The amount of cash the Thunder sent the Pelicans in the Ish Smith trade is $801K, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reports (Twitter link). The 2015 second-round pick headed from Oklahoma City to New Orleans is Philly’s top-55 protected pick, as Pincus shows on his Pelicans salary page. The 2016 second-rounder headed to the Thunder is the less favorable of Sacramento’s top-55 protected pick and the Pelicans’ pick, according to RealGM.
Here’s more from around the league:
- The Hornets gave up Gary Neal two weeks ago in the trade that netted Mo Williams and Troy Daniels, but Steve Clifford can envision Daniels developing into the sort of role Neal has played in the NBA, notes Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer. Bonnell’s piece examines just what the Hornets have in Daniels, who has a fully guaranteed minimum salary for next season.
- The Heat sent the Suns $2.2MM in cash in the Goran Dragic trade, according to Pincus (Twitter link).
- The Knicks did indeed take Alexey Shved‘s $3,282,057 salary into their $3,637,073 Raymond Felton trade exception as part of their trade with the Rockets, reducing that exception to $355,016, as Pincus tweets. The move allowed New York to create a new $1,662,961 trade exception worth the equivalent of Pablo Prigioni‘s salary, Pincus adds.
- A number of NBA GMs and scouts are beginning to view Karl-Anthony Towns as having greater long-term potential than Jahlil Okafor, and the freshman could play his way into being drafted No. 1 overall this June, Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) writes.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.