{"id":830777,"date":"2026-09-08T15:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T15:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/830777\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T15:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T15:06:18","slug":"pelicans-grizzlies-agree-to-four-player-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/830777\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelicans, Grizzlies Agree To Four-Player Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pelicans have agreed to trade wings Jordan Hawkins<\/a> and Micah Peavy<\/a> to the Grizzlies along with a future second-round pick and a second-round swap, according to Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link<\/a>). In return, New Orleans will receive guard AJ Johnson<\/a> and big man Taj Gibson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"It\u2019s a cost-cutting move for the Pelicans, who will be able to complete their reported<\/a> two-year, $16MM deal with Bennedict Mathurin<\/a> without surpassing the luxury tax line or first apron once the trade is finalized.<\/p>\n

New Orleans was reported back in July<\/a> to be exploring trade scenarios involving Hawkins, with Memphis identified as a potential trade partner at the time. A subsequent report<\/a> linked Johnson to those discussions, and we speculated a few days ago<\/a> that a deal involving Gibson could be the plan as of September 8, when Johnson\u2019s two-month aggregation<\/a> restriction lifted. He was traded<\/a>\u00a0from the Mavericks to the Grizzlies on July 8.<\/p>\n

The expectation, per ESPN\u2019s Bobby Marks (Twitter link<\/a>), is that Gibson, whose $3,815,861 salary is currently non-guaranteed, will receive a small partial guarantee so that his outgoing figure can be aggregated with Johnson\u2019s ($3,237,120) to meet the salary-matching requirements to take on Hawkins ($7,021,895).<\/p>\n

Memphis is permitted to use the expanded trade exception to take back up to 200% of its outgoing salary, plus $250K, but only guaranteed salary counts toward the outgoing figure<\/a>, so the team will need to guarantee at least $148,828 of Gibson\u2019s salary in order to use him and Johnson to legally take back Hawkins.<\/p>\n

Peavy\u2019s $2,150,917 salary would then likely be absorbed using either a portion of the Grizzlies\u2019 non-taxpayer mid-level exception or the $4.3MM trade exception they generated in June\u2019s Ja Morant<\/a> deal. The latter is more likely, since the $4.7MM remaining on Memphis\u2019 MLE could be used in either free agency or a trade, making it more valuable during the season.<\/p>\n

Neither Johnson nor Gibson appeared likely to make the regular season roster for the Grizzlies, who were facing a roster crunch with 19 players on standard contracts. It\u2019s unclear whether the team plans to retain Hawkins and\/or Peavy through opening night or if Memphis is just making the deal for the second-round draft assets.<\/p>\n

Hawkins was the 14th overall pick in the 2023 draft and had a promising rookie season, averaging 7.8 points per game and making 36.6% of his three-pointers. However, he hasn\u2019t taken a step forward since then \u2014 last season, the 24-year-old averaged just 5.1 PPG and had a .348 3PT% in 51 games while averaging a career-low 13.6 minutes per night.<\/p>\n

As for Peavy, the 40th overall pick in the 2025 draft averaged 4.3 points and 1.9 rebounds per game in 61 outings (15.0 MPG) as a rookie. He shot just 38.5% from the floor and 25.9% on three-pointers, though he showed promise on the defensive side of the ball.<\/p>\n

The Pelicans had been operating roughly $7.4MM away from the first apron and $5.8MM from the tax line, and Mathurin\u2019s first-year salary is expected to come in around $7.8MM. Assuming Gibson receives that $149K guarantee and is subsequently waived, New Orleans will be able to generate nearly $5.8MM in savings as a result of this trade, creating more than enough room to sign Mathurin without going into the tax or surpassing the first apron. The first apron will become the Pelicans\u2019 hard cap for the rest of 2026\/27.<\/p>\n

Johnson was the 23rd overall pick in the 2024 draft, but he played for three teams in his first two NBA seasons and hasn\u2019t established himself as a reliable role player. In 2025\/26, he averaged 3.3 PPG and 1.1 RPG in 9.5 MPG across 48 appearances for Washington and Dallas, with a .324\/.211\/.850 shooting line.<\/p>\n

If New Orleans waives both Johnson and Gibson, the team would have 14 players on standard contracts after finalizing its deal with Mathurin and would have the ability to add a 15th man on a minimum-salary contract without becoming a taxpayer. However, according to Will Guillory of The Athletic (Twitter link<\/a>), while Gibson is expected to be cut, the plan is for Johnson to stick with the team for training camp so the Pelicans can assess his potential fit.<\/p>\n

The Pelicans will generate a trade exception worth about $7MM (Hawkins\u2019 salary) as a result of the deal, since they can use Peavy\u2019s outgoing salary to match on Johnson and can take on Gibson using the minimum salary exception.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pelicans have agreed to trade wings Jordan Hawkins and Micah Peavy to the Grizzlies along with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[4008,7,5316,3539,7915],"class_list":["post-830777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-aj-johnson","tag-basketball","tag-jordan-hawkins","tag-micah-peavy","tag-taj-gibson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117236045523979809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}