On Day 25 of free agency, the Brooklyn Nets had the most remaining cap space.
And they used it to add more young talent to their roster. The team announced
the trade for Allen Crabbe in exchange for Andrew Nicholson.
Crabbe, a 25-year-old wing who shot 44 percent from 3-point range for Portland
last season, is one of the four restricted free agents Nets general manager has
signed to an offer sheet over the last 13 months. In all four cases (Tyler
Johnson, Donatas Motiejunas and Otto Porter were the others), the player’s
original team matched the offer.
But after last year’s spending spree and with big contracts for Damian Lillard
($26 million this season), C.J. McCollum ($24 million) and Evan Turner ($17
million) on the books, the Blazers are in a position where they need to shed
salary. Crabbe’s 2017-18 salary is almost $13 million less than that of
Nicholson, who the Blazers will waive to save even more money this year. The
$19.9 million left on his contract will be stretched over the next seven
seasons.
The Blazers lose some depth on the wing and their best complementary shooter,
but gain, along with a ton of tax relief, some flexibility going forward. That
could be critical with Jusuf Nurkic set to be a restricted free agent next
summer.
With Crabbe, DeMarre Carroll (also acquired with cap space) and Caris LeVert,
the Nets have some starting-caliber talent on the wings to complement their
backcourt of D’Angelo Russell and Jeremy Lin. Nicholson had originally been
acquired with the No. 22 pick from Washington for Bojan Bogdanovic in February.
Having arrived in Brooklyn with no assets, Marks continues to make moves to inch
his team toward being competitive. The Nets will be without their own first
round pick for one more year.
Only Kyle Korver (45.1 percent) shot better than Crabbe (44.4 percent) from
beyond the arc on at least 200 attempts last season. Brooklyn ranked fourth in
the percentage of their shots that came from 3-point range, but 26th in 3-point
percentage.
