6:41pm: The trade between the Grizzlies and Clippers is official, both teams announced in press releases. The Clippers also confirmed the waiving of Marcin Gortat.
“We will miss the toughness Marcin brought to this group,” team president Lawrence Frank said. “He was a tenacious defender and screen-setter, and we are grateful to have been part of his long and distinguished career.”
1:07pm: The Grizzlies have reached an agreement to trade swingman Garrett Temple and power forward JaMychal Green to the Clippers for shooting guard Avery Bradley, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN tweets.
The trade allows the Clippers to clear a little more cap space in their pursuit of top free agents this summer. Temple has an expiring $8MM contract, while Green is making $7.7MM in his walk year. The Clippers will open up $2MM more in cap room this offseason, giving them a projected $59MM to chase the best players in the free agent class, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter links).
Bradley is making $12MM this season and $12.96MM next season, but only $2MM of next season’s salary is guaranteed. Memphis has until July 3rd to fully guarantee his salary, something a rebuilding club is unlikely to do.
The Grizzlies will create a $7.6MM trade exception as well as open up a roster spot as they finalize a deal sending center Marc Gasol to the Raptors. Green will receive a $200K bonus if the Clippers reach the first round of the playoffs, Marks adds.
With the Clippers having a full roster prior to the trade agreement, they will open up a spot to complete the 2-for-1 deal by waiving center Marcin Gortat, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets.
Los Angeles will thus eat the remainder of his $13.565MM contract this season. Gortat was due to become an unrestricted free agent this summer.
Bradley, who has started all 49 games in which he’s played this season, is averaging 8.2 PPG. Gortat started 43 of 47 games, averaging 5.0 PPG and 5.6 RPG. Green was the Grizzlies’ fourth-leading scorer despite coming off the bench in all but four of 41 games, averaging 9.8 PPG and 6.1 RPG. Temple, acquired from the Kings during the offseason, started 49 games and averaging 9.4 PPG.
Did the clippers just give up on the season?
Looks that way but its way smarter to get picks and cap room than lose in the playoffs
Weird trade considering LA got the better end of the deal and they traded away their best player in Harris. Can’t tell why they’d voluntarily get worse but then add value to the roster.
Green and Temple both free agents after the season, Avery Bradley only has $2 million guarantee for ’19-20….appears to be a cap move
I get that but for the Clips I don’t know that the matter of 2M makes sense. Like I said, they got better. Which is good because they can still stay in contention. But they also convey the pick to Boston if they do.
Bradley’s full salary for next season is just under $13 million, Grizzlies may use him for another trade or just keep him to fill out their roster
They apparently want to stockpile picks to make an offer on AD.
This is a weird trade
The Clippers are doing exactly what they did last year with Blake Griffin. They are trying to rebuild without giving up on the season. I hope it is successful because it is far more preferable from a fan’s perspective than a 3-5 year rebuild. And I mean that for every team, not just the Clippers.
NANI? I actually thought those guys and Gasol woulld have made sense for them before they got rid of Harris. With Green and Tenple, I think I actually may have mentioned after the Harris trade if the Clippers could still turn around and do something like that to not totally tank this year, but I thought 1 of the points of that trade was to try and keep this year’s pick
Here they get rid of the salary they needed to move, so win-win
This is a pretty easy trade to figure out. LAC is clearing the books next year to *try* to get KW, AD, KD and if they don’t then they’ve already acquired draft assets to rebuild around the SGA/Shamet back court.
Then why worry about getting rid of Harris who is expiring? It seems like they went up and down in regards to talent on the roster while maintaining cap room. But Bradley is only due 2M. Is the 2M the difference between a max player and not?
short answer: yes, it is a part of the process, every $1m counts, let alone $2m
I mean if that’s the case then why not sell Gallo? Dude makes more than anyone and isn’t an expiring. Made more sense to move him than Harris at this point.
And teams are high on Gallo right now. This would be the time to sell him.
If teams were high on Gallo, he would’ve already been gone. Nobody wants Gallo, without also getting something else back from the Clippers, because of his contract.
Problem with Gallinari is the injuries. He has been really good thos year when he was on the floor, but he is always injured
Agreed. If a team could be promised that he’ll be healthy for the rest of this season and a half, I’m sure he would’ve been traded as he’s a solid player. But he’s too big of an injury risk on a kind of bad contract to be taken without some sort of draft compensation being attached. He’ll have more value next season as an expiring contract regardless of his performance.
Bradley’s not in the future plans anyway and it opens up the starting spot for Shamet. They got an awesome deal for Harris, plus it will allow them to stay in the lottery and keep their protected pick. Would not be surprised to see them move more expirings for 2nd round picks
Gortat cut.
They’re definitely going for two max contracts.
Clips are retooling, not tanking. Green and Temple help replace Harris and Bradley in a deep rotation, downgrades, sure, but not capitulation. Bradley likely still has value, when healthy, but Clips get 2 for 1 for giving it up with the injury risk.
Bradley’s not in the future plans anyway and it opens up the starting spot for Shamet. They got an awesome deal for Harris, plus it will allow them to stay in the lottery and keep their protected pick. Would not be surprised to see them move more expirings for 2nd round picks
Memphis should have got an asset for Green, in my opinion, so not a great job by them here,
Lakers should take on Gortat and see how he fits with the team. Could be good off the bench.