MAVS 105, TIMBERWOLVES 111

[cow]

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This roster needs talent infusion. I believe Mavs should go all in to do it.

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What confuses me is why Mavs didn't make this moves (or at least one of them) in the summer, since it is so obvious.

 
I'm responding not to the author, but the idea, because I keep seeing this sentiment.

I don't think "want to" is stopping the Mavs from upgrading.

The obstacle that the Mavs are always facing, is that you can't "upgrade" just because you feel like it. What competing team wants your junk for their talent? The trade partner will want to "win" the trade too. The biggest desire to trade is meaningless, if you don't have the right players to offer, on the right contracts, and at a position the other team might want. Plus, the very reason you want to get rid of certain players is also an obstacle to getting anyone to take them.

The way to get better is to evaluate players (vs cost) better than anyone else, in free agency and the draft. The Mavs have long been bad at both, and Nico certainly wasn't the guy to do that in the summer. How is he ready now, to win a trade that the other team will only do if they can get what their experts believe to be the better end of the deal?

Agreed on the want to.  Agreed on the evaluation of talent versus dollars.  I'm not sure if that's going to get better.

Seems like the MBT to of old had pretty negative relationships with a lot of other front offices throughout the league.  And in free agency, they had problems even getting their foot in the door.  I don't expect Nico to fix that over night but I do believe he's the correct person to start turning those weaknesses around.  

Hindsight and all but a better front office never would have traded for KP, especially with the shape of the roster.  KP was really expensive factoring in what we gave up and that we had to pay him sight unseen after that major injury which looks like an overpay.  The "Mavs special" is compounding that problem with the THJ overpay this past summer.  I guess it is par for the course for Cuban's impatience.  

They should have just let Luka lead bad teams for a few years to try and hit on a few picks (problematic in its' own right) and then gone big game hunting when you had a full compliment of draft picks and young talent.  As it stands now, it looks like we'll need to be bad in year 4-7 of the Luka Doncic era rather than taking it on the chin in his first few years.  And we will still have the same questions around the Mavs drafting abilities.  I don't really know if Nico can improve that facet either.