If not for Knicks forward Marcus Morris reneging on his initial decision to sign a two-year deal with the San Antonio Spurs, this topic of discussion would never arise, but free agents are more and more inclined to take control of their free agency in 2019 and the 29-year-old decided to follow the allure of Madison Square Garden instead.
In the process of reallocating their Mid-Level Exception toward Morris, the Spurs opted to move Latvian forward Davis Bertans to Washington in order to create a trade exception to acquire DeMarre Carroll. This allowed the Spurs to clear a roster spot and shift their funds in order to make the transactions work.