- Wizards star Bradley Beal will return to action on Wednesday vs. Oklahoma City after missing five games due to COVID-19 and reconditioning, tweets Ava Wallace of The Washington Post.
As the NBA’s 2022/23 trade deadline approaches, it’s worth keeping in mind which teams hold traded player exceptions that could come in handy to grease the wheels on an in-season deal.
As we explain in our glossary, a traded player exception allows a team to take on salary in a trade without sending out any salary in return. The amount of the exception plus $100K is the amount of salary the team is permitted to take back without salary-matching – either in a single deal or in multiple trades – for one year.
For instance, a team with a $10MM trade exception could acquire a player earning $4MM and a player earning $6.1MM without having to worry about sending out any outgoing salary.
In recent years, sizable traded player exceptions have been major wild cards that helped accommodate both pre-deadline and offseason deals. For example, after creating a $28.6MM trade exception in a sign-and-trade sending Gordon Hayward to Charlotte in 2020, the Celtics used that TPE to acquire Evan Fournier at the following deadline and then to acquire Josh Richardson during the 2021 offseason.
However, as our tracker shows, there are currently no trade exceptions worth anywhere near $28MM. In fact, the largest current TPE barely eclipses the $10MM mark.
Here are the all of the current trade exceptions worth more than $4MM, along with their expiry dates in parentheses:
- Oklahoma City Thunder: $10,183,800 (10/2/23)
- Utah Jazz: $9,774,884 (2/9/23)
- Los Angeles Clippers: $9,720,900 (2/10/23)
- Utah Jazz: $9,614,379 (7/6/23)
- Denver Nuggets: $9,125,000 (7/6/23)
- Boston Celtics: $6,907,815 (1/19/23)
- Utah Jazz: $6,745,122 (9/22/23)
- Portland Trail Blazers: $6,519,792 (2/6/23)
- Boston Celtics: $5,890,000 (2/10/23)
- Toronto Raptors: $5,250,000 (2/10/23)
- Washington Wizards: $5,220,900 (2/10/23)
- Atlanta Hawks: $4,564,980 (9/27/23)
- Minnesota Timberwolves: $4,374,000 (7/6/23)
- Oklahoma City Thunder: $4,220,057 (10/2/23)
- Sacramento Kings: $4,023,600 (2/8/23)
These trade exceptions aren’t useless. For instance, if Detroit made point guard Cory Joseph available, any of the top 11 TPEs on this list could be used to absorb Joseph’s $5,155,500 salary. The non-Utah TPEs in the top eight could be used to acquire Rudy Gay and his $6,184,500 cap hit from the Jazz. All 15 of them are big enough to take on the $3.5MM salary of Thunder big man Mike Muscala.
But these exceptions will ultimately be of no consequence when considering trade candidates who earn salaries well into the eight figures, since TPEs can’t be combined with other players or exceptions. There’s no scenario in which any of these trade exceptions could be used to take on the $18MM salary of Pacers center Myles Turner, for example.
That’s not the only factor working against the odds of most of these exceptions being used. All of the top 10 largest TPEs are controlled by teams that are rebuilding (the Thunder and Jazz), teams in the tax (the Clippers, Nuggets, and Celtics), or teams that are just below the tax line and likely want to stay that way (the Trail Blazers and Raptors). In other words, they don’t fit the profile of clubs that are looking to take on additional salary without sending any out.
That doesn’t mean that none of these trade exceptions will be used — after all, it sometimes makes sense to take advantage of them even in a deal that a team could complete using salary matching (for instance, a team with a $10MM trade exception that swaps one $8MM player for another could use the exception to take on the incoming player and create a new $8MM exception using the outgoing player). However, it does mean that it’s unlikely any TPEs will be game-changers on this season’s trade market.
- Kyle Kuzma and Kristaps Porzingis are helping the Wizards remain competitive during Bradley Beal‘s latest stint in the health and safety protocols, notes Tyler Byrum of NBC Sports Washington. Beal cleared the protocols Friday, but he didn’t play tonight and coach Wes Unseld Jr. said he will likely be held out of Sunday’s game.
Wizards guard Bradley Beal has cleared the NBA’s health and safety protocols, the team announced. However, Beal will still miss Saturday’s game against Utah due to “return to competition reconditioning,” with further updates to be provided as he continues to inch closer to a return.
Beal has missed three games while in the protocols, with the Wizards going 2-1 without their star shooting guard. Through nine games, he’s averaging 21.6 points, 3.6 rebounds and 5.7 assists on .517/.325/.917 shooting in 35.1 minutes per night.
Here are several more injury-related updates from around the NBA:
- Bucks stars Giannis Antetokounmpo (left knee soreness) and Jrue Holiday (right ankle sprain) were both ruled out for Friday’s loss to the Spurs, tweets Eric Nehm of The Athletic. Both players missed their second consecutive game for the league-leading Bucks, holders of a 10-2 record in the early going.
- Similarly, Suns guard Chris Paul was ruled out for the second straight game Friday, in what turned out to be a loss to the Magic, per Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. Fellow guard Landry Shamet (concussion symptoms) was also sidelined after scoring a season-high 16 points in Wednesday’s win over Minnesota. “We didn’t see anything. Just kind of jumped up on him last night. It just speaks to how complicated those things are. Can go for a while and not even know something is going on and then it just jumps up on you,” head coach Monty Williams said of Shamet (Twitter link via Rankin). For Orlando, No. 1 overall pick Paolo Banchero missed his second straight contest with a left ankle sprain.
- The Lakers provided an update today on center Thomas Bryant and guard Dennis Schröder, both of whom are recovering from thumb surgery. They were evaluated this week and are said to be progressing well, and both players will be reevaluated next Thursday, as Brad Turner of The Los Angeles Times relays (via Twitter).
- Shaedon Sharpe, the No. 7 overall pick, has suffered a volar avulsion fracture to his right fifth finger, the Trail Blazers announced in a press release. He’s considered day-to-day going forward and is officially listed as questionable for Saturday’s contest at Dallas.
- Nuggets guard Bones Hyland has entered the league’s health and safety protocols and was ruled out for Friday’s loss at Boston, Denver announced (via Twitter). Hyland is a key reserve for Denver, with averages of 14.0 points and 3.7 assists through nine games (20.7 minutes). He’ll need to pass some testing requirements before returning to action. The Nuggets play Sunday, Wednesday and Friday next week.
- Last year’s No. 1 overall pick, Pistons guard Cade Cunningham, was downgraded from questionable to out on Friday with left shin soreness, tweets Keith Langlois of Pistons.com. On a positive note, wing Alec Burks made his 2022/23 season debut following foot surgery, scoring 17 points in 25 minutes during Detroit’s loss at New York.
The Wizards played perhaps their best game of the season on Thursday night vs. Luka Doncic and the Mavericks, winning 113-105 despite missing stars Bradley Beal (health and safety protocols) and Kristaps Porzingis (left groin strain).
The team’s success on offense could largely be attributed to Kyle Kuzma, who was the go-to scoring and play-making option with Beal and Porzingis unavailable. Kuzma led all scorers with 36 points on 14-of-26 shooting and also grabbed 11 rebounds and dished out six assists, playing a role similar to the one Doncic has in Dallas. Kuzma said after the game that he enjoys being a primary ball-handler, though he doesn’t feel the need to match Doncic’s league-high 39.1% usage rate.
“No question I would love to do that, 100%,” Kuzma said, per Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington. “I love challenges. Maybe not (39.1%), that’s a little aggressive. I don’t think you can win NBA championships of that nature with that. That’s a lot. But I have that type of ability to where I can make others better, I can score, I can do a lot of different things.”
With a $13MM player option for 2023/24, Kuzma has the ability to become an unrestricted free agent in July, so this is a big year for him. He said on Thursday that he’s trying not to think about that, however.
“I just try to live in the moment. I mean, it’s cliche but I’ve done a lot of soul-searching this summer and I do a lot of meditating and whatever is for me in life is for me. It’s going to come eventually. I’m not tripping,” Kuzma said. “… Money, basketball, the success; it’s going to come. I think I learned that my first go-around with my first contract and I’m just in the moment and I’m just hooping.”
Here’s more on the Wizards:
- Besides Kuzma, Rui Hachimura was also a standout in Thursday’s win, racking up 23 points and playing good defense. As Josh Robbins of The Athletic notes, both Kuzma and Hachimura will be eligible for free agency next summer, raising the question of whether the team will retain both forwards or ultimately have to choose between one or the other. Kuzma could be a popular trade target this season for teams in need of frontcourt scoring, Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today tweets.
- Beal and Porzingis are both considered day-to-day, according to Ava Wallace of The Washington Post, who notes that Beal first tested positive for COVID-19 and that head coach Wes Unseld Jr. said the guard’s symptoms have subsided “quite a bit.”
- Promoted from an Exhibit 10 contract to a two-way deal at the end of the preseason, guard Jordan Goodwin is making an impact for the Wizards in the early part of the 2022/23 season. He scored a career-high 17 points on Monday and has been at least a plus-10 and has registered five or more assists in each of the last three games. Wallace at The Washington Post and Robbins at The Athletic both took a closer look this week at what Goodwin is bringing to the team.
With the Lakers off to a 2-9 start this season and no signs that a turnaround is imminent, VP of basketball operations Rob Pelinka and the team’s front office face a difficult decision, according to Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report.
As Haynes outlines, the Lakers must decide whether to continue pushing their chips into the middle of the table by making more win-now trades this season or whether they’d be better off waiting until the 2023 offseason to pursue major moves.
Waiting until next summer would mean Russell Westbrook‘s $47MM+ expiring contract would no longer be on the team’s books. It would also put the Lakers in position to trade an additional draft pick, since they could move their 2023 first-rounder (once the Pelicans exercise their swap rights) after the pick has been made.
However, LeBron James has a finite number of high-level seasons left and doesn’t want to waste a year waiting for reinforcements, sources tell Haynes. Other core players on the roster would also prefer the team to make win-now moves, Haynes adds.
As has been reported repeatedly throughout the offseason and into the season, the Lakers don’t want to move their 2027 and 2029 first-round picks in a deal that doesn’t significantly improve their chances of contending for a title. According to Haynes, there’s not a universal belief within the club’s front office that acquiring Myles Turner and Buddy Hield from the Pacers would move the needle to that degree.
Here’s more on the Lakers:
- The Lakers are “known to covet” Bradley Beal, according to Haynes. However, the Wizards guard just signed a five-year contract with the team that includes a full no-trade clause, so he’d have to ask out of Washington for L.A. – or any other team – to have a shot at him.
- As Jovan Buha reported earlier this week, the Lakers aren’t considering trading Anthony Davis, Haynes confirms. However, Haynes hears from sources that the team has received more calls about Russell Westbrook as of late — those talks haven’t advanced beyond the initial stages though.
- LeBron James, who was diagnosed with a left adductor strain, has been ruled out for Friday’s game vs. Sacramento, and Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter video link via The Rally) hears that James is expected to miss Sunday’s game vs. Brooklyn too. After Sunday, the team is off until next Friday.
- In the same video clip, Charania also reports that free agent wings Joe Wieskamp and Tony Snell recently worked out for the Lakers, whose .293 3PT% ranks last in the NBA.
- Rui Hachimura has looked more comfortable coming off the bench this season, according to Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington. The Wizards forward contributed 16 points in 26 minutes against Charlotte on Monday. For the season, he’s shooting 46.2% from the field. He’ll be a restricted free agent next summer if the team extends a qualifying offer.
- Jordan Goodwin, who had his training campcontract converted into a two-way deal in mid-October, has been a pleasant surprise for the Wizards, Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington notes. Goodwin had nine points, eight rebounds, five assists and two steals against Memphis on Sunday and could have a steady role as the third point guard. “He has the heart of a dog. You can’t teach that and you can’t give it out, you’re born with it,” Bradley Beal said.
Many lottery picks wouldn’t be thrilled about a G League assignment. The Wizards’ Johnny Davis has a different take, according to Josh Robbins of The Athletic.
Davis scored 13 points on 3-for-13 shooting in 26 minutes in his first outing for the Capital City Go-Go. He played 23 minutes and scored 17 points in his second G League game on Sunday.
The 10th overall pick is grateful to see so much court time.
“It was great to be able to finally play again,” Davis said. “Being with the Wizards, you always got to stay ready, but I’m glad they sent me down here so I can get some reps and just get that feeling back.”
Davis averaged six minutes in five NBA appearances before the assignment.
We have more from the Southeast Division:
- LaMelo Ball could return this week from the left ankle sprain that has sidelined him since late in the preseason. His Hornets teammates are excited at the prospect of having their floor leader back, Roderick Boone of the Charlotte Observer writes. “Super excited, super anxious,” Kelly Oubre said. “I tell him every day I miss him on the court. You know, he’s another element to our team that is through the roof. You can’t put a matchup on him.”
- Tyler Herro and Caleb Martin are still adjusting to their new roles as starters for the Heat, according to Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald. Herro is getting used to playing alongside other high-usage players, while Martin is getting most of his offensive opportunities around the 3-point line. “I think that’s what you need early on,” Martin said. “I think you need growing pains to figure things out and I’m glad we’re going through those now. It’s good to get that stuff out of the way, so you kind of nip a lot of stuff in the bud.”
- Max Strus has only started three of 10 games for the Heat but he’s becoming an integral part of the closing unit, Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel notes. Strus has played the entire fourth quarter the past two games. “He does a lot of things for us defensively,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He can guard bigger guys. He can play really anywhere we want to in a zone. We also can put him in different matches in our man, and he’s really proficient, really good on the back side of our defense. And then offensively he’s just gaining confidence.”
Wizards guard Bradley Beal has entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols, the team announced today in a press release. He has been ruled out for Sunday’s game in Memphis and will have to receive clearance based on the league’s COVID-19 guidelines before returning to action.
Beal is the second star to enter the protocols this weekend, joining three-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert.
The league revised its COVID-related protocols over the summer and now requires testing for vaccinated players only when they show symptoms of the virus. Unvaccinated players still must be tested once per week, and players are subject to isolation measures after a positive test.
Beal is vaccinated, per Ava Wallace of The Washington Post (Twitter link). However, he has had some bad health luck so far this season, having also entered the protocols during the preseason due to what turned out to be a false positive test for a case of strep throat, tweets Josh Robbins of The Athletic.
After visiting the Grizzlies tonight, the Wizards head to Charlotte on Monday, then won’t play again until they host Dallas on Thursday.