Footnotes from a week of Nets moves

The devil is often in the details and now that the details of this week’s various moves are out, here’s what they look like.

ATLANTA TRADE

The Nets and Hawks exchanged a number of picks for Jeremy Lin, giving the Nets $12.56 million in cap space that permitted them to subsequently do the Denver deal.

The Nets gave up an unprotected second rounder in 2025, seven years from now and the rights to swap second round picks, also unprotected, in 2023. The Nets do not get a trade exception. As capologist Albert Namad explained to NetsDaily, The Nets fell way under the salary cap with the Jeremy Lin trade (which they then used to take in Kenneth Faried and Darrell Arthur in the Nuggets trade).

The Hawks sent the Nets the draft rights to French league guard Isaia Cordinier and Portland’s protected second rounder in 2020. Cordinier was taken by the Hawks at No. 44 in the 2016 Draft and missed all of last season following double knee surgery. The second round pick is protected 31-55, meaning the Nets only get the pick if the Trail Blazers have a top five record in 2020. Otherwise, the Hawks keep it. If the pick is not conveyed in 2020, the Hawks obligation to the Nets ends. It does not roll over.

DENVER TRADE

A salary dump, the Nets sent Isaiah Whitehead to the Nuggets for the expiring contracts of Kenneth Faried, who’s owed $13.76 million, and Darrell Arthur, who’s owed $7.46 million as well as a protected first rounder in 2019 and an unprotected second rounder in 2020.

The Nuggets plan on waiving Whitehead whose team option of $1.52 million had to be exercised by July 31. The Nets and Whitehead’s agent moved the option deadline back from June 29. In doing so, Whitehead became a more attractive trade asset, offering a receiving team the choice of keeping him or waiving him before the option kicked in.

The Nets and Nuggets agreed to moderate protections on the first round pick. In 2019, the pick is protected 1-12 meaning Denver keeps the pick if it lands (after the Draft Lottery) in the top 12. If not, the pick is conveyed to the Nets. In fact, the pick is protected 1-12 from 2019 through 2024. If it hasn’t conveyed by 2024, Brooklyn will received 2nd round picks from Denver in 2024 and 2025. The Nets have their own first rounders in both 2019 and 2020.

The Nuggets 2020 second rounder is unprotected, giving the Nets a second rounder in that draft for the first time since 2014.

MUSA SIGNING

The Nets signed Dzanan Musa to a four-year (with team options on the third and fourth years), $9.1 million contract. The first year of the contract will pay Musa $1.63 million, according to the CBA’s rookie scale. The agreement came after the Nets and Cedevita, Musa’s old team agreed to a buyout. No word on the amount. Such international buyouts do not count against the cap.

KURUCS BUYOUT

According to a report in Sportando, the the Nets and F.C. Barcelona agreed on a buyout of Rodions Kurucs contract as well as a four-year, $7 million contract, which is close to first round money. Although there were no details on the contract, other players picked in the second round, including Mitchell Robinson of the Knicks, have signed similar deals. Those deals provide full guarantees in the first two years, then team options to pay the player a salary equivalent to the vets minimum in the last two. In 2020-21 that would be $1.89 million and in 2021-22 $2 million. A very good deal if Kurucs thrives in the NBA.

Also, according to Sportando, the Kurucs buyout amounts to $750,000. It seems more likely that it would be $700,000 since that’s the maximum an NBA can contribute to a buyout this season.

As more details become available, we’ll provide them.

CAP SPACE

According to ESPN, the Nets have $2.73 million left in cap space. They can over the cap to sign Ed Davis, who will be signed with the $4.4 million room exception, and Joe Harris, who will be signed to a two-year, $16 million deal using his Early Bird Rights. The Nets will have to use cap space to sign Kurucs, according to various reports.