And here you thought the NBA offseason was over.
On Wednesday, the Sacramento Kings officially announced a trade that was reported several weeks back. They will ship veteran guard Jason Terry to the Houston Rockets for human currency Alonzo Gee and Scotty Hopson.
For the Kings, the deal isn't much about Gee and Hopson, who have both been traded multiple times in the last year. Instead, they've given the Rockets a pair of future second-round picks (the Kings' 2015 second, if it falls between 31 and 49, and the Knicks' 2016 second, unprotected) to accomplish two goals:
- Get out of the $5.85 million owed to Terry for this season, creating some much-needed breathing room around the league's luxury tax.
- Receive a trade exception worth a reported $5.85 million – it can be up to Terry's full salary if the trade was structured as multiple, separate trades – giving them an appreciable trade chip for the next year.
For the Rockets, they improve their guard depth and acquire the pair of picks, while Terry's expiring contract has little impact on their bottome line given their distance from the tax threshold.
Gee, who has a fully non-guaranteed $3 million salary for this season, and Hopson, who has a $1.45 million non-guaranteed contract, are both candidates to be waived by the Kings.
