How much will the Brooklyn Nets save by trading DeAndre Jordan rather than buying the veteran center out of the remaining two years and $20 million left on his contract ahead of the Sept. 11 deadline to waive players and stretch their salaries over multiple seasons?
ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported Friday that the Nets will instead send Jordan to the Detroit Pistons in exchange for two lower-salary reserves, Sekou Doumbouya and Jahlil Okafor. As incentive for taking on Jordan's salary and looking to negotiate a buyout of their own, the Pistons will get four second-round picks -- two of them from Brooklyn and two previously acquired from other teams.
Let's take a look at what this means for a potentially historic Nets luxury-tax bill this season as well as what Detroit is foregoing by adding multiple years of Jordan's salary to add draft picks to the coffers.
Nets get: Sekou Doumbouya, Jahlil Okafor
Pistons get: DeAndre Jordan, 2022 Brooklyn second-round pick, 2024 Washington second-round pick, 2025 Golden State second-round pick, 2027 Brooklyn second-round pick
Brooklyn Nets: A
Assuming the Nets replaced Jordan on their roster with LaMarcus Aldridge (who Wojnarowski subsequently reported has agreed to sign with the team), they would have been looking at opening the 2021-22 season an incredible $41 million into the luxury tax, translating into a payment of $143 million in tax alone. Per Spotrac data, that would have shattered the previous record tax bill of $91 million held by Brooklyn in 2012-13.
The Nets could have shaved that bill down to $108 million by waiving Jordan and stretching his remaining salary over five years, meaning a cap hit a little less than $4 million. But that would have been costly in future seasons, as Brooklyn is sure to continue paying the tax and will be a repeater starting in 2023-24, meaning each additional dollar of salary above the tax line costs an extra 50 cents compared to the current charge.
Because we don't know where the tax line will fall or the Nets' other salaries, it's impossible to put an exact figure on the cost of stretching Jordan's salary, but it's reasonable to estimate somewhere around $60 million in extra tax from 2023-24 onward.
Instead, Brooklyn replaces Jordan's $9.9 million salary with Doumbouya and Okafor, who make a combined $5.7 million this season and have no guaranteed money beyond it. (Barring a stunning performance by Doumbouya in training camp, the Nets will surely decline his $5.5 million team option for 2022-23.) That cuts their tax bill to $117 million this year with the potential to save more money if they can use some of their remaining second-round picks to move Doumbouya or Okafor elsewhere.
The savings are even bigger in 2022-23, when Brooklyn is entirely free of the salary obligation to Jordan and figures to cut about $40 million off the tax bill. As Wojnarowski explained, that will make it easier for the Nets to use either their 2022 taxpayer midlevel exception or one of their trade exceptions to add to the roster at some point in the next year.
Fortunately, Brooklyn had amassed several additional second-round picks in a variety of trades to use in this one. The Nets still have their own second-rounders in 2024, 2026 and 2028 as well as the lesser of their pick and Atlanta's in 2023. To pull this kind of savings off without giving up a first-rounder has to feel like a win for Brooklyn even if it means the Nets can't use cash in a trade the rest of this league year.
Detroit Pistons: C+
In terms of this season's payroll, adding $4 million in salary won't affect the Pistons, who will come out ahead financially in the short term thanks to receiving the maximum amount of cash possible in a trade ($5.8 million). Detroit's alternative cost is burning nearly $10 million in cap space next summer.
Making a trade than to take salary into space probably would have netted the Pistons a relatively similar return. Detroit probably won't be a player in free agency next summer anyway and has avenues to create additional cap space using team options on two-year deals signed this offseason by guards Hamidou Diallo and Frank Jackson.
The most interesting aspect of this trade from the Pistons' angle is treating Doumbouya, the No. 15 pick of the 2019 draft, as salary ballast. Doumbouya burst on the scene in January 2020, when he averaged 14.0 points per game and shot 41% from 3-point range in his first eight starts as a teenager in place of the injured Blake Griffin. Alas, that kind of shooting wasn't sustainable for Doumbouya, who has shot 25% from 3 in two NBA seasons.
After a regime change in Detroit, Doumbouya played fewer minutes in Year 2, and he was ineffective offensively in the two games he played for the Pistons' summer league team in Las Vegas last month. Not yet 21, it looks like Doumbouya will be searching for a new start elsewhere.
NBA trade grades: Who wins the Celtics-Grizzlies deal?
What are the implications of the Boston Celtics-Memphis Grizzlies trade reported Friday by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski?
At the outset of the holiday weekend, the Celtics agreed to send guards Kris Dunn and Carsen Edwards and a 2026 second-round pick swap to the Memphis Grizzlies for forward Juancho Hernangomez.
Because Dunn was recently acquired by the Celtics in trade and can't have his salary aggregated with another player yet, this deal can't be officially completed until Sept. 15, which is still well before the start of training camp two weeks later. Hernangomez was also acquired in a recent trade, by the Grizzlies, but the same restriction doesn't apply because he is not being traded with another player.
Boston balances the roster with a stretch option in the frontcourt, while Memphis continues an unusual trend of trading one player with a guaranteed contract for two despite already having too many guarantees on its roster. Will Dunn or Edwards find a spot?
Let's break down what this trade means for both teams and explore which other players could be affected.
Celtics get: Juancho Hernangomez
Grizzlies get: Kris Dunn, Carsen Edwards, 2026 second-round pick swap
Boston Celtics: B
Since the Celtics added Dunn in a trade with the Atlanta Hawks, agreed to in July and officially completed last month, their roster has changed meaningfully. Boston later dealt for another wing, Josh Richardson, and signed point guard Dennis Schroder in free agency, leaving little room for Dunn -- or Edwards, a holdover on the roster -- to earn regular minutes. As a result, sending both of them out for a forward who can hypothetically provide floor spacing made sense for the Celtics.
It's important to note that Hernangomez's stretch ability hasn't really shown up much in practice since he made 41% of his 3-point attempts as a rookie. Over the past four seasons, he has shot a below-average 34%, but he parlayed a hot stretch (42% over 14 games as a starter) after being acquired by the Minnesota Timberwolves at the 2020 trade deadline into a contract that guarantees him $6.2 million this season with $450,000 incentives tied to body fat (per ESPN's Bobby Marks) and an additional $450K in performance-based incentives considered likely.
Importantly for Boston, Hernangomez's 2022-23 salary is entirely non-guaranteed through the day before free agency. So the Celtics aren't taking on additional long-term salary with this deal and could pay Hernangomez less than Dunn and Edwards if he fails to reach the performance incentives.
The most interesting domino effect to this trade is on forward Jabari Parker, whose $2.2 million salary is just $100,000 guaranteed through opening night. A 2-for-1 trade opens up a roster spot for Parker, who otherwise would have had to beat out a player with a guaranteed contract to make the team. However, Parker fills a similar role to that of Hernangomez, and Boston might now prefer to add a guard or keep the 15th roster spot open for midseason deals.
Memphis Grizzlies: C
The logic is a little more challenging to see here for the Grizzlies, who have an open spot on their 20-man roster after agreeing to a buyout with Rajon Rondo but get back to 18 guaranteed contracts -- three more than the maximum 15 roster spots for players with full NBA deals -- with this trade.
It's possible Memphis was willing to pay an extra $200,000 or so simply to get the pick swap in the 2026 second round. We'll see whether the Grizzlies have any plans to keep Dunn or Edwards despite a similar crowd in their own backcourt, where Desmond Bane, Tyus Jones and De'Anthony Melton back up starters Dillon Brooks and Ja Morant.
Despite his being traded twice this offseason, I think there's a place for Dunn to contribute in the league as one of the NBA's premier on-ball defenders. I voted Dunn to my all-defensive first team in 2019-20, when he played for the Chicago Bulls. After signing in Atlanta, he lost last year to injury, playing just four games during the regular season. If Dunn is waived, he would make a lot of sense as a minimum-salary pickup for a contender in need of a defensive specialist like the Utah Jazz.
Edwards, meanwhile, hasn't translated his college stardom at Purdue into a consistent NBA role. The Celtics took Edwards early in the second round, surely envisioning him developing into a Patty Mills-style undersized scorer off the bench. That hasn't worked out largely because Edwards has struggled as a shooter, hitting just 30% of his 3s thus far after making 37% from the shorter college line. I wouldn't be surprised if Edwards ends up starring overseas sooner rather than later.
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