With this year's draft coming to an end and the countdown to free agency officially opening, teams are starting their own operations, and last night the Pistons and Mavericks made a deal: the Mavericks sent Tim Hardaway Jr. and three second-round picks to Quentin Grimes from Detroit. Of the three rounders, one is from the Raptors in 2025 and the other two are from 2028. Hardaway Jr.'s four-year, $75 million contract with the Mavericks now has only one final year left, and the Mavericks have to choose to take three future draft picks to send Hardaway Jr., who has been with his team for five years, in order to have more room to operate.
In fact, Hardaway Jr. and the Mavericks parted ways, it seems that everyone has tacitly agreed, just waiting for a showdown for everyone, in last season's playoffs, Hardaway Jr.'s performance was very different from the regular season, and it can almost be said that there is no way to provide any practical help to the team, and even has not scored a point in a single game, but he is the team's third-highest scoring player per game in the regular season, and Hardaway Jr. is also quite unoptimistic and negative about his future in the Mavericks, So the final breakup may be a good thing for each other. With enough room to be freed up, the Mavericks can sit back and consider re-signing Derrick Jones Jr. and even reach out to Klay Thompson, who has recently drifted away from the Warriors, but the bottom line is that they even got Grimes in a trade.
In fact, many people are familiar with Grimes, who has actually made some names with the Knicks. In the 2021 draft, Grimes of the University of Houston was selected in the first round and joined the Knicks, and in his first season, although he was not conspicuous, he still showed excellent 3D player potential in a limited time, and in the second year of his career, he ushered in an explosion. The average points per game rose to 11.3 points, the three-point shooting rate was close to 40%, and in the later playoffs, he relied on excellent defense to impress many fans, and many people felt that he would be the next rising star in the league. However, the subsequent injury, coupled with the team's signing of DiVincenzo, who is similar to his positional function but more experienced, caused his tactical position to slip, and he was eventually traded to the Pistons as a chip in order to strengthen him, but even in the rebuilding period, he was still plagued by injuries and not being able to find form.
So, is there still a way for him to help Doncic and Irving so that the Mavericks can go far in the future? Just looking at his current skill set, we should actually expect something - his three-point shot is still reliable, maybe not as stable as Hardaway Jr., but it is relatively sufficient. But he has his own advantage over Hardaway Jr., and that is defense. In the past playoffs with the Cavaliers, he did make the opponent's Arrows quite uncomfortable, and now the Mavericks are missing such a player, and he can play at the same time as either Doncic and Irving, giving the team more flexibility in backcourt selection. But even if he can't play well because of injuries in the end, he, like Hardaway Jr., has only one year on a contract, and the Mavericks can choose not to renew it — the reason why the trade is essentially just to make more space.
And for the Pistons, who are not in a hurry to produce results, they are not without any gains, three second-round picks are quite good pay, and Hardaway Jr., as a former University of Michigan player, can be regarded as "going home" in a sense, not to mention that the Pistons and a group of young people need a big brother to pass the help, and even if the soft role of the veteran is ignored, Hardaway Jr., as a shooter who can score double-doubles in the regular season, can still help in the team's second team - not to mention, this year. When mentioning this, there is a point that everyone needs to understand, that is, not long ago, the Pistons just poached Mavericks' adviser Dennis Lindsay as their vice president, and the current Mavericks coach Kidd's chief assistant Sean Sweeney is a popular candidate for Pistons coach, and the two teams will have more "friendly exchanges" in the future.