Clippers Acquire Two-Way Contract Big Man Johnathan Motley in Trade with Mavericks

The Clippers announced Monday that they have completed a trade with the Dallas Mavericks, sending cash and the draft rights to Marty Leunen to the Mavs in exchange for the draft rights to Renaldas Seibutis and forward Johnathan Motley’s two-way contract.

Leunen and Seibutis are both former second-round picks who are past the age of 30 and will never play in the NBA. Their draft rights are essentially 0-value pieces that teams around the league swap for each other in order to facilitate trades. In this case, as noted on twitter by Jeff Seigel of EarlyBirdRights.com and SB Nation, the minimum cash that a team can send in a trade is $110,000 unless they send draft rights in addition to the cash. With the Clippers sending Leunen’s draft rights, they are permitted to send less than $110,000 to the Mavericks. Dallas, for their part, sent the Clippers pack a similar 0-value piece so that both teams now possess one to swap in future trades.

The real prize of this trade is Motley, a quality two-way big man who will provide the Clippers with a pick-and-roll partner for their young guards whenever they are assigned to the G-League. Motley, as a two-way player for Dallas last season, played 11 NBA games, averaging 16 minutes per appearance and posting 8.7 points and 4.5 rebounds per game. In 34 G-League games for the Texas legends, he averaged 22 points, 9.8 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1.1 blocks in 32.5 minutes per game.

The Clippers now have Motley and Angel Delgado as their two two-way players, who can go back and forth between the L.A. Clippers and the Agua Caliente Clippers of Ontario, spending a maximum of 45 days during the G-League regular season on the NBA roster. The Clippers also have Tyrone Wallace as a restricted free agent. Wallace’s currently-unsigned qualifying offer is a one-year two-way contract with $50,000 guaranteed. If Wallace chooses to sign his qualifying offer, the Clippers would have to cut one of the three players as they are only allowed to have two players on two-way contracts.