The Brooklyn Nets made the Malachi Smith move official Friday evening, waiving the young guard after completing the Julius Randle four-team trade. It was a clean financial decision, and one that gives general manager Sean Marks a little more room to work as the offseason unfolds.
Before the Randle deal, Brooklyn sat at $24.7 million in cap space. After the trade, that number dropped to $11.75 million. Because Smith’s deal was non-guaranteed, cutting him did not create any salary cap penalties and opened up an additional two to three million in spending room.
The Nets still have another tool available in the Room Mid-Level Exception, worth $9.36 million and not counted against the cap. That leaves Marks with some flexibility, even if the team’s options are narrower than they were before the blockbuster.
Smith’s time in Brooklyn was brief, but he did enough to leave a mark. He arrived on two 10-day contracts before landing a two-year rest-of-season deal, then appeared in 15 games and made four starts. In those limited minutes, the 6-foot-4 guard averaged 8.3 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists.
His best night came April 10 against the Milwaukee Bucks, when he nearly piled up a triple-double with 19 points, eight rebounds and 10 assists. Brooklyn was chasing the best lottery odds for the No. 1 pick at the time, which meant Smith saw more run than he normally would have.
Even with that production, the roster math worked against him. Picking up Smith’s team option would have kept him around as a third-string guard, but the Nets are already loaded in the backcourt. Marks drafted Mikel Brown Jr. this year and added Egor Demin, Ben Saraf, Drake Powell and Nolan Traoré last year.
That made Smith expendable. He likely wasn’t going to crack the rotation, so Brooklyn chose the path that helps the organization more: clear the spot, open the cap room, and keep building.
The bigger issue now sits in the frontcourt. Nicolas Claxton was sent to the Chicago Bulls in the Randle trade, which pushed Day’Ron Sharp into the starting center role. Brooklyn has been linked to Mo Wagner as a possible answer for the center depth problem, though his signing has not been made official and his contract could also eat into cap space depending on how it’s structured.
A third big would give the Nets more protection if injuries hit again, and the team’s pile of draft picks gives Marks more ammunition if he wants to chase help on the trade market. For now, though, waiving Smith is the first clear sign of what Brooklyn values most: flexibility, and the ability to keep reshaping the roster around a frontcourt that still needs work.
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