Who Are The 8 Players You Would Protect from An Expansion Draft?

[F Gump]

How does that work for somebody like Grimes who would be restricted and potentially somebody you want to hold onto?

Good question, and good point.

RFA players have a slight difference, but the expansion team can't actually get them. They CAN select them, but if they do then the player simply becomes a UFA and free to sign with anyone except the prior team. So if you want to re-sign Grimes (Hardy, too) you would have to protect him.

They have some workarounds with the RFA issue. One option would be that you don't make the player an RFA by not giving him a QO, The Mavs would end up with full Bird rights and the ability to re-sign, but the RFA advantage would be lost.

Another avenue would be to do a side trade re expansion selections, which can include agreements on who to pick, or not pick.

You do have to leave at least one player unprotected, when all is said and done.

Even though they don't get a player if they pick an RFA, the expansion team might still pick a RFA, since in general they are likely to be picking from a list of crappy players and/or bad contracts. In that situation, just having cap room (by picking the RFA) would be better than being stuck with junk. The same principle would apply to unprotected players with unguaranteed contracts.

However, figuring out how to deal with an expansion draft is not a last minute thing. They'll probably be able to position themselves and game-plan it years in advance, and then build a roster with an answer to that issue already baked in. For example, if an expansion draft was announced this year for 2026-27, the only players the Mavs already have under contract for that year would be Luka, Klay, Naji, Lively, and OMax (assuming Lawson isn't kept). The other contracts and extensions that they sign between now and then could be designed with the ED factor as part of what they do and how they do it. In 2004, the last one, the Mavs didn't have anyone picked, even though they had a lot of talent.