2021-2022 ROSTER TALK: [ARCHIVED]

[F Gump]

I’ve never been a LaVine fan.  But, I trust Stein more than I trust McMahon.  So, it probably behooves us to think through how this could possibly happen.  To me, there is no reason to consider this unless you know Brunson plans to leave.  I understand few want that to happen, but we don’t get a vote (and neither do the Mav’s).  If there isn’t some chance it happens, the LaVine talk doesn’t make sense.

I want to go there, because it's Stein. But imo it's really hard to envision a deal that is enticing, even if we assume that (as you theorize) Brunson is going to walk.

Even then, Lavine to Dallas isn't an easy deal to put on paper in a way that looks desirable. One reason is that the Mavs would be hard-capped (and starting slightly over the apron line, per Kamm's chart), and Lavine would be base year, so there's a ton of side salary you have to sell to someone. Also, the apron calculations charge all minimum salary players at least the 2-year minimum (approx 1.82M, I think), and you'd almost certainly be sending away more bodies than you get back.

So working through it, part 1
1 Lavine's max will be 36.6M. By the time you account for getting under the apron, and the empty roster slots you have to fill, at least 40M in conracts will be going out.
2 CHI will only be able to take back 24.475 or less of that outgoing, since he's base year.
3 The Bulls have to be willing to cooperate (which means they won't take back junk, and will want good assets)

So what does the part to the Bulls look like? You can fill in the blank.

And part 2 is probably even harder.
1 This is at least 16M outgoing with nothing coming back -- or, 16M+ more going out than coming in
2 For a team to take your salary, with nothing sent back, yhey will only want players of use to them -- or picks or young talent, to compensate for their trouble.

So what does the part to other team(s) look like? You can fill in the blank.

Again, Mavs total outgoing will probably have to be 40M or more, with CHI getting 24 or less.

What is even more problematic to me is that when Mavs would finish with such a deal, they have no way to address the hole at center, and they also probably created more holes in losing Brunson AND in the loss of talent they sent out to CHI and elsewhere to get Lavine.

I just can't come up with any theoretical deal that solves those questions in a way that is better than just signing Brunson and moving forward. Can you?

The one Lavine angle I can imagine is this -- I could see the teams both signing their own, and then in 6 months the PG-heavy Mavs and the SG-heavy Bulls swap Brunson for Lavine (in a deal where all the restrictions no longer exist), but I can't see a path in the summer.