Sources: Mavs trade Hardaway to Pistons, save $

The Dallas Mavericks traded shooting guard Tim Hardaway Jr. and three second-round picks to the Detroit Pistons for shooting guard Quentin Grimes, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Hardaway, 32, is due $16.2 million next season in the final year of a four-year, $75 million contract. Grimes, 24, is due $4.3 million in the final season of his rookie contract.

The trade positions the Mavs to be able to use part of the $12.9 million nontaxpayer midlevel exception. Dallas had been limited to the $5.2 million taxpayer midlevel with Hardaway on its books.

Mavs general manager Nico Harrison described re-signing starting small forward Derrick Jones Jr. as the team’s offseason “priority 1A and 1B” last week. Jones, the team’s best perimeter defender, played last season on a veteran’s minimum deal.

Hardaway averaged 14.4 points per game this season, primarily serving as the Mavs’ sixth man. However, his role was reduced down the stretch of the regular season and throughout the playoffs. He did not play due to a coach’s decision in four of the Mavs’ last eight games in the Western Conference finals and NBA Finals.

Hardaway spent five and a half seasons in Dallas, where he arrived as part of the Kristaps Porzingis trade with the New York Knicks in January 2019. He averaged 15.2 points per game during his tenure with the Mavs.

Grimes has averaged 8.5 points in 168 career games, including 90 starts for the Knicks. Due to right knee soreness, Grimes played only six games for the Pistons after being acquired in the trade deadline deal that sent Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks to New York.