(04-05-2022, 06:15 AM)omahen Wrote: I don't agree. You are operating under assumption that Brunson wants to stay. If that is the fact, than your job is easy and there is likely very difficult to find a better scenario than resign him. But it is also possible that Brunson will leave no matter what. Because he wants to be the lead PG. Even if you offer max salary. It is possible he will not tell you about his plans, because he is "focusing on the season and will think about it in June". It is also possible that he really doesn't want to think about it before June. That is why you need to have all scenarios covered.
The real good GM finds a positive outcome out of that scenario. This can't happen if you are surprised by Brunson stating he will sign with Knicks on the opening day of FA. There are possible scenarios where you use outgoing Brunson salary in a trade for a player you want, which enables you to send zero salary to the team selling the player. I think a good GM has to explore those options. Good GM will see who can be available in the trade and what the opposing team wants in return. Is there a good player where a team values that they don't get salary back, just picks? These are cases where Brunson contract could become valuable. If he declares he wants to leave.
I agree with all of this, but they are somewhat limited in this. I think most of us agree the best outcome is that Brunson stays here. I think it is extremely unlikely there is a scenario where an S&T makes more sense than simply signing him ourselves if he is willing. So if he is unwilling to sign with us, then we have little to no impact on where he does decide to go. At that point, it will be a matter of the Mavs working with that team to see if they can come up with something mutually beneficial.
So from a due diligence standpoint, they should explore any S&T scenario that would be better than signing him themselves (I think there is very little chance of this making sense, but you still check it out), and they should at least get a feel for what they would like to do with each of the potential destinations if he walks. But if he walks, the potential trade value is going to be highly dependent on that teams cap situation. If its somebody like Detroit, its hard to imagine getting much value at all as they already have the space.