Devin Carter, Derrick Jones Jr. and an NBA Summer Written in Mispricings

Sacramento traded Devin Carter to Atlanta and received a second-round pick. Atlanta paid that pick, absorbed $5.1 million in salary, and waived Carter the moment the paperwork cleared. Neither team kept him. And yet the Boston Celtics, a franchise built around three-point volume, are looking at him.

That detail deserves more pause than it usually gets. Across two seasons with the Sacramento Kings, Carter appeared in 74 games, averaged 8.9 points per game, and shot 26.3% from beyond the arc. The league average sits around 36 to 37%. A gap of nearly ten percentage points is a serious crack in the file of a 6-foot-3 guard.

Every result is a deliberate lie. The 26.3% says Carter shoots poorly. It does not say why Sacramento moved on so fast, and it does not say what Boston sees.

The market is repricing everything

The picture this summer is wider than one small transaction. In Los Angeles, the Clippers are living under the league office's investigative spotlight. Their penalty includes a compliance and monitoring program lasting five years, plus the risk of lost draft picks. Few teams have ever received a sanction with language that open-ended. The NBA Board of Governors meets in New York over the first two days of the week, and per Brian Windhorst of ESPN, the Clippers may not even send representatives.

At the same time, Derrick Jones Jr. is entering the final year of a $10.5 million contract. Per Tomer Azarly of Clutch Points, he has never requested a trade, and both sides have left an extension open. A 28-year-old wing, still athletic enough to defend and finish at the rim, is being paid below market.

Further east, the Atlanta Hawks hold 16 guaranteed contracts, exceeding the 15-man limit. They must cut or trade someone before the season starts, and the tax bill grows if they hesitate. At the league level, expansion is splitting into two tracks: Las Vegas is expected to be approved before Seattle, with each new team paying roughly $500 to $600 million, totaling about $15 to $18 billion. NBA Europe is scheduled to launch in October 2027 with 12 permanent slots and 4 qualifying slots, while EuroLeague owners meet on October 5 to decide whether to partner.

Boston reads the market differently

Boston has one roster spot open, and Carter is two-way eligible. That means the Celtics can audition him without burning the open slot reserved for the midseason buyout market. The cheapest bet is always the one that does not occupy another bet's seat — for a team whose title window is obscured by Jayson Tatum's Achilles injury, that flexibility is worth more than the contract itself.

Two questions need separating. First: does Carter fit Boston's three-point system? At 26.3% over 74 games, the answer leans no. He was the No. 13 pick in 2026; 74 games across two seasons is a large enough sample, and at the guard position this is a structural problem rather than an adjustment phase. Second: what does Boston lose if he fails? Almost nothing. On a minimum or two-way deal, the financial damage is zero.

Three months ago, Atlanta paid a price to acquire a second-round pick. They used Carter as a temporary salary placeholder: acquired him, held him long enough for the paperwork to be valid, then waived him. That pattern will repeat around the trade deadline, when selling teams need to swallow salary to acquire assets. The winning machine is only an illusion until someone is willing to break it.

In Los Angeles, the math is far harder. A five-year monitoring program places the Clippers in a tighter bind than even Second Apron teams, because it is measured not by tax dollars but by autonomy. Extending Jones at $14 to $16 million per year over three or four years is how you lock in value before the market reprices him. But every such negotiation must pass through a front office that is being watched move by move.

The counterintuitive read

The counterintuitive point sits elsewhere. The “change of scenery” story is a survivorship pattern: we remember the poor shooters who suddenly shot well after a trade, and forget the dozens who kept the same efficiency. Changing systems can improve shot quality; it rarely turns a poor shooter into a good one. The most likely outcome is Carter shooting roughly the same, only with slightly more space.

The same holds for the Hawks. Sixteen guaranteed contracts are read as a depth signal, but depth only means something when the sixteenth man does something specific better than the fifteenth. Otherwise it is inefficiency dressed up in money. When the season begins, someone in that group loses minutes, while the tax bill stays.

On the Clippers side, the media has already labeled the penalty in the harshest language. Peak backlash usually coincides with the moment the facts are fully out. What nobody can answer yet is what the five-year monitoring program actually prevents them from doing — and whether the team's consideration of a court challenge, if it happens, reshapes the league's investigative powers. We need the storyteller's hand to decode the hand of fate.

What remains open

Basketball never ends with a buzzer; it ends with a question. This week, the questions sit in New York and in Italy: whether the Board of Governors tightens further, and whether EuroLeague owners nod on October 5. In Boston, the question is smaller but worth tracking: if Carter signs a two-way deal, who gets that open roster spot in February?