Trade & FA 2025-26: Free Agency Starts 5pm CST/6pm EST

[KillerLeft]

Late to the party, and haven't read the Twitter rumors.  But, my first thought when I first started reading posts was Donovan Mitchell.  To me, he makes more sense in Dallas than Garland.  The other thought I had was Jarrett Allen to LA with Gafford back-filling to Cleveland.  You can overcome the aggregation issues for Cleveland by dividing things into two stand alone deals.    
I came up with two versions that salary match.  Klay, Gafford, Martin and Hardy adds $250k to Dallas salary.  Klay, Gafford and PJ adds $1.1mm.  Note that it isn't enough to just get the deal to barely work financially for Dallas.  You have to also account for filling in the needed roster spots with minimums.  The second deal (3 for 1), creates roster room to add Exum and K. Jones.  But, it doesn't create room under the second apron.  

That's the issue with barely legal constructs (I think SH had something similarly tight for Garland a few pages back).  You have to create some extra space to fill out the roster and create a sufficient margin under the second apron.  You typically have to add more salary (and probably send at least one of the outgoing players to an additional team).  FWIW, I had Jarrett Allen going to LA for Rui in the second stand alone deal involving these three teams.

Thanks for this! 

I ruled Mitchell out, mostly because I assumed A) Cleveland would prioritize him over Garland (an assumption based on nothing, really) and B) his contract size seemed to be prohibitive for the Mavs, both as a trade practicality and sitting here for the next couple of years with Kyrie and AD. I also kind of thought a Garland target would add a piece that starts to make sense on the Cooper Flagg timeline (but no idea if they're thinking that way at all, to be fair). I don't know that I think one or the other is a better fit in Dallas, play-style wise. Both would be the primary PG here, with or without Kyrie, I think, but both are too small to play with Kyrie anyway,, really. 

I think Mitchell would be a bigger news event due to name recognition (Garland has made what, two all star teams so far?) and I'd of course love to see either of them here, but Garland would be my preference due to age and role.

Final tinfoil hait tidbit: Mitchell is CAA, Darius Garland is Rich Paul. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with LeBron (some of the rumors seem to suggest it did), but I found that part interesting. Even if is has nothing to do with LeBron (in the unlikely event this is anything at all), Dallas seems to be in the process of becoming a Klutch-friendly team.