodner of PHLY Sports reported it will be the worst of multiple picks Oklahoma City owns that season, including one from the Clippers dating back to the George trade.
Based on those stipulations and the number of picks the Thunder already have, converting a full first-rounder into a swap makes sense in terms of maximizing the potential upside for Oklahoma City even if the average expected value of a swap is not as good as having a first-round pick outright.
Oct. 1: Holiday to Boston for Brogdon, Williams and picks
Boston Celtics get:
G Malcolm Brogdon
C Robert Williams III
2024 first-round pick (Golden State)
2029 unprotected first-round pick
Boston: B+
Buckle up. The Eastern Conference title race got dramatically more interesting in the past four days, with the Celtics responding to the Milwaukee Bucks adding Damian Lillard by nabbing the All-Star they sent the Blazers in return, Holiday.
Holiday is an ideal fit alongside Boston's core players, supplying the organizing ability the Celtics hoped they would get when they added Brogdon last summer without compromising either their outside shooting or their defense. Holiday is an upgrade offensively over Marcus Smart -- sent by Boston to the Memphis Grizzlies earlier this offseason in a deal that netted one of the first-round picks sent to Portland in this trade -- and little, if any, defensive downgrade from the 2021-22 Defensive Player of the Year.
With Holiday, the Celtics could have the NBA's best six-player core. Coach Joe Mazzulla can still toggle back and forth between smaller lineups with Holiday and Derrick White together in the backcourt and Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum at forward and bigger units that put both Al Horford and newcomer Kristaps Porzingis in the frontcourt together, shifting Brown and Tatum to the wing at the likely expense of White.
The smaller group in particular gives opposing offenses no place to attack, a hallmark of the defense that has helped Boston to the Eastern Conference finals three of the last four years. The hope, too, is the Celtics upgrading their shooting with Holiday -- at least based on the regular season, when he's hit 39.5% of his 3s during three seasons with the Bucks before fading to 30% in the playoffs over that span -- and Porzingis can get them over the top offensively to win a title.
Just how much Holiday minimizes offensive miscues will also be key. He's averaged more turnovers than Smart, including 2.9 per game last season, (Smart was at 2.3 in similar playing time) but that was with more ball handling responsibility. Holiday held the ball for 6.1 minutes per game last season, according to Second Spectrum tracking on NBA Advanced Stats, far more than Smart (4.1 MPG, second on Boston behind Tatum).
Beyond those top six, however, the Celtics' depth now looks shaky after they gave up two rotation players for Holiday. They return just one other player who saw more than 60 minutes of action in last year's playoffs, forward Sam Hauser. The in-house options to fill out the rotation are holdover Payton Pritchard and newcomers Oshae Brissett and Svi Mykhailiuk. And center depth goes from a strength with Horford, Porzingis and Williams to a weakness. Horford sat out at least one game of back-to-back sets last season, leaving Luke Kornet as the only other center on a full NBA contract besides Porzingis for those games.
It will be interesting to see if Boston can add another reliable contributor via trade. The extra pick acquired in the Smart trade allowed the Celtics to complete this deal without dipping into their own tradable first-round picks in 2024 and 2026 (or, if preferred, 2025 and 2027). The challenge will be finding matching salary with only Pritchard (making $4 million in the last season of his rookie deal) at more than the minimum outside the core.
The Celtics could also fill the roster spot created in this trade with a free agent, but will be subject to new restrictions preventing teams above the first luxury-tax apron from signing players waived midseason who previously were making more than the value of the non-taxpayer midlevel exception ($12.4 million).
(Notably, those restrictions don't apply to Reggie Bullock after the veteran wing agreed to a buyout with the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday. Bullock doesn't qualify because the move will come before the start of the regular season, and also because his salary was below that threshold. The battle to sign Bullock could be an interesting pivot point in the title race, with both Boston and Milwaukee surely in the mix.)
At the highest-leverage moments, that hit to the Celtics' depth might not matter if the team is healthy and the bulk of minutes are going to the top six players. Boston, much like Milwaukee and the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference, is betting on top-end talent over depth. Like those teams, the Celtics are also spending heavily in pursuit of a title right now.
Assuming Boston keeps an extra player on the roster to fill the spot vacated in this trade, the team's luxury-tax bill will jump nearly $15 million based on the likely incentives in Holiday's contract. (Holiday has $1.9 million in incentives counted as likely, per ESPN's Bobby Marks, based on being an All-Star, making an All-Defensive team and other statistical thresholds.)
That's just this season. Holiday is heading into the final season of his contract and will be eligible to add up to four years and $200-plus million in an extension starting six months after this deal is complete. Sources told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski the Celtics are eager to retain him long-term, which makes sense. Boston gave up too much for Holiday to simply be a rental.
Wherever the two sides land on an extension, Holiday is likely looking at a raise next season at the same time Brown's supermax extension kicks in, which could push Boston's payroll into the stratosphere. For now, the Celtics having the core of a championship contender under contract through 2024-25 is a positive. At some point, though, the cost of keeping this group together with a looming supermax for Tatum will become prohibitive.
Between now and that unknown date, Boston is hoping to add an 18th championship banner. With the addition of Holiday, I again see the Celtics as the favorites to win the East -- and perhaps even the title. This is the downside of how the Bucks pursued the Lillard deal. By sending Holiday to the Blazers, Milwaukee gave up any control over where he was rerouted that may have been possible if the trades were negotiated simultaneously. The Bucks surely hoped Holiday would end up in the Western Conference. Instead, he's headed to their biggest rival on paper in the East.
The rematch of the thrilling, seven-game Boston-Milwaukee series we saw in the 2022 conference semifinals never materialized last spring because the Bucks were upset in the first round by the Miami Heat, who eventually took down the Celtics in the conference finals. If we get Boston-Milwaukee round two, the drama, now, will be greater than ever.
Portland: A-
Splitting the Lillard trade in two -- at a minimum -- seems to have paid off for the Blazers, who were able to get three combined first-round picks and two swaps for their star without taking back any bad salary in return.
There still might be another trade for Portland to make involving Brogdon, who will surely have value to contending teams. Making $22.5 million this season and next, Brogdon is an easy salary fit and, like Lillard and Holiday before him, he doesn't match up with the Blazers' timeline at age 30.
It's possible Portland could move Brogdon again quickly, though in a scenario where he's retained as a veteran mentor for the Blazers' young guards (including Anfernee Simons and recent lottery picks Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe), there's less worry about his trade value decreasing between now and the deadline.
Wojnarowski reported Portland intends to keep Williams, who turns 26 later this month, meaning the center position has gone from a major weakness for the Blazers to a surprising strength. In Williams and Deandre Ayton, Portland now has two starting-caliber centers in their athletic prime. The challenge for coach Chauncey Billups may be finding enough minutes to keep both happy, and it will be intriguing to see whether the Blazers try playing both together at times.
The hot take here is that Williams, who has never averaged more than 10 points per game in a season and spent most of the 2023 playoffs coming off the bench, might be the better of Portland's two centers. Although Williams isn't nearly as skilled offensively as Ayton, he does a better job of playing to his strengths as a career 73% shooter who is one of the league's best defenders when healthy.
Williams also brings a favorable contract paying him less than the non-taxpayer midlevel exception over the next three years. So long as he can stay healthy, Williams is a great pickup for the Blazers.
Still, the real carrot of this deal for Portland is diversifying the team's portfolio of draft picks. The three extra first-rounders the Blazers have added in their pair of deals come from three different teams, giving Portland multiple shots at landing a lottery pick. That's least likely with the Golden State pick this upcoming season, though the Warriors are no playoff locks in a loaded West.
Intriguingly, both the unprotected Celtics and Bucks picks the Blazers added are in 2029. I'd imagine Portland initially preferred getting a 2030 pick from Boston, going as far out as possible, but the Celtics' roster could look very different by 2029. The upside isn't as evident as with Milwaukee's 2029 pick, but it's plausible both teams could have cycled out of being contenders by then, giving Portland two bites at the apple just as its current core should be beginning to peak.
For now, it seems like the Blazers read the Lillard market correctly, using Holiday as an intermediary to get the kind of draft value they wanted while also adding a pair of talented centers to their roster. And although a possible Brogdon trade still looms, his presence doesn't figure to hang over media day and training camp such as having Lillard or Holiday on the roster would have.
Sept. 27: Lillard to Milwaukee in three-team trade
Milwaukee Bucks get:
Phoenix Suns get:
SG Grayson Allen
SG Keon Johnson
SF Nassir Little
C Jusuf Nurkic
C Deandre Ayton
F Toumani Camara
PG Jrue Holiday
2028 unprotected swap rights
2029 unprotected first-round pick
2030 unprotected swap rights
Milwaukee: B+
Whoa. The Bucks were never seen as a possible Lillard destination -- they weren't among the four teams we highlighted in a recent piece on potential landing spots. Yet they fit the most important criterion for a deal to make sense: the ability to win a title during the remainder of Lillard's late prime years.
The urgency to win now ratcheted up lately with Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo telling The New York Times, then subsequently reiterating, that he would sign an extension with the Bucks only if he believed "everybody's going for a championship."
Given Antetokounmpo could reach unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2025 by declining a player option for the 2025-26 season, that gave Milwaukee a two-year window to add to the 2021 title and persuade Giannis to stick around. Over the years, we've seen a variety of responses to stars nearing free agency. The Cleveland Cavaliers added a variety of veterans in an effort to win a championship before LeBron James became a free agent in the summer of 2010, then adjusted during LeBron's second stint in Cleveland to prioritize building for a post-James future by making a lottery pick from the Brooklyn Nets the centerpiece of the trade sending Kyrie Irving to the Boston Celtics.
I'm not sure we've ever seen a team go all-in quite like this to retain a star. The Bucks no longer control any of their future first-round picks within the seven-year window teams have access to them, having now traded a third unprotected pick to go along with swap rights in the other four years. If Giannis walks in free agency, Milwaukee will be staring at a rebuild without the protective netting of the lottery. Trading Lillard a year or two down the road likely won't yield nearly this kind of return.
For now, however, Lillard is the best player the Bucks could realistically have paired with Antetokounmpo. Giannis has never played with a pick-and-roll ball handler anything like Lillard, still arguably the league's most dangerous player with the ball. Per Second Spectrum tracking, Lillard pick-and-rolls yielded 1.16 points per play last season when either he or the player he passed to shot, was fouled or turned the ball over, second only to Luka Doncic among players who ran at least 500 pick-and-rolls.
That performance came with a below-average group of big men screening for Lillard. According to Second Spectrum data, backup center Drew Eubanks was his most common pick-and-roll partner. Replace Eubanks with Giannis and put shooters around them at all three positions and Milwaukee's pick-and-roll game should be lethal.
There will be an adjustment for Antetokounmpo to a style centered on pick-and-rolls. He was the ball handler in pick-and-rolls almost as regularly (627 times, per Second Spectrum numbers) as the screener (859) last season.
Between Holiday and predecessor Eric Bledsoe, the Bucks have long prioritized defense over playmaking in their point guards. Last season's 59.7 on-ball picks per game, the NBA's fourth-lowest mark, was their highest average at any point in Mike Budenholzer's five years as head coach in Milwaukee. Lillard alone ran 36.4 per game, seventh-most, according to Second Spectrum.
Surely, Lillard will need to adjust as well to playing with another star. He hasn't played with an All-Star since he and LaMarcus Aldridge were teammates with the Blazers for three seasons until Aldridge left for the San Antonio Spurs in the summer of 2015. Now Lillard joins Giannis and Khris Middleton, an All-Star in 2022 before suffering an injury-marred 2022-23 campaign. Lillard's shooting ability makes him threatening without the ball, but multiple coaches in Portland were unable to get the kind of dynamic off-ball movement from Lillard that sets Stephen Curry apart from other point guards who can shoot.
No matter the adjustment, this version of the Bucks has too much talent and too much shooting -- even with the loss of Allen, whose minutes will likely go to new sharpshooter Malik Beasley -- not to be an elite offense after finishing a league-average 15th in points per possession last season. Milwaukee's championship ceiling will be determined on defense.
Losing Holiday substantially weakens the Bucks' perimeter defense. They relied on him to handle opponents' most challenging guard or wing, assignments that could now go to Pat Connaughton in the starting five. Jae Crowder is another option against bigger wings, while Milwaukee is surely hoping 2022 first-round pick MarJon Beauchamp will grow into that role sooner than later, which would require improvement as a shooter. (Expect the Bucks to tout keeping Beauchamp out of this deal as a key to making it.)
None of those options is on the level of Holiday, and the Bucks will have to find ways to stash Lillard on nonthreatening opponent perimeter players in a way that wasn't necessary for any starters on the championship team. Milwaukee is gambling that the offensive upgrade with Lillard will outweigh the defensive drop-off.
Before we see how things play out on the court, I'm inclined to agree. In a conference where there's uncertainty about every contender, adding Lillard is enough to make the Bucks my pick. As a bonus, they've also weakened the Miami Heat's title chances by not getting Lillard.
Like so many all-in trades we've seen in recent years in pursuit of a championship, whether Milwaukee adds a second title with Giannis will probably determine whether this trade is a success. If not, the Bucks could rue giving up what might be a lottery pick and potentially swapping down two other times. If so, the memories of a championship won with a guard-big duo along the lines of the Oscar Robertson-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pairing that brought the franchise's first in 1971 would warm Milwaukee fans' hearts through a number of long winters.
Phoenix: B-
The undercard of the Lillard trade is interesting in its own right. The Suns are also all-in on winning a championship after adding Bradley Beal this past summer and have chosen to flip Ayton into multiple potential contributors to that effort. The most important player of this deal is Nurkic, the direct replacement for Ayton at center. It appears Phoenix views Nurkic as the kind of defensive-minded role player it's had success in place of Ayton, and that's not really Nurkic's game at this stage of his career.
Playing a conservative drop coverage under Terry Stotts in Portland, Nurkic was a strong rim protector before a compound leg fracture in March 2019 sidelined him for nearly a year. During 2017-18 and 2018-19, when the Blazers were average or better defensively, Nurkic limited opponents to sub-55% shooting on attempts within 5 feet, according to Second Spectrum tracking on NBA Advanced Stats. That ballooned to 68% in 2021-22, worst among players who defended at least four such attempts per game, before improving to 58% last season.
Portland remained one of the league's worst defensive teams (28th in defensive rating) and was better with Eubanks in the middle. (One amusing part of this trade is Nurkic being reunited with his backup last season, who signed with the Suns as a free agent this past summer and may continue finishing games in place of Nurkic.)
Offensively, Nurkic is more of a volume scorer than the kind of efficient role player you'd want next to Phoenix's perimeter stars. His 57% 2-point shooting sounds good until you realize the average center made 62% of his shots inside the arc. Nurkic did add a 3-point element last season, hitting a career-high 43 triples at a 36% clip, but it will be interesting to see how he handles being the fifth option for the Suns on offense. Nurkic has had a usage rate of 22% or higher every season since his rookie campaign.
To me, the better addition for Phoenix from the Blazers is Little, who has a chance to emerge as a starter. Still just 22, Little shot a career-best 37% from 3-point range last season and has the skills to serve as the Suns' primary perimeter defender. Little never seemed to fully win over Portland coach Chauncey Billups, however, averaging just 18.1 MPG off the bench. If Little continues to develop, the four-year rookie extension he's starting worth $28 million could be an enormous bargain.
In Allen, Phoenix has added a shooter with defensive limitations. Allen was taken five picks ahead of former Suns guard Landry Shamet in the 2018 draft, and the two players have always been tied together, signing extensions worth similar amounts two years ago. After dealing Shamet as part of the return for Beal, Phoenix has replaced him with Allen, and I think that's an upgrade. Allen, who started all five playoff games for Milwaukee last year, has shown more ability to stay on the court defensively in the preseason.
Amusingly, the Suns could try to make the reverse version of this trade at the deadline, combining multiple salaries for one player making more. That timeline is important because starting next season, restrictions will prevent teams above the second luxury-tax apron from aggregating salaries together in trade. (As my colleague Bobby Marks noted, the Bucks would not have been able to deal for Lillard using Holiday and Allen if that rule were in place.) By midseason, Phoenix will have more information about which role players fit and which are extraneous.
Between now and then, the Suns will surely try to find a taker for Keon Johnson, who's at risk of being cut otherwise. Phoenix has 15 guaranteed contracts and would like to keep Jordan Goodwin, whose salary is partially guaranteed. Assuming the Suns waive at least one of their players who aren't fully guaranteed deals (Ish Wainright is nonguaranteed), this deal saves Phoenix a modest amount in luxury taxes. Moving Johnson would produce far more savings, although the Suns have only second-round picks available to incentivize a team with cap space or a trade exception to take him.
I'd have liked this deal a bit more for Phoenix immediately after the Beal trade before it became clear how much depth the Suns would add in free agency with only minimum-salary contracts to offer. Allen may not prove an upgrade on Gordon or Little or Keita Bates-Diop, although the more options for Phoenix, the better.
Portland: B+
All along, I've felt that trading Lillard before training camp was the right move for the Blazers. It's easy to talk about waiting for the best possible deal in July, with little pressure to make a move. Urgency clearly set in for Portland as Monday's media day and the start of training camp approached.
With one caveat, the Blazers can look to a future built around recent lottery picks Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe. They've also locked in Lillard's trade value without having to risk the possibility of an injury or age-related decline making it more difficult to deal him than it is coming off an All-NBA season.
The key caveat, of course, is that Portland has swapped one 33-year-old All-Star point guard for another. Holiday isn't the kind of young talent a star trade would typically return, and without any ties to the Blazers or the kind of drawing power as Lillard, it seems inevitable Holiday will be traded again soon. Just how much Portland gets in return will determine how this deal compares to the possibility of sending Lillard to his desired destination, the Miami Heat.
From this trade alone, the Blazers aren't returning nearly as much volume in terms of draft picks as Miami could have offered. Portland got a single first-round pick outright, though it's a potentially great one. Even if Giannis extends his contract, he'll be 34 by 2029. Lillard will be 38. The odds Milwaukee is still a contender by that point are remote, and there's a reasonable chance of the Bucks bottoming out without either star (or, as noted, their own picks in between now and then).
The young talent the Blazers did add comes with baggage. The Suns' willingness to part with Ayton, 25, without getting any above-average starters or any draft picks showcases just how eager Phoenix was to move on from the 2018 No. 1 pick. Ayton gets a fresh start in Portland at a position where the Blazers had no promising player on the timeline of the rest of their young core.
If Portland can get the kind of performance we saw from Ayton in the 2021 playoffs, when he averaged 15.8 points per game and 11.8 rebounds per game while helping the Suns to the NBA Finals, getting his contract at this low cost is a bargain. Admittedly, I'm skeptical that such a transformation is coming, but in the worst-case scenario, Ayton's current deal expires in time for the Blazers to have massive salary-cap space in the summer of 2026, when Henderson will be entering the final year of his rookie contract.
Camara, the No. 52 overall pick in this year's draft out of Dayton, is by far the lowest-profile part of this deal, but Portland likely also values him. Camara played well for Phoenix at summer league in Las Vegas, averaging 16.3 PPG and 7.0 RPG in four games. Camara has a better chance of playing time with the Blazers than if he had stayed with the Suns.
Above and beyond the potential to reroute Holiday, Portland still feels like a team in transition. The Blazers re-signed Jerami Grant to a five-year, $160 million deal this summer, and the 29-year-old forward feels out of place on a team that's rebuilding. Adding Ayton makes it unlikely Portland will bottom out, but this trade now puts a timeline on the Blazers contending. Ideally, they want to be contenders again by 2028, maximizing the potential value of pick swaps then and in 2030, when Henderson (24 in 2028) and Sharpe (25) will be hitting their prime years.
As a result, more change is sure to come in Portland. The Blazers can continue the process with clarity now that they've secured value in a Lillard trade that seems to have left all sides satisfied.