Summer League Game 1: 7pm CST on ESPN

[mvossman]

... as well as the Giannis decision, and the Chandler decision.... all 100% Cuban overriding his basketball experts. 

If I'm not mistaken, Cuban always retained the title of GM after Nellie quit, because he fancied himself as such, and Donnie was never the GM. His passion was good, but the way he let his ego serve to fritter away so many of Dirks peak years is a tragedy.

I think Cuban probably was the biggest driver of all transactions up until he lost power in June 2024 (the same time that Lindsey left).  The Timmy for Grimes trade was reportedly done deal by then so the moves that we can cleanly attribute to Nico are:

Let DJJ walk (did not like this move)
dump Josh Green in trade to make room for below
S&T Klay for maximum they could spend on him (seemingly his only effective negotiating tool)
Sign Naji for the max they could offer him and do the above deal
Hardy gets extended (this is not looking good)
Luka trade (WTF?)
Grimes trade (WTF?)
Drafted Flagg (duh)
Sign Kyrie to reasonable contract
Sign Dlo to max he could offer (good contract)

I am willing to focus on the above as his body of work.  Most of these moves made the team older and most of them were about getting/retaining a player that Nico had prior relationship with.  If seems that his free agency moves are ok but its his trades that are a complete disaster.  I think he is going to have to make at least one more trade to put this team into contention, and I fear how that is going to play out.