Photo by Bama in ATL, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsThe two grades on this trade sit a full letter apart, and the one that likes it more is the one that did the harder reading.
Atlanta sent Buddy Hield, Ryan Nembhard and cash to Charlotte for Dorian Finney-Smith on Tuesday. Both clubs announced it that evening. I read nine pages of the reaction. Two put a letter on it.
Jackson Caudell at Sports Illustrated went C-plus, Atlanta and Charlotte alike. Zach Kram at ESPN went B-plus on Atlanta, B-minus on Charlotte. They start from the identical premise. Caudell: "For the Hawks, this solves their roster crunch at long last." Kram: "this swap of reserve wings is primarily about resolving a roster crunch."
Then they part. Caudell reasons out through the salary table and the distance to the tax and the apron, all of those figures his and none of them mine, and lands on "It is a smart trade, but not one that changes the Hawks trajectory much."
Kram went back a year. In Atlanta's entry he writes that Finney-Smith "failed to launch in Houston, but he was a standout role player as recently as the 2024-25 season." Further down his own file, in the Rockets entry, he sets last season's three-point number against the season before it.
That is the part worth arguing about. The grader who went and found the decline is the grader who graded this higher.
I am not neutral here. In July I called Ryan Nembhard the point guard I've been demanding since May. He is a Hornet this morning.
The shooting question is the one that actually decides this trade, and Simone has it. Mine is narrower and meaner. One of these men re-read the player before he graded. The other re-read the payroll.
The Tilt
ESPN earned its B-plus, and the C-plus grades Atlanta's summer, not this trade.
— Dex Ponce
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