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Jamir Watkins Signs Two-Way Deal With Wizards

July 6th, 2025 at 6:00pm CST by Eli Cohen

Jamir Watkins has signed a two-way contract with the Wizards, per NBA.com’s transaction log.

Watkins was drafted 43rd overall by the Jazz last month as part of a deal that sent him to Washington along with Will Riley and two future second-round picks in exchange for the ability for the Jazz to draft Walter Clayton Jr.

Watkins played two years at VCU before transferring to Florida State for his final two seasons. In his time with the Seminoles, Watkins averaged 17.0 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 1.6 steals per game and shot 33% from three.

Between his defensive production in college and his size at 6’6″ with a 6’11” wingspan, Watkins has the chance to be an impactful defender with enough scoring and ball-handling to offer interesting upside on a two-way deal.

The Wizards had previously announced the signings of No. 6 overall pick Tre Johnson and No. 21 overall pick Riley. Now all three of the team’s draft-day selections are officially under contract for next season.

As for the team’s two-way slots, Watkins and Jaylen Martin occupy two of them, with a two-way qualifying offer still on the table for Tristan Vukcevic.

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Suns Waive Daeqwon Plowden

July 6th, 2025 at 5:36pm CST by Eli Cohen

The Suns have waived Daeqwon Plowden, according to NBA.com’s transaction log.

Plowden came to Phoenix in the record-setting seven-team deal headlined by Kevin Durant being sent to the Rockets. Prior to that, the 26-year-old shooting guard played six games for the Hawks last year, mostly in the final days of the 2024/25 season, averaging 7.2 points and 1.8 rebounds while shooting 52.9% from three.

The Hawks, who also sent Clint Capela to the Rockets in a sign-and-trade, received David Roddy, a second-round pick swap in 2031, and cash from the Rockets as part of the massive deal.

Plowden will hit unrestricted free agency upon clearing waivers on Tuesday, unless someone claims him.

The Suns now have a pair of open two-way slots next to undrafted rookie CJ Huntley.

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Wizards’ Will Riley Signs Rookie Scale Contract

July 6th, 2025 at 5:23pm CST by Eli Cohen

Will Riley has signed his rookie scale contract with the Wizards, according to NBA.com’s transaction log.

Riley was selected 21st in the 2025 draft by the Jazz as part of a deal that sent him to the Wizards along with the second-round pick that became Jamir Watkins and two future second-rounders.

A 6’8″ forward, Riley averaged 12.6 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 2.2 assists while posting .432/.326/.724 shooting splits to claim the honor of Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year for Illinois.

After impressing out of the gate, Riley slowed down in the middle of the season before putting together a strong close to the year. He averaged 16.3 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 3.3 assists in his final 13 games, including conference tournaments, before posting 22 points and four rebounds in Illinois’ March Madness opening win against Xavier, though he struggled in the Round of 32 loss to Kentucky.

Tre Johnson, the team’s No. 6 overall pick, also signed his rookie scale contract earlier this weekend, so this deal locks up both of the Wizards’ first-round picks ahead of Summer League.

As our breakdown of this year’s rookie scale shows, Riley is expected to earn $3.5MM in the first year of his deal and $17.2MM total over the course of his rookie deal.

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Seven-Team Kevin Durant Trade Officially Finalized

July 6th, 2025 at 2:10pm CST by Luke Adams

The seven-team trade that sends star forward Kevin Durant and free agent big man Clint Capela (via sign-and-trade) to Houston is now official, according to press releases from several teams, including the Rockets.

“Having played against Kevin and coached him before, I know he’s the type of competitor who fits with what we’ve been building here in Houston,” head coach Ime Udoka said in a statement. “His skill level, love of basketball, and dedication to his craft have made him one of the most respected players of his generation, and my staff and I are excited to work with him.”

The move sets a new NBA record for most teams involved in a single trade. The terms of the deal are as follows:

  • Rockets acquire:
  • Suns acquire:
    • Jalen Green (from Rockets)
    • Dillon Brooks (from Rockets)
    • Daeqwon Plowden (from Hawks)
    • The draft rights to Khaman Maluach (No. 10 pick; from Rockets)
    • The draft rights to Rasheer Fleming (No. 31 pick; from Timberwolves)
    • The draft rights to Koby Brea (No. 41 pick; from Warriors)
    • Either the Thunder’s, Mavericks’, or Sixers’ 2026 second-round pick (whichever is second-most favorable; from Rockets)
  • Lakers acquire:
    • The draft rights to Adou Thiero (No. 36 pick; from Nets)
  • Warriors acquire:
  • Timberwolves acquire:
    • The draft rights to Rocco Zikarsky (No. 45 pick; from Lakers)
    • Either the Warriors’ or Nuggets’ 2026 second-round pick (whichever is least favorable; from Suns)
    • Either the Suns’ or Rockets’ 2032 second-round pick (whichever is most favorable; from Suns/Rockets)
      • Note: The Suns, not the Rockets, retain the least favorable of the two picks.
    • Cash (from Lakers).
  • Nets acquire:
    • Either the Clippers’ 2026 second-round pick or the most favorable of the Celtics’, Pacers’, and Heat’s 2026 second-round picks (whichever is least favorable; from Rockets)
    • The Celtics’ 2030 second-round pick (from Rockets)
  • Hawks acquire:
    • David Roddy (from Rockets)
    • The right to swap their own 2031 second-round pick for the Rockets’ 2031 second-round pick (56-60 protected; from Rockets)
    • Cash (from Rockets)

Word first broke on Wednesday that the Durant trade was being expanded to be completed as a seven-team deal. For the most part, it was just a matter of folding separate draft-night trade agreements into a single transaction.

In addition to the original Durant blockbuster (story), this transaction incorporates trade agreements between the Suns and Nets (story), Suns and Warriors (story), Suns and Timberwolves (story), and Lakers and Timberwolves (story), as well as the sign-and-trade deal sending Capela from the Hawks to the Rockets (story).

The only two new additions to this deal are Plowden and Roddy, who are both entering the second year of two-way contracts. The addition of Plowden ensures that the Hawks are “touching” a second team besides Houston in the deal. He’s being waived by the Suns, reports Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic (Twitter link).

In exchange for sending out Plowden, the Hawks are filling that newly opened two-way slot with Roddy, a former first-round pick who spent more than half of the 2024/25 season in Atlanta on a standard contract.

Attaching the Capela sign-and-trade deal into this transaction has cap-related benefits for the Rockets, who would otherwise have had to send out a separate matching salary in order to sign Capela to his reported three-year, $21MM deal.

However, for the most part, amalgamating all those draft-night deals is just about streamlining the process for several teams, allowing them to take part in (or wait out) fewer trade calls and get their newly acquired rookies under contract sooner.

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Wizards, Pelicans, Rockets Compete Three-Team Trade

July 6th, 2025 at 1:57pm CST by Luke Adams

As expected, the Wizards have rolled a pair of trade agreements with the Pelicans and Rockets into the same deal, officially completing the two deals as a single three-team transaction, per a press release from New Orleans.

The terms of the trade are as follows:

The original trade agreement between Washington and New Orleans was reached on June 24, a day before the first round of the draft, with the Whitmore deal between Houston and Washington just agreed upon yesterday.

It was beneficial for the Wizards to combine the two deals into a single trade because they were sending out any matching salary to the Rockets for Whitmore. While they could have used one of several cap exceptions they had on hand to take on Whitmore’s $3.54MM salary for 2025/26, including him in this deal allows them to use their 125% allowance for Poole’s and Bey’s outgoing salary to acquire him, McCollum, and Olynyk.

The only new part of this deal is the Rockets acquiring the draft rights to King from New Orleans, which was necessary to ensure that Houston and New Orleans were “touching” as part of the three-team deal.

You can read our original story on the Wizards/Pelicans deal headlined by McCollum and Poole here, while our report on the Wizards’ deal for Whitmore is here.

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Wizards’ Tre Johnson Signs Rookie Scale Contract

July 6th, 2025 at 8:38am CST by Rory Maher

The Wizards have officially signed No. 6 overall pick Tre Johnson to a rookie scale contract, the team announced in a press release (Twitter link).

A 6’6″ shooting guard with a 6’10” wingspan, Johnson averaged 19.9 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.7 assists on .427/.397/.871 shooting in 33 games (34.7 MPG) as a freshman for Texas in 2024/25.

The 19-year-old was named the SEC Freshman of the Year and made the All-SEC second team in his lone college season. While there have been some questions about Johnson’s inconsistent engagement level on defense, per Jonathan Givony of ESPN, the Dallas native is one of the best shooters and scorers in this year’s draft class.

As our breakdown of this year’s rookie scale shows, Johnson will likely earn $8.2MM as a rookie and $37.4MM over the course of his four-year rookie contract, with the final two seasons being team options.

Washington has yet to sign No. 21 overall pick Will Riley, but that transaction should be completed in the coming days.

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Grizzlies To Sign Jock Landale, Trade Jay Huff To Pacers

July 5th, 2025 at 4:32pm CST by Arthur Hill

July 6: The Huff trade is official, according to the Grizzlies (Twitter link).

July 5: Free agent center Jock Landale has reached a contract agreement with the Grizzlies, sources tell Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link). Memphis will make room on its roster by sending Jay Huff to the Pacers in exchange for a future second-round pick and a second-round pick swap, Charania adds (Twitter link).

Landale was waived by the Rockets on Thursday before his $8MM salary for the upcoming season became guaranteed. He was expected to be on the move on after Houston agreed to sign Clint Capela in free agency, adding to its center depth along with Alperen Sengun and Steven Adams.

The 29-year-old big man signed a four-year, $32MM contract with the Rockets in 2023 that contained just one fully guaranteed season. He appeared in 42 games this year, averaging 4.8 points and 3.3 rebounds in 11.9 minutes per night.

Landale’s new contract with Memphis will cover one year at the veteran’s minimum, sources tell Kelly Iko of The Athletic (Twitter link).  He will provide another option for Memphis in light of Zach Edey‘s uncertain status after undergoing ankle surgery in June.

Indiana was able to pick up an additional big man in Huff after losing Myles Turner to Milwaukee earlier this week. The Pacers will be the fifth team in five years for the 26-year-old center, who is coming off his best NBA season. He appeared in 64 games for Memphis, averaging 6.9 points and 2.0 rebounds in 11.7 minutes per night while shooting 51.5% from the field and 40.5% from three-point range.

Huff will make $2.4MM and $2.7MM over the next two seasons, and his contract includes a $3MM player option for 2027/28.

The draft choice headed to Memphis will be a 2029 second-rounder that originally belonged to Portland, while the option for the second-round pick swap will take place in 2031, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).

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Pelicans Sign First-Rounders Jeremiah Fears, Derik Queen

July 5th, 2025 at 4:03pm CST by Luke Adams

The Pelicans have officially signed their two 2025 lottery picks, the team confirmed today, announcing in a press release that guard Jeremiah Fears and big man Derik Queen have inked their rookie scale contracts.

Fears, this year’s No. 7 overall pick, raised his stock significantly over the course of his first and only college season at Oklahoma —  he didn’t show up at all on ESPN’s 59-player mock draft last November.

The former four-star recruit, who won’t turn 19 years old until October, was among the NCAA’s best ball-handlers and play-makers as a freshman. The 6’4″ guard averaged 17.1 points, 4.1 assists, 4.1 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in 34 outings (31 starts), though he knocked down just 28.4% of 3.9 three-point tries per game for the Sooners.

Queen, meanwhile, was selected with the 13th overall pick after the Pelicans sent Atlanta this year’s No. 23 pick and an unprotected 2026 first-rounder (the most favorable of New Orleans’ and Milwaukee’s picks) for the right to draft the Maryland big man.

Queen was highly productive in his freshman season with the Terrapins, averaging 16.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.1 blocks in 30.4 minutes per contest across 36 total games. He helped guide Maryland to a 27-9 record and a spot in the Sweet 16, scoring 27 points in a loss to Florida, the eventual national champions.

As our breakdown of this year’s rookie scale shows, Fears will likely earn $7.5MM as a rookie and $34.2MM over the course of his four-year rookie contract. Queen should make $5.2MM in year one and $24.4MM in total.

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Rockets To Trade Cam Whitmore To Wizards

July 5th, 2025 at 3:17pm CST by Luke Adams

The Rockets have agreed to trade forward Cam Whitmore to the Wizards, reports Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link). According to Charania, Houston will acquire a pair of second-round picks in return.

Whitmore, a Maryland native who will turn 21 on Tuesday, was selected out of Villanova with the 20th overall pick in the 2023 draft. It was viewed as a steal at the time for the Rockets, given that the 6’7″ forward was widely viewed as a top-10 – or even top-five – pick leading up to the draft.

However, while Whitmore flashed some major upside as a scorer off the bench during his first two NBA seasons, he wasn’t able to carve out a consistent role for a deep Rockets team. He made a total of 98 appearances from 2023-25, averaging 10.8 points and 3.4 rebounds in 17.4 minutes per game, with a shooting line of .449/.357/.707.

The Rockets worked with Whitmore and his representatives in recent weeks in an effort to find a new home, per Charania (Twitter link). He should get an opportunity to play more significant – and more consistent – minutes for a rebuilding Wizards team that will be looking for some of its young players to establish themselves as long-term building blocks.

Moving Whitmore will help generate a little extra flexibility below a first-apron hard cap for a Rockets team that was expected to have to part with Whitmore or Jeenathan Williams to stay below that threshold once its reported deals for Kevin Durant and Clint Capela are official.

Houston will acquire Chicago’s 2026 second-round pick and Sacramento’s 2029 second-rounder in the deal, a league source tells Josh Robbins of The Athletic (Twitter link).

The Wizards, meanwhile, have no shortage of cap exceptions they could use to take on Whitmore’s $3.54MM salary without sending back a player themselves, but it sounds like they won’t need to use their mid-level, bi-annual, or existing trade exceptions. Varun Shakar of The Washington Post says this deal is expected to be folded into a larger trade with the Pelicans when it goes official.

Washington will have until October 31 of this year to decide whether or not to exercise Whitmore $5.46MM team option for the 2026/27 season. Assuming the Wizards pick up that option, he’ll become eligible for a rookie scale extension a year from now.

Chicago and Denver were reportedly among the other teams that expressed some level of interest in Whitmore before the Rockets made a deal with Washington.

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Rockets Re-Sign Jae’Sean Tate On One-Year Deal

July 5th, 2025 at 3:16pm CST by Rory Maher

July 5: The Rockets have officially re-signed Tate, per NBA.com’s transaction log. Based on the fact that it was completed during the July moratorium, we now know definitively that it’s a minimum-salary deal.

Houston also finalized its two-way agreement with Kevon Harris. We have the full story on that signing here.

June 30: The Rockets and free agent forward Jae’Sean Tate have agreed to a one-year contract worth $3MM, league sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).

Tate holds five years of NBA experience — all with the Rockets — and his projected minimum salary for next season is approximately $2.67MM. It’s unclear whether Houston is giving him a little more than the minimum or if the figure reported by Scotto is just Tate’s minimum being rounded up.

Tate, 29, went undrafted in 2018 after four college seasons at Ohio State. He played a couple of years overseas before catching on with the Rockets in 2020/21.

In 52 games in 2024/25, Tate averaged career lows of 3.6 points and 2.3 rebounds in 11.8 minutes per contest. His shooting slash line was .473/.348/.681.

While the 6’4″ combo forward’s role has steadily declined during his time with Houston, clearly the Rockets still value his contributions, otherwise they wouldn’t be bringing him back.

Tate is one of three veteran role players expected to re-sign with Houston in free agency, with Aaron Holiday and Jeff Green being the others.

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