Trade & FA 2023-24: HOU Targeting Mikal Bridges again!| Mitchell is LAL #1 Target

[Winter]

That is true, but lets not neglect the fact that both big trade acquisitions (KP, Irving) were done at TDL while using some of the best assets available. This offseason will be the first one since drafting Luka where Mavs will actually have serious assets available. Another connecting dot for all of the moves above was Mavs opting for meh options instead of collecting/saving assets to use once the real opportunity comes. And then spending assets to dump those guys, whose main fault was that they were simply not good enough for the role Mavs wanted them to be. Wright, Richardson and even Bullock are solid rotation players, but none of them is close to the quality of third best guy Mavs are searching through this whole period (first third best guy to play next to Luka and KP and second third best guy to play next to Luka and Kyrie). The exact same mistake they are likely to repeat this TDL by spending assets on an average player that will just not be good enough for the role they need.

The big fail was free agency in KP years, where they had cap space possibilities twice but used them as described above. Even if big targets were not available or didn't want to come, a better approach would be to capitalize on cap space by eating some bad salaries for assets instead of signing and overpaying average rotation players.

I don't think "waiting" is a strategy unless you know who you're waiting for and whether it's realistic. We could have more assets only to be faced with a limited number of two-way players (see above problem).

There are players like Gafford and maybe Portis that I would argue are available now and would be significant players on this roster. Maybe we can't afford them, but I think it's mostly that we haven't been very creative. Perhaps this Front Office is different. I doubt they're thinking let's do nothing and hold onto our assets just in case there's some top tier two-way players hitting the market. If I were Luca, that would be the last thing I wanted to hear. I hope that's not the how this FO works.

There are 30 teams competing for the best players. You're going to have to work to upgrade your roster, and you're going to have to look for every opportunity to do that.