The deal
Nets get: Guard Allen Crabbe
Blazers get: Forward Andrew Nicholson
Portland Trail Blazers: B+
After spending heavily last summer to add Evan Turner, re-sign Crabbe, Maurice Harkless and Meyers Leonard, and extend CJ McCollum, the Blazers were staring at a tax bill of more than $40 million this season for a team that isn't certain to make the playoffs in the loaded Western Conference.
Given owner Paul Allen's wealth, Portland didn't necessarily have to shed payroll, but there was certainly great incentive to do so -- particularly if the Blazers could accomplish it without giving up any picks or young players in the process. That's precisely what this deal achieves.
Per ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, Portland will waive Nicholson and stretch the remaining $19.9 million on his contract over the next seven seasons, giving them $2.8 million in dead salary on their cap. That gets the Blazers within striking distance of avoiding the luxury tax entirely. If they keep a full 15-player roster the entire season, they'd pay a modest $6.5 million in taxes, but they're now a midseason move or two away from getting under the tax line.
Those savings do come at a cost on the court. Despite coming off the bench the vast majority of the time (he started seven games), Crabbe played the third-most minutes on Portland's roster last season behind stars Damian Lillard and McCollum. Crabbe shot 44.4 percent from 3-point range, the league's second-best mark, providing valuable floor spacing.
Yet Crabbe's contributions have never gone far beyond efficient scoring. While he's made strides as a defender, Crabbe is miscast as the stopper the Blazers need alongside Lillard and McCollum. He's a below-average defensive rebounder for a wing, contributes few steals and is a poor ballhandler for a guard. As a result, value metrics including ESPN's real plus-minus have rated Crabbe a below-average contributor. He's got value off the bench, but nowhere near enough to justify the $56 million and change remaining on his contract before considering the many multiples that salary Portland was paying in taxes.
The Blazers may hope to replace Crabbe with development from internal candidates Jake Layman and Pat Connaughton, the latter of whom agreed earlier this week to push back the date his 2017-18 salary guarantees so as to give Portland more time to decide on his future. The Blazers also clear a roster spot here and could even dip into their taxpayer midlevel exception to sign a replacement at lower cost. A return for Gerald Henderson, who played well in Portland in 2015-16 and remains unsigned several weeks into free agency, would make sense for both sides.
How much the loss of Crabbe will hurt the Blazers on the court remains to be seen, but the financial benefits are obvious and extend beyond this season. Portland is currently under the 2018-19 tax line, but that's with just nine players under contract -- a group that doesn't include starting center Jusuf Nurkic, who will be a restricted free agent next summer if he doesn't agree to an extension of his bargain rookie contract first.
The luxury tax will likely still be a concern for the Blazers going forward, but not nearly as onerous as with Crabbe on the roster.
Brooklyn Nets: D+
The Nets helped get the Blazers into this tax crunch in the first place with a lavish four-year offer sheet for Crabbe last summer. Clearly, Brooklyn wanted Crabbe, although in some ways the price now is lower than it would have been had Portland declined to match the offer.
By moving Nicholson, who played just 111 minutes with the Nets after they took on his salary in a deadline trade that yielded a first-round pick, Brooklyn is adding a net $12 million or so to its payroll over the next three seasons -- the difference between Crabbe's contract and Nicholson's. That starts to get closer to Crabbe's fair value on the open market, though it's still more than I would be willing to pay for him. (I'd peg Crabbe's value nearer to the $8.4 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception, putting him in the same ballpark as 2017 free agents CJ Miles and PJ Tucker.)
Having ranked 26th in the league in 3-point percentage last season as a team (33.8 percent) while attempting 3s as the fourth-highest rate, the Nets surely coveted Crabbe's shooting as part of their effort to space the floor. Crabbe will be an upgrade in the designated shooter role on Joe Harris, a weaker 3-point shooter whose game is even more limited. And at 25, he's young enough to grow with Brooklyn's young core.
Still, I would have preferred maintaining cap space for future moves ("keeping the powder dry," in the new NBA cliché handbook) rather than taking on Crabbe's contract. After adding Crabbe and DeMarre Carroll, the latter in a deal that yielded a first-round pick from the Toronto Raptors, the Nets have now just about exhausted their cap space. (They could clear $3.5 million under the cap by renouncing the rights to unrestricted free agent Randy Foye.) That will take Brooklyn out of the running for any future salary dumps that could have added additional draft picks to the team's limited supply of them.
It's interesting to note here that Crabbe chose to waive the 15 percent trade bonus the Nets negotiated into his offer sheet, an indication that -- as Wojnarowski notes -- he's excited to head to Brooklyn. Crabbe could get an opportunity to start for the Nets, though Carroll and second-year wing Caris LeVert will also be in the mix for starting spots and it's possible Brooklyn could start point guards Jeremy Lin and D'Angelo Russell together in the backcourt.