Trade & Free Agency 2026/2027

[Smitty]

Smitty, Not sure how to reply inline like you did, so here is my response:

If we don't have picks, and we don't have players worth significant picks, then I'm not sure what assets you are referring to?  A clean cap sheet and lack of negative assets is nice, but not something you can rebuild with by itself.  The TPE is limited value.  They might be able to get something out of it, but probably not significant.

There is always a tradeoff between being good now and being good later.  You can try to do both, but that is a tradeoff as well.

I have seen trades involving Mavs getting a top 10 pick in this draft (if the Bucks make one last ditch effort to keep Giannis, or a multi team trade involving Gobert).  I would pull the trigger on such a trade.

We have picks. We have several players who are perceived to have positive trade value. I've outlined all of that already, so maybe we are talking past each other there. Yes, the TPE is an asset. As is the room below A2.

In the end, what are we talking about here... An asset or combination of assets is used to obtain something that you find has higher value, yes? Each team values things differently and are working within their own limitations and organizational goals. The difference I think for me is that I probably find good players as good as  -- or even more valuable than -- a late pick. One is a known commodity, the other is hope -- in that you land someone as good as or better than what you traded away. Both make sense on some level, otherwise there would never be trades.

With Kyrie, I haven't seen a realistic trade that has the Mavs landing a top 10 pick in this draft. But sure, that's intriguing. All of the others though? We're talking about one or two unrealistic hypotheticals (all of our fantasy trades are) as something we might do... So, again, it's easy to say the Mavs should do X, but it takes two to tango and when you go through all the somewhat realistic possibilities talked about so far, it's a lot of meh IMO.