Two struggling NBA teams complete four-player trade

The Pistons will send Marvin Bagley III, Isaiah Livers and two second-round picks to the Wizards in exchange for Danilo Gallinari and Mike Muscala, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The picks are for 2025 and 2026, sources tell Wojnarowski.

Detroit used some of its draft assets to offload Bagley’s contract, which will pay him $12.5M next season. The other three players in the trade are all on expiring deals, with Livers at $1.8M, Gallinari at $6.8M and Muscala at $3.5M. The Pistons also create a $5.7M trade exception, notes Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype.

Bagley had been a part-time starter since being acquired from Sacramento at the 2022 trade deadline, but the organization is motivated to create as much cap space as possible in the wake of a disastrous season. Detroit will have 11 impending free agents once the trade is finalized and currently, projects to have about $64M to work with in free agency, reports Bobby Marks of ESPN.

This could be the start of a complete overhaul for the 3-36 Pistons heading into the Feb. 8 trade deadline, suggests Omari Sankofa II of The Detroit Free Press. Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo! Sports cites a high-ranking source who tells him the deal is just the “first step.”

There are several options available for the two draft picks in the trade, observes John Hollinger of The Athletic. The 2025 selection could be a return of Washington’s pick, while the 2026 choice could be from Minnesota, New York, New Orleans or Portland.

Bagley, the second overall selection in the 2018 draft, will get a chance to revive his career with another rebuilding team in Washington. Although he was averaging 10.2 points and 4.5 rebounds in 26 games this season, he was an awkward fit for a team that already had Jalen Duren, Isaiah Stewart and James Wiseman in its big-man rotation.

Livers, a 25-year-old forward, established himself as a rotation player in Detroit after being drafted in the second round in 2021. He averaged 5.0 points and 2.1 rebounds in 23 games this season but was shooting career lows of 34.5% from the field and 28.6% from three-point range.

Gallinari appeared in 26 games in his first year with the Wizards after sitting out all of last season with a torn ACL. The 35-year-old forward was averaging 7.0 points and 2.9 rebounds in 14.8 minutes per night.

Muscala, 32, was acquired from Boston last summer in the same deal as Gallinari. He averaged 4.0 points and 3.1 rebounds in 24 games in his brief time in Washington.