The trade that brought Strickland to Washington in 1996 happened shortly after news got out that the Miami Heat had signed Juwan Howard to a seven-year deal. However, the NBA voided the deal later that month after they determined the Heat did not have enough salary cap space to sign Howard to his deal.
This led to an unusual series of events that allowed Washington to keep Howard, but it cost them a first round pick in the process:
The league and union agreed to restore Howard’s full Bird rights for the Bullets, even though the Bullets had already used the cap space freed up by Howard’s departure on free agents Tracy Murray and Lorenzo Williams — contracts which were upheld because, as Stern put it, “intervening player transactions could not be undone.