Trade & FA 2024-25:

[Mavs2021]

It´s not worth moving Maxi for Jalen Smith right now, if it costs us two 2nd round picks. The same trade will be there in summer, after the draft.

I´m not giving up our first or even the 2nd round picks. Every draft you can find two exceptional players between 10-15. Right now we have 14, 38 and 47. That´s trade capital to move up 2-3 spots on draft night, if you want a specific player.

Here is the top players drafted between 11-15 since 2015:

2015: Turner, Booker, Oubre
2016: Sabonis
2017: Monk, Mitchell, Adebayo
2018: SGA, Miles Bridges, MPJ
2019: Cam Johnson, Washington, Herro
2020: Haliburton
2021: --
2022: Jalen Williams, Duren
2023: Lively, Dick

I left out a few really solid roleplayers as well. Morale of the story, if you fancy your FO to be good at their jobs there is an All Star/All NBA level player in almost every draft in this range. Do your job and you get a very good player.

If Nolan Traore falls to #16 (as currently projected), I´d be all over it. Starting PG on his team. Team is 10-7. His play-making, court vision and passing is Luka-ish. Despite being the leading scorer of his team his raw shooting numbers are awful, but I don´t see a broken shot. Very good AST/TO ratio for a kid in a pro league. Highest AST/36 in this draft despite playing in a pro league against proper adults.