DALLAS — The Dallas Mavericks’ lull in free-agency news is over.
The Mavericks are acquiring Boston Celtics restricted free agent Grant Williams in a three-team sign-and-trade deal and will immediately improve their rotation in the frontcourt and on defense, a person with knowledge of the negotiations confirmed Tuesday evening.
The full trade will unfold as followed, according to multiple reports:
— The Mavericks will welcome 24-year-old power forward Williams on a new four-year, $53 million contract via sign-and-trade from the Celtics and net two second-round picks.
— The Celtics will also receive two second-round picks and open a $6.2 million trade exception from Williams’ outgoing salary.
— The San Antonio Spurs will land Mavericks starting wing Reggie Bullock and an unprotected 2030 first-round pick swap.
So much for a slow drip of news as the end of the NBA’s free-agency moratorium nears.
The Mavericks targeted Williams as one of their primary free-agent pursuits since league negotiations opened June 30, but they couldn’t approach negotiations freely.
Williams, the No. 22 overall pick in 2019 out of Tennessee, has played just four NBA seasons, one shy of the NBA’s unrestricted free agency threshold.
Opposing teams can start extending offer sheets — the NBA’s lingo for proposed contracts — to their target restricted free agents on July 6. The new collective bargaining agreement allows incumbent teams 24 hours to decide whether to match the deal and keep the player on its roster or whether to part with the restricted free agent for no extra compensation.
The Mavericks bypassed the extra loopholes by orchestrating the three-team trade instead.
Don’t let Williams’ puzzling disappearance from the Celtics’ playoff rotation overshadow his potential to upgrade the Mavericks’ frontcourt as a two-way contributor who has gained ample postseason experience during Boston’s runs to the 2022 NBA Finals and this year’s Eastern Conference finals.
Williams averaged a career-best 8.1 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.7 assists across 79 regular-season games last season. While his overall shooting numbers dipped a couple of percentage points from the previous year, Williams’ 39.5% 3-point rate still would’ve ranked third among all current Mavericks.
Williams possesses defensive versatility to guard across all positions, reliability to play at least 77 games each of the last two seasons, and tenure to fit with the Mavericks’ push to add more young talent.
Though 32-year-old Bullock became one of Dallas’ most reliable 3-and-D starters the past two seasons, Dallas will likely view his departure in the trade — rather than that of rising talents Josh Green and Jaden Hardy — as successful negotiation.
That might not be all.
Because the Mavericks landed Grant via trade and not an offer sheet, they preserved the use of their full non-taxpayer mid-level exception (up to $12.4 million annually for four years) as restricted free agency begins to unfold Thursday.
The sign-and-trade will prompt a hard cap at the first luxury-tax apron ($172.3), for which Dallas’ current payroll remains about $9 million below, but will not preclude general manager Nico Harrison and Co. from further re-tooling the roster this offseason.
The Mavericks remain interested in extending an offer sheet to Portland Trail Blazers restricted free agent Matisse Thybulle and have had interest in trading Tim Hardaway Jr. and JaVale McGee for multiple transaction periods.
