If it hadn't already, 2019 NBA free agency has now started in earnest.
Yes, players and teams can't negotiate until June 30, still three and a half weeks away. But Thursday's cap-clearing trade by the Brooklyn Nets with the Atlanta Hawks is the first salvo of the offseason as teams begin positioning themselves to best attract the top players on the market.
The deal
Nets get: Taurean Prince, 2021 second-round pick
Hawks get: Allen Crabbe, No. 17 pick in 2019, lottery-protected 2020 first-round pick
Get more trade grades for every deal here
Brooklyn Nets: A-
Entering Thursday, Brooklyn was already set to be a player in free agency. The Nets were looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of $29 million in cap space with the cap hold for All-Star point guard D'Angelo Russell, a restricted free agent, on the books. Waiving Crabbe and stretching his salary would have gotten Brooklyn enough room to make a max offer for a star to play with Russell.
Though having $6 million-plus in dead salary from Crabbe's contract on the books the following two years would not have been ideal, the ability to sign a max free agent -- say, Kyrie Irving, who has mutual interest in the Nets according to a report by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski -- without giving up two first-round picks suggests to me this deal is much more about moving on from Russell and pairing two new max free agents.
Assuming the cap comes in as projected at $109 million, Brooklyn would have more than enough room to sign two players with 7-9 years of experience (like Irving, Jimmy Butler and Kawhi Leonard) to max deals by renouncing the rights to Russell. Pairing one such max player with another who's got 10 or more years of experience (say, Kevin Durant) would be trickier but doable if the Nets were to trade Prince to a team with the cap space to take his salary without sending anything in return.
Given uncertainty about where the cap will settle, the exact numbers don't matter as much now as the mindset. Brooklyn is clearly confident about its chances in free agency and willing to be aggressive in the pursuit of star talent. Better yet, the Nets have the low-cost supporting role players on the roster to surround a star or stars with the depth necessary to win now.
That group includes Prince, surely key to this trade. He'll make just $3.5 million in 2019-20, the last year of his rookie contract. Prince started all 82 games for the rebuilding Hawks in 2017-18 and 47 of the 55 he played last season. He's become a reliable 3-point shooter, having shot 38.5% and 39.0% from beyond the arc over the last two seasons, respectively, and has the size and athleticism to defend multiple positions. Prince, Joe Harris, Caris LeVert and Rodions Kurucs offer a number of interchangeable, versatile options on the wing and at power forward.
The transition to playing for Kenny Atkinson should be easy for Prince, given Atkinson was an assistant in Atlanta under Mike Budenholzer, Prince's head coach during his first two seasons. There's a high degree of overlap in the systems favored by Atkinson and Budenholzer.
By itself, giving up a pick in the middle of the first round (No. 17 overall) for Prince would be an overpay, but not by much. If we look at the rest of the value of that pick and the 2020 protected pick for saving $15 million -- the difference between Prince's salary and Crabbe's -- that's probably good value if Brooklyn's confidence about free agency is well-founded. Though this is a risk for the Nets, who might not be able to utilize all of their newfound cap space and gave up a lot for it, it's one that comes with the potential to build a championship contender in Brooklyn.
Atlanta Hawks: B+
There's also a first-mover advantage here for the Hawks, who beat the other teams with cap space this summer to making a deal to take on salary in return for draft picks. Though it's possible another team will do better at extracting picks from a team desperate to clear cap space for a star, getting a pair of first-round picks -- one of them not far outside the lottery -- will be tough to beat.
The cap space isn't a big loss for Atlanta, which was unlikely to use it on anything better than adding picks. That's what the Hawks already did the previous two summers by taking on Jamal Crawford and Carmelo Anthony in trades that added a single first-round pick apiece. Nonetheless, Atlanta was looking at about $41 million in room this summer before the trade, and should still have in the neighborhood of $23 million to shop in free agency after it.
Prince is the bigger loss for the Hawks, but he was drafted by the previous front office, before GM Travis Schlenk was hired during the 2017 offseason, and the new regime never seemed fully committed to him. With Prince either due for an extension this fall or headed to restricted free agency in the summer of 2020, getting value for him now makes sense for Atlanta. The Hawks will probably need to look for a 3-and-D role player in the Prince mold in the draft, but that player will be on a cost-controlled rookie contract for the next four years.
Despite Atlanta's own pick dropping a bit in last month's lottery, the team's future still looks bright. In John Collins, Kevin Huerter and Trae Young, the Hawks have a strong core of young talent drafted since Schlenk's arrival. To that group, Atlanta will add three first-round picks this year, all of them in the top 17. (The Hawks already had their own pick, No. 8 overall, plus the No. 10 pick acquired from Dallas via last year's draft-night trade that sent Luka Doncic to the Mavericks.)
Because Crabbe is in the final year of his contract, adding him won't affect Atlanta's cap space in the summer of 2020. With eight-figure deals for Kent Bazemore and Miles Plumlee also expiring, the Hawks don't currently have any player under contract for 2020-21 who's not on his rookie deal. That means Atlanta could have more than enough cap space for two max free agents to go along with the young core. The Hawks could always roll that over to 2021, though Collins will be a restricted free agent by then.
Assuming the Hawks progress quickly enough to become attractive to free agents, they could be in a similar position to the Nets in a year or two. For now, Atlanta is content to take advantage of Brooklyn clearing the deck for free agency.