Tuesday afternoon, the Grizzlies completed a trade that had been rumored for at least a couple of weeks, sending forward Dante Cunningham to the Minnesota Timberwolves for guard Wayne Ellington.
As an exchange of two back-end-of-the-rotation players on small and nearly identical contracts, this is not a big deal, but, though most in Griz World seem to like it, I do think it’s a bad one. (For the Grizzlies, I mean, as a casual Timberwolves fan I love it for them.)
While not as egregious as last season’s ostensibly minor decision to jettison Greivis Vasquez and intrust Jeremy Pargo with the back-up point guard spot, I do consider this to be another self-inflicted wound for the Grizzlies, and here’s why:
Quality:
For starters, Dante Cunningham is simply a better basketball player than Wayne Ellington, and, in most cases, the team getting the better player wins the trade in the NBA.
In three NBA seasons, Ellington has yet to register a double-digit PER (15 is league-average). He’s proven to be a viable though not prolific three-point shooter (career 38% on two attempts per game, though he slumped to 32% last season), but doesn’t really do anything else: At 6’4”, Ellington doesn’t have playmaking skills, isn’t much of a defender, doesn’t get to the rim, and is a poor finisher when he does. Basically, Ellington has to shoot in the high 30s from long-range to be worth playing at all. If he were a free agent this summer rather than still on his rookie contract, he’d be hunting around for minimum-type deal, in line behind still-unsigned free agents such as Brandon Rush, Jodie Meeks, Leandro Barbosa, and Willie Green.