The Dallas Mavericks have agreed to trade Tim Hardaway Jr. and three second-round picks to the Detroit Pistons for Quentin Grimes, according to Adrian Wojnarowski. Those picks will be a 2025 second via the Toronto Raptors and two 2028 seconds.
Hardaway Jr. arrived in Dallas as part of the Kristaps Porzingis trade back in 2019, and had some very productive seasons, largely off the bench. He had multiple top-10 finishes in Sixth Man of the Year voting, including this season when he finished ninth after averaging 14.4 points and 3.2 rebounds, while shooting 35.2% from 3-point range.
During the playoffs, though, Hardaway mostly fell out of the rotation as the Mavericks made a run to the Finals, where they ultimately lost to the Boston Celtics in five games. He had eight DNPs along the way and scored in double figures just twice.
Next season, Hardaway was set to make $16.1 million in the final year of his contract. Moving him for Grimes, who is set to make $4.2 million, will give the Mavericks the financial flexibility to re-sign Derrick Jones Jr. later this summer. They can now offer Jones the majority of the $12.9 million mid-level exception.
“I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but he’s a priority… He’s priority one, 1A and 1B,” Mavericks GM Nico Harrison said of Jones earlier this month. “I think he fits in with our team. He loves it here and we have to figure out obviously the dynamics to get him to stay. But that’s a priority and we’ll do what we have to do to get it done.”
The Mavericks will also get a look at Grimes, who showed some real promise in his second season with the New York Knicks, but took a step back last season amid injuries and a trade to the Pistons. During his sophomore campaign, Grimes averaged 11.3 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists, and shot 38.6% from behind the arc. If he can find that form again, he could earn a real role as a floor spacer around Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
As for the continually rebuilding Pistons, there’s not much to analyze. They have plenty of cap space and were willing to eat the final year of Hardaway’s deal in order to add extra draft picks. If they can flip Hardaway at the deadline for more assets, even better. It would not be a surprise to see the Pistons make more trades of this nature before the end of the summer.
