Kelly Olynyk Reportedly Traded to Spurs, Wizards Get Malaki Branham, Draft Picks, More
After being traded to the Washington Wizards earlier this offseason, Kelly Olynyk is on the move again.
Per ESPN's Shams Charania, the Wizards traded Olynyk to the San Antonio Spurs for Malaki Branham, Blake Wesley and a 2026 second-round pick. According to Charania, the second-round pick is the least favorable between the Dallas Mavericks, Philadelphia 76ers and Oklahoma City Thunder.
Ahead of the NBA draft, the New Orleans Pelicans sent Olynyk to the Wizards along with CJ McCollum and a future second-round pick. The Pelicans received Jordan Poole, Saddiq Bey and the No. 40 pick in return.
Olynyk is coming off a season in which he put up 8.7 points and 4.7 rebounds while playing around 20 minutes per game. He played just 44 games while dealing with injuries and underwent surgery on his left heel at the end of the season.
Olynyk spent four years with the Boston Celtics to start his career before playing with the Miami Heat for three and a half seasons, but he's been a journeyman for the last five years.
He spent the second half of the 2020-21 season with the Houston Rockets after being traded from the Heat, and then signed a three-year deal with the Detroit Pistons ahead of the 2021-22 campaign. A trade sent him to the Utah Jazz in 2022 and he played there for the entire 2022-23 season.
The Jazz sent him to the Toronto Raptors at the 2024 trade deadline and he landed with the Pelicans a year later.
All in all, Olynyk has been on eight different teams since the start of the 2020-21 season. He's looking to finally find some stability in San Antonio.
It's hard to gauge how Olynyk will fit into the Spurs lineup since they're deep at the power forward position with Harrison Barnes, Keldon Johnson and Jeremy Sochan, but the veteran should be able to get some minutes on the young squad.
While Olynyk has put together a respectable career, playoff success has eluded him over the past few seasons, with his last trip to the postseason coming in 2020. The Spurs might not be championship contenders just yet, but they should at least be in the mix to make the playoffs this year.
Adding a veteran like Olynyk should only help.
