The NBA trade market is starting to kick off and Saturday night saw a lot of salary moved around by the Bulls, Magic, and Hornets. In a reported three team deal, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Timofey Mozgov will be sent from Charlotte to Orlando in exchange for Bismack Biyombo. Charlotte will also be sending Julyan Stone to the Bulls while Chicago sends Jerian Grant to Orlando.
Got that? Here's the trade broken down team by team to simplify it a little better.
Magic receive:
The Magic may be taking on the Mozgov contract by making this trade, but make no mistake this is a fantastic deal for Orlando by moving Biyombo's salary alone. Mozgov still has an expensive deal himself, but he can potentially be a better fit than Biyombo ever was in Orlando. They also get a solid defensive guard in Jerian Grant, which is huge because they were severely lacking in point guard depth. He may be 25, but there is still room in Grant's career to grow and improve.
Hornets receive:
Everything in life is a circle and Biyombo must return from where he began. Charlotte drafted him in 2011 but allowed him to walk after a disappointing start to his career. However, after trading Dwight Howard the Hornets were in major need of a rim protector to help establish their backline defense. Biyombo isn't going to help their offense in any way, but they'll defend happy knowing that Biyombo is behind them to block shots.
Bulls receive:
This feels like a money move for the Bulls. Stone's contract is non-guaranteed and Chicago can choose to waive him as result. They just agreed to match the offer sheet on Zach Lavine's new $78 million contract so maybe this was meant to bring back some cap room for Chicago.
This is a pretty standard offseason trade. Nobody got amazingly better or worse with this deal, but everybody had something to gain from it. The biggest risk taker here is probably the Hornets. Taking on Biyombo's money, along with the reported news that they're signing Tony Parker, indicates that Charlotte is making a run at winning now. The Bulls and Magic, however, are still in rebuild mode.
