Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[F Gump]

They've dug into the Luka situation ad nauseam, but what the hell happened with Grimes?  Guy is averaging like 27 ppg since the trade.  Even if you might lose him this summer, he is a RFA.  You leverage that status to get more back than Martin and giving up a second.  To me, that's the cherry on top of this terrible GMing thing.

Objectively, the Mavs alternative path had no chance of looking like that at all. 

Grimes was not a 27 ppg player if the Mavs had kept him. Not a chance in the world. 

In addition, RFA rights mean nothing if you can't actually match the contract. And with their other contracts, the Mavs and every other team knew that an MLE offer would get him away, with no trade needed. They chose to swap to get something in exchange that they could afford (9M player, not 14M). 

My complaint about the deal was the price, where Nico stupidly tossed in a pick while taking on a bigger contract (the pick should have been going the other direction in that case for taking on a lot of extra salary, and the whole league knew it) AND accepted damaged goods as well. It was ABYSMAL negotiating, very very bad work. 

In addition, Grimes is probably quite overrated now. He's not really the star he seems. 

He's been the focal point of the offense on a really bad team, which allows him lots of shots, but the return of Embiid, George, and Maxey will put him back where he was before. PLUS he is a so-so defender (Mavs fandom overrated him in this category A LOT) which limits his value. 

It's informative that in Philly, he is NOT a slam dunk that they will resign him (just like Dallas) because of the inflated price tag. Their original angle was to try to elevate his value and then hope for a SNT (rather than keep and pay him) because their payroll is going to be tight too, and that probably is still their plan.