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

[F Gump]

Lakers with 53-54 wins. Mavs will win about the same as this past year. They won’t have a decent guard on the roster for at least 60 games if not the whole season, which is untenable, especially combined with 3 non shooting bigs.  I’m just watching to see Cooper’s development.

I think Kyrie is going to return relatively "soon," ie when compared to the prevailing doom-and-gloomy predictions. My over/under is G41, about 1/15, halfway through the season, and my guess is UNDER.

As far as the last half, if Kyrie is back and playing by then as I assume he will be, they should be improved over last season's back half. Way improved, considering the Mavs got almost nothing from any of their top 3 PGs in the second half (Luka 0, Kyrie 9, Exum 20), and of course nothing from Flagg or DAR.  

The question of how they will do is really just about the start to the season and how many of the pre-Kyrie games they can win, and whether they have enough talent to match last season's 22-19 start. Last season in the first half, at PG Luka missed 22 of those 41 games, Kyrie 10, and Exum all 41, so it's not like they had huge PG depth to carry them then. We also should consider the Mavs got 0 games then from Flagg and DAR at PG, and both of those should contribute this season and be able to pick up the slack to some degree. In addition, so long as they are healthy, as a team they should be better defensively, perhaps even intimidating, with long agile players all over the floor.