2:16pm: The Nets and Suns have officially completed their trade, according to a press release issued by the Nets. Dudley, who told Scott Bordow of The Arizona Republic (Twitter link) that he’s not a fan of buyouts, expects to play for Brooklyn. Wojnarowski suggests the Nets may envision Dudley as a stretch four in their lineup.
9:16am: The Nets and Suns have agreed to a trade that will send Jared Dudley to Brooklyn and Darrell Arthur to Phoenix, league sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link). The Nets will acquire a top-35 protected 2021 second-round pick in the deal, according to Wojnarowski.
The deal appears to be financially motivated, with Wojnarowski indicating that Arthur and his $7.46MM expiring salary will likely be bought out by the Suns. Dudley, who is on a $9.53MM expiring contract, could have a similar conversation with the Nets, Woj adds.
The savings in the trade are minimal for the Suns, but it’s possible they have another move or two up their sleeves. According to Basketball Insiders’ salary data, Phoenix will have a team salary of $98.63MM after the deal, which is good for $3MM+ in cap room.
[UPDATE: Suns to acquire Richaun Holmes from Sixers]
According to John Gambadoro of 98.7 Arizona Sports (Twitter link), the Suns had been trying to buy out Dudley for the last couple weeks. Arthur is a little cheaper and it’s possible he’ll be more amenable to a buyout.
As for the Nets, they remain in asset-collection mode after having acquired a pair of draft picks from the Nuggets in a salary-dump deal that included Arthur earlier this month. Today’s move will ensure that Brooklyn once again has a second-round pick in the 2021 draft — the club traded its own ’21 second-rounder in the Dwight Howard deal with Charlotte.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
The way that Danny Ainge scalped Brooklyn in the KG-PP trade is still insane. Billy King could not have done worse on that deal.
seems like a lot of trouble just to add a late second round pick.
The draft pick could be as high as #36 overall. Not exactly a late second rounder.
And it seems like very little trouble
Lol, I guess this explains why they didnt buyout Dudley while Smart was still available. I was close on that though…when Phoenix buys out Arthur, they should have somewhere between $8 and $9 million available, or is that off?
They’d only have that much if Arthur gave up pretty much his entire salary, which won’t happen. Assuming they don’t stretch him and he doesn’t give up much (if anything), their cap room will only be about $1.5-3MM after the Holmes deal.
I was assuming they would stretch him
I’d be surprised — their roster seems just about set for this season. They’d probably rather avoid cutting into 2019 and 2020 cap room, when that space could be more useful.
Ya, I said it before I saw the Holmes deal
Nice Daryl Morey like move by the Nets, as they finish off what is a good off season. IMO, Marks has done a good job overall through the Dark Ages inflicted upon the franchise by the owner and/or prior regime. Now that he’ll have some real assets around, we’ll see what he’s got.