07-28-2025, 06:04 PM
(07-28-2025, 12:03 PM)Smitty Wrote: ESPN offseason grade:
Grade: B-
Dallas doesn't get credit for picking Cooper Flagg, a move any team would have made after winning the lottery. The Mavericks did well in landing D'Angelo Russell, armed only with their taxpayer midlevel in free agency after agreeing to a new contract with a smaller starting salary for injured point guard Kyrie Irving. But Dallas still has a surplus in its frontcourt, having opted not to make any trades involving veteran players thus far. That likely pushes Flagg and P.J. Washington to perimeter roles.
That is fine if they don't want to count Flagg (or any other high lottery pick). that is fine. It doesn't work that way though. I am very happy with the offseason. The obviously thing left is the PJ extension though. I have no idea how this season goes. It could go well or they could really struggle.
Extending Kyrie while making room for DLO, the Gafford extension, hopefully PJ extension, the Exum signing, two solid two way developmental guys and of course Flagg. I have no issue with this offseason.
Even though I am not a big DLo fan, I am glad we got him. Probably more so to give us a feel how lacking we are at creators. Dlo is not as good as Kyrie and they play different. I think both are score first guards, so I think It will give us a good idea if we are extremely lacking with creation. It should give us a good look at the beginning of the season and then at 30-35 games after Flagg gets games under his belt. It will be a good test to see if a scoring guard with Kyrie works with a less talented Dlo filling in that role early in the season. If it is inefficient and ugly we will know early that they probably need to look for another starter who can create over the next year.