The Deal
Heat get: Protected second-round pick
Pelicans get: Forward Jarnell Stokes, $700,000 cash
Miami Heat: B+
With a few hours left until the deadline, the Heat are one step closer to avoiding the luxury tax this season. That's important not just for the money it would save owner Micky Arison in tax payments now, but also because of its huge importance down the road.
Miami did not pay the tax last season, and avoiding the tax for two consecutive years gives teams a three-year buffer against paying the much stiffer repeater taxes. Teams that have been taxpayers three out of the previous four seasons are subject to the repeater tax; if the Heat avoid that this season, they can't be repeaters again until 2019-20.
On its own, this deal slices Miami's tax bill by $2.1 million. It also puts the Heat just $2.7 million away from going under the tax line. Miami could get there by trading either Udonis Haslem or Brian Roberts, both making $2.85 million in the final season of their contracts. Haslem is a Heat lifer, so that seems like a long shot; the newly-acquired Roberts is a more reasonable possibility.
As for Stokes, he played just 14 minutes with Miami after being included in the team's November swap with the Memphis Grizzlies, so he won't really be missed.
New Orleans Pelicans: A
From the Pelicans' standpoint, this is essentially a free look at the 35th pick of the 2014 Draft. And it's better than that, even, since the cash the team is getting from the Heat, according to ESPN's Marc Stein, will more than cover Stokes' minimum salary the rest of the year. His contract is non-guaranteed for next season, meaning there's no long-term downside to New Orleans taking Stokes' contract into the trade exception created by sending Ish Smith to the Philadelphia 76ers in December.
Stokes was a favorite of statistical models coming out of Tennessee; he rated 14th overall in my 2014 WARP projections. That production has carried over at the D-League level, where Stokes has averaged 19.8 points and 12.3 rebounds per 36 minutes in 39 career games, making nearly 65 percent of his 2-point attempts. His 30.9 PER this season leads all D-League players, according to Basketball-Reference.com.
The biggest obstacle to Stokes getting on the court has been finding a position for him. Because he's so effective around the basket, he needs to play as a center on offense. At the other end, Stokes is simply too short (he's listed at 6-foot-9, but measured just 6-foot-7 without shoes at the NBA draft combine) to protect the rim. That could make Anthony Davis an ideal frontcourt partner because of his versatility. If not, the Pelicans haven't really lost anything by giving it a shot.
New Orleans will have to send something to Miami to make this trade legal, possibly the rights to 2010 draft pick Latavious Williams, which the team acquired at last year's deadline.