The Dallas Mavericks have traded shooting guard Tim Hardaway Jr. and three second-round picks to the Detroit Pistons for shooting guard Quentin Grimes, sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Hardaway, 32, is set to make $16.2 million next season in the final year of a four-year, $75 million contract. Grimes, 24, is due $4.3 million in the final season of his rookie deal.
This deal allows the Mavs to use a portion of the non-taxpayer’s $12.9 million mid-level exception. The Dallas team was limited to the taxpayer’s average cap of $5.2 million with Hardaway on its books.
Mavs general manager Nico Harrison described the re-signing of small forward Derrick Jones Jr. as the team’s “priority 1A and 1B” offseason last week. Jones, the team’s best defender, played last season on a veteran’s minimum deal.
Hardaway averaged 14.4 points per game this season, primarily playing as a sixth man for the Mavs. However, his role was reduced at the end of the regular season and during the playoffs. He has not played due to a coach’s decision in four of the Mavs’ last eight games in the Western Conference Finals and NBA Finals.
Hardaway spent five and a half seasons in Dallas, where he arrived as part of Kristaps Porzingis’ trade with the New York Knicks in January 2019. He averaged 15.2 points per game during his tenure with the Mavs.
Grimes averaged 8.5 points in 168 career games, including 90 with the Knicks. Because of right knee soreness, Grimes played just six games with the Pistons after he was acquired in the trade deadline deal that sent Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks to New York.
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