Richaun Holmes - all he contributes is a contract for trading

[surfpuckmd]

I agree with all of this. I'm not quite as disappointed as you, because I feel the evidence points to them having kicked the tires pretty hard on every option out there and that the price was too high on all of them. Others will roll their eyes at the very idea of any price that's within the Mavs power to pay being too much while Luka is on the roster, but the plain truth is that a team must arrange their draft capital, young talent, cap space, etc, basically every currency at their disposal, to acquire TOP talent, and this requires planning. It also requires not spending like real housewives of Beverly Hills on every shiny thing that comes along. Those resources aren't infinite. 

I think Holmes, combined with Powell and Kleber, does represent improvement in the center situation over last year, for sure. The problem is getting the fan base excited about Holmes when it's most likely that he'll be underwhelming, particularly in light of the growing expectations the positive spin brings. I think Powell is fairly likely to be the best "get us to Kleber" option, although it's nice to have another, similar player in that mix for depth. Getting everyone excited about "Richaun Holmes: season saver" is just going to make the public outcry over Powell and the team worse once reality sets in. Even if Holmes does win the job, people who hate Powell are going to hate him, too, eventually. There are some things Holmes does better than Powell and vice versa, but at the end of the day they are at or near the same level, even in the rosiest of Holmes projections.

I'm fine with them not trading assets for a center.  I think we should see what we have this season with Derrick Lively before we trade more draft assets.  I do think there were players available in free agency though that could help us.  Cuban's unwillingness to go into the luxury tax is what disturbs me.  We're currently 15th in the league in salary which sounds Ok at first.  When you look at the teams spending less than us, however, only Memphis looks like a potential contender.  Every other team with a reasonable hope of contention is spending more this season than the Mavericks.  

I am less concerned about the center position simply because we do hopefully have the future solution on the roster now with Derrick Lively.

If the goal of the summer though was to do everything possible to improve our roster this coming season, then I think the summer was disappointing.  Mark Cuban's budget restraints got in the way of more progress.