After initially reporting earlier tonight that the Wizards‘ sign-and-trade acquisition of Khris Middleton would be combined with several separate trade agreements to form a single six-team mega-deal, Ohm Youngmisuk, with the help of colleague Shams Charania, has laid out the terms of that trade in a full story for ESPN.com.
There are a few new details within ESPN’s report, including the Clippers receiving a protected 2028 second-round pick from the Pistons while sending cash to the Bucks, which will help ensure that all six teams “touch” at least two other clubs in the deal. However, the story doesn’t include the specifics on each of the draft assets involved in the trade.
Based on ESPN’s reporting, several previous reports, and RealGM’s tracker of traded draft picks, here’s our best shot at what the final deal will look like:
Mavericks to acquire:
Grizzlies to acquire:
Isaiah Stewart (from Pistons)
AJ Johnson (from Mavericks)
D’Angelo Russell (from Wizards)
The Warriors’ 2030 first-round pick (top-20 protected; from Mavericks)
The Rockets’ 2029 second-round pick (from Mavericks)
The Lakers’ 2029 second-round pick (from Wizards)
The Wizards’ 2033 second-round pick (from Wizards)
A 2032 second-round pick swap (from Wizards)
Pistons to acquire:
John Collins (via sign-and-trade; from Clippers)
Note: Collins is reportedly signing a three-year, $51MM contract.
Taurean Prince (from Bucks)
Gary Harris (from Bucks)
Either the Pistons’, Knicks’, or Bucks’ 2029 second-round pick (whichever is second-most favorable; from Grizzlies)
The Mavericks’ 2031 second-round pick (from Grizzlies)
The Pistons’ 2032 second-round pick (from Grizzlies)
Bucks to acquire:
Caris LeVert (from Pistons)
The Bucks’ 2027 second-round pick (from Pistons)
Either the Mavericks’ or Nets’ second-round pick (whichever is least favorable; from Pistons)
Cash (from Clippers)
Wizards to acquire:
Khris Middleton (via sign-and-trade; from Mavericks)
Note: Middleton is reportedly signing a three-year, $17.6MM contract.
The Mavericks’ 2033 second-round pick (from Mavericks)
Clippers to acquire:
A protected 2028 second-round pick (from Pistons)
The deal isn’t yet official and therefore this breakdown should also be considered unofficial. But the final version of the trade should look pretty similar to this.
The deal has been two weeks in the making — the Grizzlies and Pistons first worked out a trade involving Stewart during the second night of the NBA draft on June 24. That was followed on July 1 by the Pistons and Clippers coming together on a Collins sign-and-trade and the Grizzlies and Mavericks agreeing to terms on an Aldama deal.
Then, earlier on Tuesday, the Bucks and Pistons reached an agreement on a trade involving LeVert, Prince, and Harris, the Mavs made a deal to sign-and-trade Middleton to the Wizards, and Washington agreed to salary-dump Russell to Memphis.
While most of those agreements could’ve been officially completed as separate deals, rolling them all into one will provide some cap benefits for various clubs.
For example, had they completed their Aldama deal directly with the Grizzlies, the Mavericks would have had to use most of their $20.8MM Anthony Davis traded player exception to accommodate the Spaniard’s incoming $17MM salary, since they were only sending Johnson ($3.2MM) to Memphis in that deal.
But including Middleton and aggregating his outgoing salary (roughly $5.6MM) with Johnson’s will be enough to meet the salary-matching requirements for Aldama, allowing Dallas to preserve that full $20.8MM Davis TPE. The Mavs can then use their bi-annual exception to absorb Sasser’s $5.2MM salary.
Memphis is in a similar boat. If they’d just acquired Stewart from Detroit in a straight-up deal, the Grizzlies would have needed to use over half of the $28.9MM exception they created in February when they traded Jaren Jackson Jr. to Utah. But by folding in their Aldama deal and using his outgoing salary to legally match Stewart ($15MM), Johnson ($3.2MM), and Russell ($6MM), they can keep that full Jackson TPE intact.
The Pistons, meanwhile, will be able to use LeVert’s outgoing salary ($14.8MM) for matching purposes to acquire Collins, whose deal figures to start in the $16-18MM range. That will allow them to create new trade exceptions equivalent to Stewart’s ($15MM) and Sasser’s ($5.2MM) outgoing salaries.
The Wizards have a trade exception expiring this Thursday that still has $5,341,122 left on it after the team used part of it to absorb Deandre Ayton‘s $8.1MM salary on Tuesday. Washington will be able to use the rest of that exception before it expires to give Middleton a starting salary of $5,591,122 (the amount of the exception, plus a $250K buffer), then will create a new trade exception worth Russell’s outgoing salary (nearly $6MM).
The Clippers will also generate a trade exception worth Collins’ new salary (roughly $16-18MM).
When the dust settles, all six teams will be hard-capped at the first tax apron, notes Keith Smith of Spotrac (Twitter link). The Pistons, Clippers, and Wizards faced first-apron hard caps already, based on prior transactions, while the Mavericks, Grizzlies, and Bucks will all join them as a result of using the “expanded traded exception” (ie. taking back more than 100% of a player’s – or players’ – salary) in the deal.