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

[F Gump]

But I have to think [Dumont] would like the appeal of a net difference of $200M in his pocket. But maybe he doesn't care about it at all and wants to build a "contender" at any cost going forward.

It's a weird situation to try to unravel the thinking behind it. If the Mavs (ie Dumont) cared about tax, they wouldn't have done the stupid Grimes-Martin trade. There was no real benefit to that deal, and in its wake I was posting last spring about the consequences in tax (with a hope it would be the impetus to fire Nico for utter incompetence, once PD figured out how deeply Nico had hit his wallet). 

But they are kinda stuck now. I think PD may have to ride it out to some degree. It's his own fault for listening to Nico the Idiot.

Here's how bad that trade is. If they hadn't let Nico do that Martin trade last year, and we just assume an empty slot or a minimum in it for next season, the tax bill for the roster as-is (with all its A2 bumping payroll) would only be about 33M. It was a monumental error of incompetence in tax planning and roster building, and a hefty price to pay for a 3rd-string player who was damaged goods to boot.