THE CRUCIFIX: Cato: Wood isn't thrilled w/ his role...Will depart in the summer

[cow]

What does it matter? In the end you traded a 1st round pick for a player you demoted before the season even started. That´s once again atrocious asset management. If they had kept the pick, taken Hardy, they retain their two 2nd round picks. In combination with our last remaining 1st round pick they could have been used to acquire the whole Lakers/Utah package of Russell, Beasley, Vanderbilt and Bamba on top.

The Mavs always make bad decisions, cause that´s what bad franchises do.

I can give you the exact reasons why they did the Wood trade.

60%: these four other guys should be in China. At least Wood is better. No idea whether he fits the team, no idea whether he fits the coach, but since...
30%: ....we don´t care about first round picks and...
10%: we´ll officially lose Brunson in ten days, let´s throw the fans a bone.

That´s their scary way of thinking.

Also this goes back to the Luka draft. Now that Hardy seems to work out, they pretend like they REALLY REALLY knew. But just like it was with Luka, if they truly knew, they´d have never traded that 25th pick for Wood and they would not have butchered the tank in the Luka draft either.

As we have seen on the final day this year, you don´t win games, you do not want to win. You never put yourself into the position of losing out on Luka Doncic, because of some miracle buzzerbeater.

Turning 4x JAGs into a rotational piece matters.  The first round pick is the price they paid for poor asset management previously.  Turning those bodies and salaries to a contributor, even if for a year, is pretty far from the Mavs usually terrible management.  Here is the MBT math:

-Those four bodies and 10m contributed zero to the team.
-The projected draft pick would contribute minimally.  
-Christian Wood at the very least would be a rotational piece for a year with the potential of something long term.

Despite how Wood worked out, that's a homerun trade in my view.  With terrible contracts like Powell, THJ and Bertans, the MBT have needed to play Moneyball and find fallen angels like Wood to help round the roster and maybe get lucky.