MavsBoard

@ShamsCharania

BREAKING: The Dallas Mavericks are hiring Masai Ujiri as the franchise's new Team President and Alternate Governor, sources tell me and @BannedMacMahon. Ujiri ran the Toronto Raptors from 2013 to 2025, serving as the architect of the 2019 NBA championship team.

I think it´s time for the new season and since I have been on the "let´s wait and see what we got" bandwagon. 

Let´s start with a "teardown" version.




Trade 1:

Irving for Kuzma + Portis + #10 pick

 
Trade 2:

Gafford + Thompson for Cam Johnson + Valanciunas + Nuggets #26 pick + 1st round pick swap right with Nuggets in #2028


Trade 3:

TPE for Caruso + #12 pick

Trade 4:

#12 + #30 + remove 1/2 protection from Mavs 2027 pick for # 14 + #18

So we end up with

#8 pick
#10 pick
#14 pick
#18 pick
#26 pick



Using the updated https://www.rookiescale.com/2026-consensus-board/

I pick

#8 Mikael Brown Jr. (I have so many picks now, that I´ll take the upside risk as long as the prognosis isn´t too bad.)
#10 Brayden Burries (Between Ament, Lendebourg and Mara the probability that the Bulls would take a PF/C ain´t that bad.)
#14 Hannes Steinbach (I think he has deceptive prime Dirk athleticism, he runs the floor fast and hard.)
#18 Christian Anderson (Between Brown, Burries and Anderson I am stacked at guard now)
#26 Isaiah Evans (so let´s take another shooter)
#47 Trevon Brazile (elite athletic stats)

Remaining vets: Washington, Marshall, Johnson, Martin, Kuzma, Portis, Caruso. Only Washington and Caruso go beyond 2028.

Future rotation:

Brown (20)/ Anderson (20)
Burries (21) / Christie (23)
Flagg (20) / Evans (20)
Steinbach (20) /
Lively (22) / Brazile (23) /

Important to note that the Mavs will have +$50M of pure capspace from 2027/2028 moving forward, which also means $100M under the 1st apron.

If all goes reasonably well, in two years this Mavs team could be the current Spurs.

Hey gents, I have upgraded the software to the latest and refreshed our header a little bit. Let me know if you have any problems with that.

And in even more excited news I have launched a "blog" site https://blog.mavsboard.com/ which acts as an aggregator of sorts for our forum content. I had fun making it so I hope you enjoy it. I like it especially on my phone to get the latest hot takes from the forum.

Ten days left in the season, including tonight. Three games of interest for today, Friday, 3 April 2026:

7:00 pm CST - Raps at Grizz. Raps have been pretty shaky going up against weaker teams this year.

7:30 pm CST - Magic at Mavs. As '21 said, a tanking trap game. Kidd had better be pretty slick with his lineups for us to pull this loss out.

9:00 pm CST - Pels at Kings. I know the Pels are segababa, but surely they can beat the lowly Kings...

Hopefully it's a night to keep the 6th-best odds.

As the seasons go on the more the game of basketball is (d)evolving into something we no longer resemble. The game is now simply two to three passes around and then a 3 point shot.  I get the evolution as, strategy-wise, it makes the most sense. But from a basketball purity sense, especially if shots aren't falling, it gets boring. Likewise, from a lineup perspective, too many teams are changing to where all five players are similar (essentially all 3&D players), which is, again, boring. 

Basketball, I believe, is most fun when there are multiple ways to score and with different types of players being integral to the chemistry of a winning squad. Before, a team needed a true, ball handling PG, a sniper SG, a multidimensional SF, a bruiser PF and a true big man to protect the paint and score inside. Now, it's almost considered a "win" if a team only gives up a 2pt shot.  But what if the ultimate in getting a goal (which requires both the ball AND scorer to get to the basket), the dunk, gets a team 3 points?

Suddenly, inside the paint returns to being important. Likewise, bigger players both offensively and defensively become key.

So if they moved the 3 point line back, eliminated wing 3s, and created a 3 point dunk, the game would return to having more nuisance and diverse strategy. 

Now, I know you're probably saying, "Rasheed, that's a LOT of changes!!!"  But, I say, think how much Adam Silver has messed with things already. Could it be any worse?