Spurs to Acquire and Waive Jalen McDaniels from Kings for Future Draft Pick
Monday the Spurs agreed to acquire forward Jalen McDaniels from the Sacramento Kings for a future draft pick. McDaniels will then be waived by the Spurs.
Monday the San Antonio Spurs agreed to acquire forward Jalen McDaniels and a future second round pick from the Sacramento Kings, according to Shams Charania of ESPN.
Once the move is made official, the Spurs will be waiving McDaniels, per Charania.
According to Michael Scotto of Hoopshype.com, the Spurs will be acquiring a 2031 unprotected second round pick from the Kings and cash.
To make the trade legal, the Spurs have to send something out in the trade, as Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express News mentioned. So, they’ll be sending a Top-55 protected 2025 second round pick via the Bulls to Sacramento, per Scotto.
How did the Spurs pull this move off with no cap space?
Since the Spurs didn’t have any cap space to acquire McDaniels, and since they didn’t trade a player with a similar contract, the Spurs used a new wrinkle in the CBA to pull this move off.
Since the Spurs haven’t used their $7.9 million room mid-level exception yet, they were able to absorb McDaniels’ $4.7 million contract into the exception. In the old CBA, that wouldn’t have been allowed. But, the new CBA allows for teams to use exceptions that way now.
Once McDaniels is waived, the Spurs will be $9.1 million over the salary cap, BUT, they’re in no danger of reaching the luxury tax. They’re still $21 million BELOW the luxury tax, meaning they still have some financial flexibility for other trades later in the season.
The Spurs also still have $3.4 million of the room mid-level exception available if they want to trade for a player with a contract within that amount, or they can sign a free agent with that money.
What other roster move is still coming to make this deal happen?
The Spurs can’t make this deal official until they waive someone on the roster.
Let me explain.
The most players a team can have on their roster during the offseason is 21 players.
The Spurs currently have 21 players on their roster after they signed guard Isaiah Miller Sunday.
So for now, McDaniels can’t be acquired because that would give the team 22 players, which isn’t allowed.
So, someone will have to be waived FIRST for the team to complete the trade for McDaniels. The player who will be waived can either be on a standard contract, two-way contract, or training camp contract.
As I wrote Sunday, the likely player who will be waived will be Miller, so the team can add him to the Austin Spurs roster in the G-League.