Kyrie Irving: we already named a city after him!

[mvossman]

I'm aware of that. Here's the thing, if the market for Wood is not there in the trade market like people are saying, then why would the market for him be there in free agency? There are less teams that have the cap space to sign him than there are that could trade for him. No team is offering him close to a max, if a team valued him that highly there wouldn't be no market for him in trades. And if a team is willing to offer him a decent contract in FA, there's no reason for the Mavs not to exceed it. Also can't we offer him more years than anyone else? Or is that not a thing anymore?

Also IMO he's more valuable to us in our current situation than Brunson arguably was, because his particular skillset purely on the offensive side is literally as good a compliment as you could get for Kyrie and Luka outside another superstar. Brunson's production was clearly suppressed by Luka due to their similar playstyles and we had Dinwiddie. Brunson had already made his mind up he was 100% going to go to NYK well before FA so we never had a shot at him, which is why we didn't even make an offer. Our only shot was the previous season when we could have gotten him super cheap but he was not the same level of player at that time. Even I had reservations he would ever develop into the player he is now with the Knicks.

Wood is a guy who I could see really thriving when he has two guys with insane gravity drawing a lot of defensive attention away from him and his inside/outside game compliments both guys perfectly. It should be up to the Mavs to find a way to fill out the rest of the roster with the best defensive guys they can find to make up for the flaws the trio present on that end (which shouldn't be that hard to attract if Kyrie works out and they extend him)

IMO if they trade Wood and get a defensive guy back with no offensive game, we've handicapped the offensive ceiling of this team. Kyrie and Luka as your only real offensive shot creators, when before you had three. IMO you need a true third option to maximise what you are getting from Luka and Kyrie not to mention when Kyrie inevitably misses games. Or maybe they finally believe in Hardy and are willing to give him a lot more minutes.

The reason there is no market for him now but there might be in the offseason is that he is a rental, and the teams that will have cap space to get him in the offseason are not seriously competing right now.  I don't know if we can offer more years, but I don't see the Mavs wanting to do that either.

To be clear, I agree with most of this post.  I think he is a great offensive fit with Luka and Kyrie and he has a lot of value to this team even if its coming off the bench.  I have no interest to trade him just to trade him and think we are better off riding with him for the rest of the season if we can't get something of significant value for him in a trade.