NBA experts GRADE THE TRADE | Wizards open up room for flexibility, Pelicans add Poole to help Zion

NBA experts GRADE THE TRADE | Wizards open up room for flexibility, Pelicans add Poole to help Zion

some breaking NBA news a day ahead of the draft the Wizards acquiring CJ McCullum from the Pelicans according to multiple reports that trade is also going to send Kelly Olen and a future second round pick to DC in return New Orleans will get Jordan Pool Sadique Bay and the number 40 overall pick in this year’s draft that’s a second round pick that will be on Thursday night the second round is Thursday the trade will also give the Wizards nearly hund00 million in cap space for the 26 off season a year from now going to get draft grades from John Gonzalez in just a second but John what are your initial reactions to this yeah it’s silly season right Chris now that now we’re going to see player movement all over the place we saw that last night with Drew Holiday ending up in Portland that one was a little bit more curious from the Portland end of this uh the trade spectrum i I understood what Boston was doing for this one this one it makes sense I think both ways a little bit more for the Whiz than from for the Pelicans but the Wizards obviously were looking for somebody to take Jordan Pool off their hands and now they found it in New Orleans so I’m just reading uh what our news team put together that they will have about a hundred million in cap space for next year when you when you project forward are there some big names that that could be up next year that Washington could go after yeah I mean every year you’re going to have a team or a couple of teams that try to hoard some cap space last year it was the Sixers where they ended up signing Paul George into cap space this year it’s the Brooklyn Nets who are just kind of looking around with $45 million going “What are we going to do with this money?” They have to spend up to 90% of the cap not a lot of guys move anymore bigname free agents don’t really move anymore in free agency you see uh many more big names move through trades so yeah I mean the Wizards can hoard $100 million it sounds great right all of a sudden maybe you’re in line for a max player plus but is Washington a destination do multiple guys want to team up and go there i have my doubts about that i think also this does give them some flexibility right now forget about uh next season but this season they still have plenty of cap space available to take on some more ownerous contracts that teams might want to get off of free agency officially beginning next Monday john we’ll get grades from each team let’s start with the Wizards you said you liked it a little bit more from their standpoint compared to the Pelicans so what would your grade for Washington be yeah solid B i mean they were trying to get off of Jordan Pool for a while jordan Pool outlived his usefulness to the extent that he had any usefulness for a really bad Washington Wizards team he’s just a bucket he’s never seen a shot that he doesn’t like he doesn’t play any defense so he gets shipped off to the Pelicans and I think the Wizards are probably thrilled to get him off their books and then in comes CJ McCullum who’s a professional but he’s also on an expiring contract right so that adds to all that money that we talked about them stockpiling for the season after this summer where they’re projected to have a roughly $100 million so uh it makes a lot of sense from the Wizards perspective and on top of that they land a future second round pick this is a young team they’re not winning anything anytime soon even in a really weakened upside down Eastern Conference so for them to move on from Jordan Pool makes a ton of sense from them solid solid business from the Wizards they’ve got a couple of picks in the first round on Wednesday night the sixth and 18th overall picks do the Wizards who now have CJ McCullum as for the Pelicans you said you gave the Wizards a B what grade for the Pels yeah this makes a little less sense i’m trying to squint at this from the right angle here Chris where I’m like what were the Pelicans and new general manager Joe Dumar’s thinking on this i guess they’re thinking because Deonte Murray is out for what’s going to be a big chunk of the season with an Achilles injury he’s one of the many uh star name players who suffered an Achilles injury during the season it was just a little bit earlier in the season it wasn’t in the playoffs obviously because they didn’t make the postseason i guess they’re thinking “Hey like every other team in the Western Conference we have designs on making the postseason.” I’m skeptical about that Chris i like the Pelicans but they were injury riddled last year and I’m not sure that Jordan Pool is enough to bridge the gap and get them into the postseason as you would wait for Dejonte Murray to come back but I guess they do i guess Joe Dum Mars looks at it and says “Hey Jordan Pool can get all the shots he wants we got Trey Murray or Trey Murphy and Herb Jones to play defense behind him.” And you just cross your fingers and you hope that Zion Williamson is healthy my question here is who on this team’s going to pass right i mean like is Zion your best playmaker right now this is a little squirrely until Dejonte Murray comes back so this is like a CC minus for me also on top of all that Chris what you did by moving on from CJ McCullum and bringing in Jordan P is you added an extra year of salary so unlike the Washington Wizards who have ample cap space the Pelicans for not this season but the following season are looking at like a $65 million backcourt of Dejonte Murray and Jordan P it’s not great for their books that’s why they get a C minus from John Gonzalez as the Wizards and Pelicans hook up for a trade that sends CJ McCullum to Washington DC and the Wizards clear some cap space in the process they also get Kelly Olen in a future second round pick they sent the Pelicans their 40th overall pick second round pick this year along with Jordan P and Sadi Bay [Music]

John Gonzalez joins CBS Sports HQ to grade the trade between the Pelicans and Wizards.

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