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Trade rumor season is in full force for the NBA. The National Basketball Association has made itself a year-round league with fans love for the transaction. This has trade rumor chatter happening despite the league not yet being in the Conference Finals section of the playoffs. For the Brooklyn Nets, there have been multiple rumors around key players like Kyrie Irving, Ben Simmons, and even the newly acquired Seth Curry.
With new trade proposals coming out daily, some look to make the Nets better, and some are truly egregious and make no sense. A recent proposal from the New York Daily News is possibly the most egregious proposal to date. The deal has Brooklyn partnering with the San Antonio Spurs for a deal involving the trade exception that the Nets acquired from the Philadelphia 76ers in the James Harden deal.
Josh Richardson to Brooklyn
In a May 12 article from the Daily News, the Nets were connected to the Spurs for a trade involving swingman Josh Richardson.
Nets Receive:
Josh Richardson
Spurs Receive:
$11.3M trade exception
2027 First-round pick via Philadelphia (Top-8 protected)
2029 Own second-round pick
This proposed trade doesn’t make a lot of sense for Brooklyn. That $11.3 million trade exception is incredibly valuable for Brooklyn. It allows the Nets to trade for a player without matching his salary. The possibilities that the exception gives the Nets to acquire premier talent is too good to use on a player like Josh Richardson. Let alone when you take into account that the Nets would part with two draft picks in the deal as well. What world is this a good trade for Brooklyn?
Josh Richardson has played for five teams in the last four seasons, and there is a reason for that. After the Miami Heat overachieved in the 2017-18 season, they gave Richardson a four-year $42 million extension, and then when it was clear they overspent, the Heat quickly moved on from it and dealt the shooting guard to Philadelphia. Now, he has bounced around from Philadelphia to the Dallas Mavericks, Boston Celtics, and now the San Antonio Spurs. Richardson has struggled to find where he fits on each roster and even fell out of the San Antonio starting lineup.
Deal or No Deal
For the Nets, the Richardson fit does not make much sense. While he does bring quality perimeter defense, it doesn’t benefit them much beyond that. While he shot 44% percent from three this season, he has been largely inconsistent throughout his career, bouncing from the mid-40s to low-30s. At this point of his career Richardson should be a role player, but his role is still something that would be hard to define in Brooklyn.
Adding the 6-foot-5 guard and parting with their $11 million trade exception without knowing how he fits in Brooklyn is wild. If this deal were to cross the desk of Nets general manager Sean Marks, it doesn’t make sense to entertain it. He brings little offensively for minimal defensive upside. This should be a no-deal.
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