The Kings And Spurs have agreed to a trade that sends forward Jalen McDaniels and a second-round pick for San Antonio, ESPN’s Shams Charania reports (Twitter links).

For Sacramento, it’s a pay cut, while San Antonio will take on McDaniels’ expiring $4.74 million contract to secure a second-round draft pick. According to Charania, the Spurs intend to waive McDaniels once the trade is official, so his salary will remain as dead money on their cap for the remainder of 2024-25.

The 52nd overall pick in the 2019 draft, McDaniels showed promise in the first four years of his career, which he spent primarily in Charlotte. His height (1.80 m), his wingspan (2.10 m) and his athleticism made him a versatile defender. He also showed some talent as an outside shooting player, completing 34.2% of his three-point attempts with the Hornets. The Sixers traded for him at the 2023 trade deadline.

However, McDaniels’ production and playing time plummeted last season in Toronto after he signed a two-year, $9.26 million contract with the Raptors. At the start of the 2024 offseason, he was sent to Sacramento as part of another Kings salary cut – in this trade the Kings sent Sasha Vezenkov And Davion Mitchell to the Raptors by cutting his salary by over $8 million by relieving two players who are each due over $6 million in salary.

However, the Kings still faced financial constraints at the start of the preseason, as the team’s total salary for 14 players was approximately $169.7 million. That gave them just over $1 million in wiggle room under the luxury tax threshold, making it impossible to open the season with a full 15-man roster and stay out of tax territory. They also have some players whose contracts offer unlikely incentives, so their team salaries could rise higher if those bonuses are earned.

When we identified five teams that could make cost-cutting moves last month, we mentioned the Kings and highlighted McDaniels as a trade candidate given his contract situation and place on the team’s depth chart. At the time, we suspected it would probably take a second-round pick to back out of his deal, which turned out to be true.

Once the trade is official, the Kings will sign 13 players to standard contracts (11 fully guaranteed) and have enough cap room under the tax line to fill their 15-man regular-season roster with minimum-salary players. Of course, they could still choose to open the season with fewer than 15 players to maximize their flexibility if they wish.

Sacramento will also create a trade exception worth $4.74 million in McDaniel’s salary.

For their part, the Spurs can easily take on McDaniels’ contract by using part of their $8 million cap space exception, eliminating the need for a matching salary. The Spurs have one of the lowest team salaries in the NBA and will still have plenty of room under the tax line after this contract expires. For their troubles, they will add another second-round pick to their growing collection of draft assets.

San Antonio has a full 21-man roster, so one player will have to be waived to make room for McDaniels – one of the Spurs’ camp invitees on an Exhibit 10 deal who is expected to be the roster casualty .