2021-2022 ROSTER TALK: [ARCHIVED]

[DanSchwartzgan]

Well, well. So now we have rumor that Brunson might prefer to be the lead guard. Coming from a very credible source, Stein is far from anyones mouthpiece. Something which was actually rumored before, but people chose to ignore it. I still hope Mavs are able to pull it off. 

If it comes to it, SnT return is unfortunately very low at this point, as NY already has most of cap space. I doubt Mavs could even salvage their own pick back, since all NY has to do is not guarantee Gibson and trade Reddish (they might even get something in return for him). We might get to a point to compensate Knicks to do a SnT, like Boston did with Hayward, for example.

When I did the math, I came up with them needing to move either Burks or Noel (on top of letting Gibson go) to get to $25mm worth of space.  Your point is still the same.  NY can pay someone to take one of those guys (they have five picks in 2023) or they can give us the same deal to participate in the S&T (assuming Brunson agrees to NY’s offer).  Since he’s UFA, there isn’t an offer sheet.  NY can announce a deal five minutes after FA opens and work out the details in the coming days.

IF we don’t play along our depth chart is now:

Bigs:  Wood/Maxi/Powell
WIngs:  DFS/Bullock/THJ
Ball Handlers: Luka/SD/(Dragic?)

So the question may end being whether to play along with NY or not.  With Green, Frank, Hardy and Pinson on the bench, Burks seems redundant.  Would we rather have Noel for a year (with team control for a second if we wish) or nothing?  Would NY have to pay something to trade Noel to a cap room team?  If so, presumably, they would pay the same to us.  To me, it comes down to what money does Dragic want.  If he wants $6mm, then Noel might be helpful.  If Dragic wants the minimum, then it might come down to Noel vs a TP-MLE Center like Hartenstein or Smith.