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But don’t be fooled: This is a salary dump.
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If you’re even a medium-level NBA fan, you probably know the names of all four players going to Toronto. The Williams swap and DeMarcus Cousins max-level extension left Sacramento without meaningful projected cap room this summer, putting the Kings in a position where they could plausibly look at Gay’s $19 million player option for 2014-15 and say, “No harm, no foul.” The Raptors were betting Gay would pick up that option given his poor play this season, and dealing Gay allows them to plan with more certainty.Īnd so here we are: The last remaining Rudy Gay suitor has agreed to send four rotation players to Toronto in exchange for Gay and (very tall) salary filler. The Kings’ wing rotation is a disaster, even after the recent acquisition of Derrick Williams, who has never resembled an NBA-caliber small forward. Only one team was left: the Kings, with a new ownership group determined to make a splash and a new GM, Pete D’Alessandro, who worked with Toronto GM Masai Ujiri in Denver.
#RUDY GAY KINGS TOXIC FREE#
I know GMs who say they wouldn’t touch him now in free agency for the midlevel exception.
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This is how far Gay’s value has declined league-wide over the last 18 months. They went to every team that made at least some theoretical sense: Detroit, with expiring contracts and at least some need on the wing Milwaukee, with fading postseason ambitions and a massive hole at small forward the Greek Freak isn’t quite ready to fill Cleveland, with a playoff mandate, a GM on shaky ground, and perhaps the worst group of starting wing players in the league and many others.Įveryone said no, and they did so abruptly. The Raptors canvassed damn near the entire league in their quest to become the second team in two seasons to dump Rudy Gay well in advance of the trade deadline, according to sources across the NBA.