(06-09-2022, 03:13 AM)DanSchwartzgan Wrote: Just a quick hitter here. Was reading about Philly's situation and something struck me. With Green cut, they have a shot at the full MLE. They have some big holes in the roster and OKC could be a relief valve for some of their money. The problem is the money they need to dump (Harris) is too big for OKC to bear alone.
The core of Philly's end of this is Favors and THJ incoming. Favors fills the backup spot behind Embiid and THJ replaces Green. It saves them $7.8mm and gets them in range to spend the full MLE
Dallas gets Tobias Harris and gives up THJ and Powell. Dallas deserves some compensation here for the Harris salary. Maybe a move up from 26 to 23? Maybe 34 from OKC?
OKC is swapping out Favors for Powell. This is basically a kiss your sister move for OKC. Maybe they get 26 for sending 30 to Philly and 34 to Dallas. This does not use any of their current season cap space, but players could certainly be added from Philly or Dallas. Adding Brown to the outgoing would make some sense financially and create space on the roster.
It doesn't have to be more complicated than that, but it certainly could be. Tobias is big money, but expires a year earlier than Hardaway. The total remaining contracts for Tobias vs. the Powell/THJ combo is pretty minor. He gives you a shot creator in the front court and takes some of the pressure off of the new center being able to rebound, block shots and score. The center could concentrate on just the first two if you had Harris, DFS, Brunson and Luka playing alongside him. Harris is a plus as a defensive rebounder and maybe a hair above average defensively. You'd move Bullock to the bench with Dinwiddie, Bertans and Maxi. We'd still have the TPE and TP MLE to fill the center hole.
I suspect the issue people will raise is the Harris money. But one, what did we give up here? Two, we got to move up a few spots and can use 34 on a Euro stash of Kamagate. And three, Harris expires a year sooner than Hardaway.
Personally I don't like Harris at that big salary, even for the cost in assets being favorable.
I also wonder if this sort of clever complex cap/asset maneuvering to pick up slightly better picks and minor advantages is a Mav type of move. That is to say, if they wanted Harris, would their thinking stop at a simple 2-team deal with THJ + ______ to match the money, and done? Before Nico, it seemed like they preferred pursuing the simplest solution possible, rather than noodling at the edges too, both re trades and also the draft.
Let me add that I think the money for Harris - in relation to what he offers AND what he doesn't -- will be a deal-killer for Cuban. Harris might offer about 20M (or maybe less) of "value" to the Mavs, in relation to what their salary scale seems to be, yet he's paid about 38M. As far over the tax line as the Mavs will be, that 18M overpay becomes enormous when you add in the extra tax his overpay represents. I think Cuban would balk at committing 38M to Harris for solid 2-way non-star wing play (when his roster pays guys like that 12M, 10M, and 9M).
On top of that, this doesn't really solve your big man issue, and probably makes it worse even though you used up your main trade pieces and took on huge money to do it -- Powell gave you almost 1800 minutes during the season, you absolutely don't want the wear-and-tear of playing even more undersized for 82 games, and increasing Kleber's workload would be a killer come playoff time. If I squint, I can envision tweaks to this basic deal that might somehow address the need for a big man and lessen the salary differential, but I don't think it gets that far.