The Toronto Raptors solved some of their salary cap problem by trading DeMarre Carroll to the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday night.
The team has not confirmed the trade, which was reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Carroll signed as a free agent with Toronto in July 2015. The deal was for four years and US$60 million. The final two years of the deal call for salaries of $14.8 million and $15.4 million.
After signing the free agent deals this week with Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka, the Raptors were more than $29 million over the $99-million cap and a little more than $9 million above the luxury tax limit for the coming season. The Raptors had the fourth most expensive roster according to figures at Spotrac.
Wojnarowski reported that the trade cannot be made official until the Washington Wizards take the Nets off the hook on an offer sheet for Otto Porter Jr. The Nets signed Porter to the four-year, $106-million offer sheet on Wednesday. Once Washington matches to keep Porter, which it is expected to do, the Nets will have the cap space free to complete the deal with Toronto. In accepting Carroll’s contract, the Raptors will give up a 2018 lottery-protected first-round pick and a second-round pick.
Carroll was hoped to be the defensive stalwart on the wing who would help the Raptors compete on the level with the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference. But a succession of injuries limited the six-foot-eight player who will be 31 years old at the end of the month.
Carroll only played 26 regular-season games in 2015-16, although he averaged 11.0 points per game, right around his career average, and shot 39 per cent from three-point range. He played 72 games this past season but his production fell to 8.9 points per game and he shot 34.1 per cent from beyond the arc. His playing time fell once the Raptors acquired P.J. Tucker in a trade-deadline deal.
Hamilton, a 27-year-old centre, is owed $3 million this season in the final year of a two-year contract. Toronto will be his fifth team in just his fourth NBA season. Last season with Brooklyn he averaged 6.9 points and 4.1 rebounds in about 18 minutes a game. The seven-footer has some three-point range.
The acquisition of Hamilton may allow the Raptors also to trade Jonas Valanciunas for free up even more cap space. Hamilton could provide backup minutes behind Ibaka while Jakob Poeltl continues to develop his game in his second season at the NBA level.
The Raptors have three years and nearly $50 million left on Valanciunas’s deal. The 25-year-old Lithuanian, who was drafted by Toronto fifth overall in 2011, has been highly effective at times in his five seasons, averaging more than 12 points and nine rebounds over the last two seasons. Valanciunas’s defensive shortcomings and the NBA’s overall trend toward smaller lineups and three-point shooting has made Valanciunas less valuable for a team trying to contend at the highest level of the NBA.
The Raptors are also reportedly shopping backup point guard Cory Joseph. With Lowry back, the Raptors have four point guards on the roster including Delon Wright and Fred Van Vliet. Joseph has two years left on his current deal at a cap-friendly total of $15.66 million.
If the Raptors can get below the luxury tax line, they can free up a mid-level exception contract worth $8.406 million as opposed to a mid-level for taxpaying teams at $5.192 million. With Tucker signing with Houston and Carroll gone, the Raptors still need to fill out the roster with a veteran defensive specialist on the wing.