JULY 13: The trade is now official, the Nets and Raptors announced today in a pair of press releases. Brooklyn receives Carroll, the Raptors’ 2018 first-round pick, and the less favorable of the Lakers’ and Magic’s 2018 second-round picks. The Raptors receive Hamilton and create an $11.8MM trade exception.
JULY 8: The Raptors have agreed to trade DeMarre Carroll to the Nets in a salary-dump deal, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. According to Wojnarowski, Brooklyn will receive first- and second-round picks for 2018 from the Raptors, and will send Justin Hamilton to Toronto.
Even though they lost P.J. Tucker and Patrick Patterson in free agency, the Raptors’ new agreements with Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka pushed them into luxury-tax territory. Team ownership had expressed a willingness to pay the tax in certain scenarios, but in this case, Toronto was believed to be looking for a way back below that threshold, having also reportedly shopped Cory Joseph and Jonas Valanciunas.
In Carroll, the Nets will be landing a veteran swingman who has battled health issues since leaving the Hawks in 2015. Carroll signed a lucrative four-year deal with the Raptors that summer, but only appeared in 26 games in his first season with the franchise, and never appeared to be back to his old self in 2016/17, despite starting 72 games. In 26.1 minutes per contest last season, Carroll averaged 8.9 PPG and 3.8 RPG, with a shooting line of .400/.341/.761.
Carroll is owed $14.8MM in 2017/18 and $15.4MM in 2018/19, while Hamilton’s expiring contract is worth just $3MM. However, having had their offer sheet to Otto Porter matched by the Wizards, the Nets will have an excess of cap room to accommodate a salary dump of this nature, and should still have $15MM+ available if they want to pursue another free agent or take on another contract.
Meanwhile, the Raptors project to get out of tax territory by moving Carroll, and should have the flexibility to retain Joseph and Valanciunas, who are key pieces in their rotation. The team also still has its full mid-level exception available, though team salary isn’t very far below the $119.266MM tax line, and using more than the taxpayer MLE would create a hard cap of $125.266MM. As such, the club may not be eager to use that MLE.
Hamilton, 27, will head to Toronto in the swap, coming off a career year for Brooklyn. The veteran center averaged 6.9 PPG and 4.1 RPG in 64 games (18.4 MPG) for the Nets. He also made a career-best 0.9 threes per game, albeit at a mediocre 30.6% rate. Hamilton could be an interesting addition to Toronto’s frontcourt, but the Raptors figure to be on the lookout for help on the wing, with big-bodied swingman Carroll and Tucker both moving on this summer.
As for the draft picks changing hands in this deal, the Raptors’ first-round pick heading to the Nets will be lottery-protected, per Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today (Twitter link). Toronto has already traded its own 2018 second-round pick, but holds the rights to the less favorable of the Lakers’ and Magic’s second-rounder, so that figures to be the other selection headed to Brooklyn.
The deal won’t be finalized until the Nets’ cap room for the Porter offer sheet officially opens back up.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
I don’t like this trade as a raptors fan
Why not? Frees up a ton of cap plus probably allows Norman Powell to become a starter.
As a Cavs fan it makes me smile. However I’m with the Rap fan as this is a real head scratcher.
sean marks seems like a keeper for the nets
Yea I like this Sean Marks guy a lot
SMH at all the people out there who think they have a terrible FO still when they fired Billy King like about a year and a half ago
SMH at all the people who think Masai Ujiri is Better than Ainge… They are saltier than the Great Salt Lake. Crowder is better than Carroll and he got him for $7 000 000 per year.
Masai and Ainge are solid GMs, the other day I did say Ainge was a bad GM in the midst of a tantrum
Both are good GMs and I wouldn’t necessarily call one better than the other. Ainge looks like a genius for the Brooklyn trade (and looked smart in other trades), but Masai has also made some really solid signings/trades/draft selections. The fact that other teams have tried to entice him away from his current team (or previous team if you want to include the Nuggets), it speaks about how well-regarded he is in the league.
Nets took themselves out of the race for kcp. Hopefully the lakers can nab him for a 1 year/18million contract.
With Deangelo, Lin, and LeVert there was not real need for KCP but I think LAL will be a fantastic fit for him
Who needs lottery picks when you got Marksie
The Nets low key have a chance to be an improved team, although they did move Lopez. They should theoretically be much better defensively and they can generally still shoot the 3 like they did last year, assuming they stay healthy.
Toronto gets out of that deal, but I don’t feel like they accomplished much, and they already needed wing help/defense.
Brooklyn can improve all they want AFTER this coming season. Says the Celtics die hard!
So many of these salary dumps are taking place. It’s almost comical.
Even more to come after this year’s off season insanity.
The cap crunch (and the lowering projection in what the future cap numbers will be) are going to cause more of these deals. Same thing happened the two or three years before last offseason’s massive spike. Not many salary dump deals happened because almost everyone had cap space. Now, there are only a handful of teams with enough cap space to absorb these types of bad deals:
Marks is a genius
I like the move for the Nets. Carroll can be an effective player when healthy (I know that’s a big if). The move also saves them on an overpay on KCP too. And the Nets needed a 1st round pick with their 2018 pick headed to Boston to complete the 2013 draft day trade.
They should have signed other 2 to lesser contracts so then could of Kept Carroll.
But Carroll is not any good. This was more about them getting out of his contract than getting rid of him because they needed cap space.
Sean Marks a product of San Antonio. He’s going to make Brooklyn relevant again.
Really when was that?
hmmmm When healthy, and he’s had some issues the last couple of season, he could really be of value to any NBA team. A real head scratcher. I know. Salary dump. Salary Dump never won a championship.
Nets suck no matter what they do!
This is why a lot of people dislike Bostons fans
Eating bad contracts in exchange for future draft picks is a smart play for a team that wants to rebuild.