Building Around Cooper: A Backward-Looking Thought Experiment

[mvossman]

Welp, I said a month and a half ago that I wouldn't hate the world if they didn't go with a Guard at 9 and here we are. They did however trade up to get one later in the round. 

All of my favorite Guard targets (Ayo, Coby, Gillespie) have already agreed to deals to return to their teams, so the FA market is going to be slim pickens.

There's an obvious need at Guard and the options are limited. Again, the list of best available UFA's:

SG 6'3-215
Norman Powell 
Age: 33

PG/SG 6'3-200
Anfernee Simons 
Age: 27

PG/SG 6'3-190
Collin Sexton
Age: 27

SG 6'4-210
Quentin Grimes 
Age: 26

SG 6'6-198
Keven Huerter
Age: 27

SG 6'5-206
Luke Kennard
Age: 30

SG 6'4-175
Keon Ellis 
Age: 26

PG 6'0-185 
Aaron Holiday 
Age: 29


I've also mention an RFA, previous Two-Way guy, that has ties to both Masai and May in Alijah Martin. 

Some of the TPE trade options we've discussed include the OKC guards and players like Malik Monk -- or cheap swings like Vit Krejci, who has ties to Schmitz, and shouldn't cost much.


As it stands now the Mavs have 12 players with guaranteed deals:
Kyrie | (Sergio)
Christie | Klay | AJJ
Flagg | Naji | Martin
PJW | (MoJo)
Lively | Gafford


And then there's the rest:
NGT: Nembhard
Two-Way: Poulakidas, Smith
SRP’s: Lawal, Ishchenko
UFA: BWill, Powell, Middleton, Bagley
RFA: Cisse

*Nembhard’s Team Option deadline is 6/29/26



I think we’re destined for another year of 1 Guard - 3 Wings -1 Big  or  1 Guard - 2 Wings - 2 Bigs lineups. I say that with lumping Max and Klay in the Wing category because they aren’t creators (assuming Klay is here). I guess the positive there is May had success with that model. It's certainly possible we're going to see even more Point-Flagg in Year 2...

There’s just no other way around it outside of a big trade that we can’t see. They only have one legit PG type on the roster in Kyrie, and even then, he’s not really a “PG”.

It will obviously take more than 1 draft and 1 summer to get this roster where it needs to be post-‘Nico vision’. Sigh.

This list screams they need to make a trade.