The Cavaliers and Trail Blazers have finalized the trade that was first reported on Thursday night, the team writes in a press release. The deal will see Portland return the 2018 first-round pick they acquired from Cleveland last season in exchange for Cleveland’s unprotected 2017 first-round pick.
The deal sets the stage for the Cavs to acquire Kyle Korver and gives the Trail Blazers a pair of first-round picks in a draft that’s already being touted as incredibly exciting and loaded with high-end talent even outside of the Top 10.
The Blazers had originally acquired Cleveland’s 2018 first-round pick in last February’s Anderson Varajao deal, but the Cavs needed to reacquire it in order to work around the Ted Stepien Rule, which prohibits teams from dealing first-round picks in consecutive future years. The Cavaliers have reportedly committed to sending Atlanta their 2019 first-round pick, thus their need to reacquire a first-round pick for 2018.
Any logical reason why they wouldn’t just send the 2017 to Atlanta? Seems like a lot of unnecessary work. Is Atlanta hoping Cleveland will suck in 2019?
That wouldn’t work since the 2017 and 2018 picks are back to back. They had to get the 2017 pick to get a year in between the picks. Unless I’m reading this wrong.
You’re right the only way to trade the 2019 pick was to get thier 2018 pick back otherwise they could have sent a 2020 pick to Atlanta
Totally agree – do not understand Hawks motive
General manager could be fired by 2020. Need something that works closer to today.
Lmao
Since Cleveland traded their first round pick in 2016, how are they also able to trade their first round pick in 2017. That seems like back to back years to me. m I missing something?
For some reason they wrote the rule so that it only prohibits trades of 1st rounders in future years. So since 2016 is no longer the future it’s no longer illegal to trade the 2017 pick. 2016 is completely ignored at this point.
Put another way, a team could still trade away their picks for like 6 years in a row. They would just have to wait until each year actually starts and do them one at a time.