Trade & FA 2024-25:

[mvossman]

For me, it's simple. Jones is a much better player than Gafford, and while Gafford is a very good player, he's playing behind a much better one right now, with difficult salary decisions looming in the near and medium-distant future. This would be exchanging one player for a better one who'd actually slot in pretty nicely as a starter, filling a need that literally every team has, while robbing from an area of the Mavs' team that's luxuriously deep. I don't have a problem having two centers who could start (love it, actually) and it's not like Gafford is "burning a hole in my pocket" if I'm in their shoes, but for me, Herb Jones would be a needle mover. Much, much better than Thybulle, DJJ or any of the others we discuss on a regular basis. He might be the best wing defender in the game already, and he's still young. 

I highly doubt this will happen (our proposed trades aren't enough to pry Jones loose, I don't think, and there's a price at some point where things start to look risky from Dallas' POV), but I'd happily do Gafford, a smaller piece and a late first for Herb Jones without blinking. I think that would be a game changer for this team. 

Plus, and I haven't really thought much about alternatives, but...they HAVE TO shed salary soon. They MUST. Without spending a ton of time examining their options, it seems likely to me that Kleber or Gafford...maybe BOTH will be gone soon. It just makes a little sense to me to get the high dollar contracts all attached to players who might deserve high-minute roles in the playoffs. I feel like that would make some of those decisions easier, but I might think otherwise after analyzing. I just don't want to see them let Daniel Gafford, an asset that they have basically elevated to his all-time high, leave in free agency for nothing, which kind of seems likely to me at this point.

Just to be clear, the trade proposal I'm responding to included two firsts.  A single late first would definitely be worth a conversation, but that prolly doesn’t get it done.