Game 22: Dallas Mavericks (6-15) vs. Denver Nuggets (14-5) | 8:00pm CST

[DanSchwartzgan]

I know we all want to trade AD to try and get the best pick possible. But reality is we’re likely to end up in the 8-12 range of the lottery. If they can commit to playing AD at the 5 is it better to keep him and hope for some lottery luck and go into next year with a healthy Kyrie/AD/Flagg trio?

I posted something Stein wrote Sunday in another thread yesterday.  He was basically making the case (my words) that being 6-10 in ping pong balls isn't that different from being 1-5.  I think he heard that from the team and was warning the Hard Tank crowd that we won't prioritize being among the worst teams in the league.

I mentioned this from the very first post I wrote about a stealth tank.  Playing AD will cost us losses.  It is nearly impossible to hard tank and showcase AD.  If we trade him in December/January, we will have probably locked ourselves into the latter half of the lottery.  Or....

I've also written that Dallas has twice in three years given itself flexibility (playoffs or pick) up until the very end of each season.  In both cases they went with the pick.  I could see them hanging around 8/9 if Kyrie comes back healthy and deciding what to do based on how things look.  This might be true whether AD is traded or not.  It isn't hard to imagine this team being pretty good with what we saw last night plus Lively playing the Powell minutes, Kyrie pushing the Nembhard minutes to the bench and PJ getting the Naji minutes.  It could also look good if AD is traded depending on whether the return is more pick oriented or more current player oriented.

Bottom line, the Keep AD crowd and the Trade AD crowd both saw what they needed to see last night.  AD helping get a road win against a good team with a 30 point double double is helpful to both causes.  The Hard Tank crowd took a hit last night, but I think that was always going to happen no matter what once AD came back.