Nathan Jawai will no longer be seen in a Toronto Raptors uniform next season, as he joins the Dallas Mavericks, after a four-way trade that involved Hedo Turkoglu joining the Raptors and Shawn Marion jetting to the Mavs as well.
Thanks go to the vigilant Raptors twitter community, including good friends @Marasmitch and @Nat77 (follow them) for alerting me immediately to the move as it happened.
The trade, as reported by the great Toronto Star’s Doug Smith (no, not the Doug Smith who was drafted by the Mavs back in the day):
So long, Nate.
Because of a contract technicality involving Quincy Douby, the blockbuster four-team trade now sees Nathan Jawai headed to the Memphis Gizzlies.Dallas Mavericks.
(The original Jawai mistake was mine, I misread some information; Memphis now gets a 2016 second-round pick from Toronto to make up for the fact they won’t get Quincy Douby)
But the deal is done.
Douby signed a couple of 10-day contracts with the Raptors are the end of last season and another that covered the final couple of days of the regular season and under one of the more obscure clauses in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, he couldn’t be dealt again in time to satisfy the needs of the Toronto-Dallas-Memphis-Orlando trade.
One league source termed it a “hiccup” that was resolved this morning.
And now that the official trade conference call with the league is over, the deal is done.
Again, it’s Hedo Turkoglu, Antoine Wright and Devean George here, Shawn Marion and Kris Humphries and Nate to Dallas, now Jawai a second-round pick and Jerry Stackhouse to the Grizzlies and a trade exception to Orlando.
How good are Nate’s chances of playing in Dallas? As good or better than with most teams in the league it would appear. The Mavs’ big man department primarily consists of Erick Dampier, Dirk Nowitzki and Shawne Williams — with the newly acquired Shawn Marion being a float player between the small and power forward slots. One player who would likely have stolen Jawai’s bench minutes in the big man category was Brandon Bass. However Bass is now a free agent with his eye on a spot with the Magic, Blazers or Pistons, who all sound quite keen on securing his services.
(Note: I just realised I totally forgot that the Mavs have signed Marcin Gortat this week as well… another challenger for minutes. Good luck, Nate.)
Looking from the outside, with no knowledge of what other moves the Mavs’ braintrust have in mind, it seems that Jawai’s key challenger for a roster spot, and minutes, is fellow former Raptor Kris Humphries. From an Aussie perspective, here’s hoping that big Nate can make the right impression in Summer League and training camp to score himself a playing role in the NBA this season and doesn’t find himself in the D League again.
Looking at the other parts of this deal, Orlando was attempting to gain something for the departing Hedo Turkoglu, by going the sign-and-trade route. Meanwhile Toronto needed to clear space to gain the Turk on their roster, thus the necessity to shift Marion and co. The Grizzlies have been a well-known potential mover this summer with room under the salary cap to make moves and whilst not many free agents have been keen on Memphis, taking on an expiring contract in Stackhouse could have been the best move they could make with an eye to next year. The Mavs were already in negotiations to sign Marion, so this move facilitated the move in the best way possible for them.
