Mavs Acquire Willie Cauley-Stein From Warriors

JANUARY 25: The trade for Cauley-Stein is official, according to the Mavericks’ PR account (Twitter link). As expected, the team has waived Patton to open up the roster spot necessary to complete the deal.

JANUARY 24: The Mavericks are finalizing a deal to acquire center Willie Cauley-Stein from the Warriors, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN tweets.

Golden State will receive a 2020 second-rounder from the Jazz, which Utah owed to Dallas, in return for the big man, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania. The Warriors don’t own their own second-rounders from 2020-26 except for the 2022 draft, so this gives them another asset, Anthony Slater of The Athletic tweets.

The Mavericks will open up a roster spot once they complete a trade agreed upon with the Thunder in which they’ll receive center Justin Patton for forward Isaiah Roby and then waive Patton.

Dallas is using its $11.7MM trade exception to acquire Cauley-Stein acquired in the Harrison Barnes deal with the Kings last season. It’s needed since Cauley-Stein was signed with part of the non-tax mid-level exception, according to Marks (Twitter link). Golden State will get a $2.17MM trade exception out of the deal.

Dallas was seeking a rotation player to replace Dwight Powell, who suffered a season-ending Achilles injury. Cauley-Stein, who is making $2.18MM this season and holds a $2.29MM option on his contract for next season, fits that role at a modest cost. He’s averaging 7.9 PPG, 6.2 RPG and 1.2 BPG in 23.0 MPG for the Warriors.

The Warriors have plenty of monetary reasons to make this deal. The deal will save them $5.66MM on their luxury-tax bill, dropping it to $9.3MM, according to Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link). Golden State, which will have two roster openings once the deal is completed, will also drop $2.57MM below the hard cap. The team will have two weeks to get back up to the league-mandated minimum of 14 players.

View Comments (34)