Pelicans, Grizzlies Agree To Four-Player Trade

It’s a cost-cutting move for the Pelicans, who will be able to complete their reported two-year, $16MM deal with Bennedict Mathurin without surpassing the luxury tax line or first apron once the trade is finalized.

New Orleans was reported back in July to be exploring trade scenarios involving Hawkins, with Memphis identified as a potential trade partner at the time. A subsequent report linked Johnson to those discussions, and we speculated a few days ago that a deal involving Gibson could be the plan as of September 8, when Johnson’s two-month aggregation restriction lifted. He was traded from the Mavericks to the Grizzlies on July 8.

The expectation, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter link), is that Gibson, whose $3,815,861 salary is currently non-guaranteed, will receive a small partial guarantee so that his outgoing figure can be aggregated with Johnson’s ($3,237,120) to meet the salary-matching requirements to take on Hawkins ($7,021,895).

Memphis is permitted to use the expanded trade exception to take back up to 200% of its outgoing salary, plus $250K, but only guaranteed salary counts toward the outgoing figure, so the team will need to guarantee at least $148,828 of Gibson’s salary in order to use him and Johnson to legally take back Hawkins.

Peavy’s $2,150,917 salary would then likely be absorbed using either a portion of the Grizzlies’ non-taxpayer mid-level exception or the $4.3MM trade exception they generated in June’s Ja Morant deal. The latter is more likely, since the $4.7MM remaining on Memphis’ MLE could be used in either free agency or a trade, making it more valuable during the season.

Neither Johnson nor Gibson appeared likely to make the regular season roster for the Grizzlies, who were facing a roster crunch with 19 players on standard contracts. It’s unclear whether the team plans to retain Hawkins and/or Peavy through opening night or if Memphis is just making the deal for the second-round draft assets.

Hawkins was the 14th overall pick in the 2023 draft and had a promising rookie season, averaging 7.8 points per game and making 36.6% of his three-pointers. However, he hasn’t taken a step forward since then — last season, the 24-year-old averaged just 5.1 PPG and had a .348 3PT% in 51 games while averaging a career-low 13.6 minutes per night.

As for Peavy, the 40th overall pick in the 2025 draft averaged 4.3 points and 1.9 rebounds per game in 61 outings (15.0 MPG) as a rookie, shooting just 38.5% from the floor and 25.9% on three-pointers.

The Pelicans had been operating roughly $7.4MM away from the first apron and $5.8MM from the tax line, and Mathurin’s first-year salary is expected to come in around $7.8MM. Assuming Gibson receives that $149K guarantee and is subsequently waived, New Orleans will be able to generate nearly $5.8MM in savings as a result of this trade, creating more than enough room to sign Mathurin without going into the tax or surpassing the first apron. The first apron will become the Pelicans’ hard cap for the rest of 2026/27.

Johnson was the 23rd overall pick in the 2024 draft, but he played for three teams in his first two NBA seasons and hasn’t established himself as a reliable role player. In 2025/26, he averaged 3.3 PPG and 1.1 RPG in 9.5 MPG across 48 appearances for Washington and Dallas, with a .324/.211/.850 shooting line.

If New Orleans waives both Johnson and Gibson, the team would have 14 players on standard contracts after finalizing its deal with Mathurin and would have the ability to add a 15th man on a minimum-salary contract without becoming a taxpayer.

The Pelicans will also generate a trade exception worth about $7MM (Hawkins’ salary) as a result of the deal, since they can use Peavy’s outgoing salary to match on Johnson and can take on Gibson using the minimum salary exception.