The Detroit Pistons receive: Bennedict Mathurin (from the Indiana Pacers), $919,590 trade exception (Jaden Ivey)<\/p>\n
The Indiana Pacers receive: Daniel Gafford (from the Dallas Mavericks)<\/p>\n
The Dallas Mavericks receive: Jaden Ivey, 2026 first-round pick (both from the Detroit Pistons), $4.3 million trade exception (Daniel Gafford)<\/p>\n
Shifting away from the forward position, with Harris sticking around, the Pistons make this move if they view Mathurin as a significant upgrade over Ivey. Mathurin, 23, is averaging a career-high 17.8 points a game on a bad Pacers team forging on without star point guard Tyrese Haliburton (Achilles).<\/p>\n
Don’t write off Mathurin as simply taking advantage of the team’s low expectations this year. In his first playoff run in 2024-25, Mathurin blew up on the largest stage in two NBA Finals games, scoring 27 and 24 points for the Pacers. The Pistons get a bigger, more reliable scoring wing to relieve some of the defensive pressure on Cunningham.<\/p>\n
Ivey, also 23, has struggled to stay healthy the last couple of seasons. As the team’s No. 5 pick in 2022, Ivey has yet to live up to his draft position; Mathurin, No. 6 behind Ivey, has done more in his still-young career.<\/p>\n
The Pacers are known to be seeking a starting-capable center, filling that hole with Gafford from the Mavericks. The Mavericks get out of his multi-year deal, getting a look to see if Ivey can blossom with a fresh opportunity in Dallas, along with a late first-round pick in the upcoming NBA draft.<\/p>\n
Notes: The Pistons can choose to use the preexisting Dennis Schr\u00f6der trade exception ($14.1 million, expiring on July 7) to take in Mathurin, which would generate a new $10.1 million trade exception for Jaden Ivey (expiring a year from the trade, presumably 2\/5\/27). Indiana uses the Mathurin expanded traded player exception to acquire Gafford.<\/p>\n
Bonus concept: Fold the Murphy\/Mathurin deals into a four-team swap. Take Looney out of the deal, relocate Ivey, Alvarado, etc., and tweak the first-round picks a bit. Detroit would be cashing out significant draft capital, pushing its chips in for a chance to compete with the likes of the Oklahoma City Thunder in an NBA Finals matchup. With Duren and Mathurin getting new contracts next season, Detroit can field a roster under the second apron, barely.<\/p>\n
Email Eric Pincus at\u00a0eric.pincus@gmail.com<\/a>\u00a0and follow him on X\u00a0@EricPincus<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Pistons receive: Bennedict Mathurin (from the Indiana Pacers), $919,590 trade exception (Jaden Ivey) The Indiana Pacers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-409193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}