In Nico We Trust

[ItsGoTime]

These are my thoughts exactly. I totally agree moves were creative and addressed some issues. But, what is this teams general direction? They make a win now move for a player who you can't realistically count on for more than a couple of seasons. Rest of season clearly showed Mavs lack a couple of solid starters. Than Mavs suddenly do a 180 and start building for the future. I liked Holmes three years ago, but boy I was rejected here when proposing various Holmes trade ideas in past years. Now even I am not convinced he can return to be the starter level contributor he was. Getting that TE was great. Getting something for it was great. But cap space (or salary reduction capability) will have value this summer - is Holmes and 24 really the best possible outcome given Mavs needs.

I am not trying to condemn them, but I am far from declaring this summer a success, before seeing the final result. To address the thread title - Nico has not done much in his three years to have my trust. 

To be fair, there were literally zero player moves on draft night, outside the ones made by Dallas. A couple of (big) trades happened before draft. But, the FO is there to make things happen. Looking forward to see rest of the summer.

P.S.: I just don't share Dans belief Luka is here for four years no matter what. I think one more season like last year and he demands a trade.

Nico said he isn’t done. I believe him at this point.

[ItsGoTime]

This team has needed lots of changes for lots of years. This is what change looks like. As always, I’ll reserve full judgment til about 20-30 games into the season. Certainly not time to think about Luka’s want/desire to go to another team.

[Chicagojk]

I know it's fashionable to MinMax rosters by either going all-in on tanking (OKC) or all-in on win-now trades (Phoenix). But to me, the mark of a truly good GM is to find that balance between winning now AND later. With moves like this draft night for the future and Kyrie/FA for the present, I think Nico is proving that he's got the right mindset. We're lucky to have him.

That is my take as well.  It is not either/or imo.  I am in favor of trying to do both.  It also protects you against crazy happening.   

Time will tell if they made the right moves and there were probably more win now moves available.   Would they have made them favorites?   I am in favor of the wave theory.   Maybe one guy hits this year.  Maybe next year 1-2 more hit.  Maybe one never hits.  But, I like having a competitive team and a national media look in and say, man where did all this young talent come from?  And it is not like they are useless until they hit.   They will get better, then hit a rough patch and then hopefully get better.   We are asking these young players to fill roles.  Not carry franchises.  That is one of the reason young franchises fail because they need their youngster to develop into winning stars.   We just need them to be good at what they are strong at while slowly improving what they are not good at.

[Reunion Mav]

Regarding players for the future versus win now vets, I think last night and our own experts have proven every team now absolutely requires several young, cheap but quality players to have a winning roster. Because we are very unlikely to have another 10 pick any time soon I think we had to get our quality first round players now. I consider Hardy to be that but Green is close to not being cheap.
That being said, we are not done and can get a needed starter. We will probably not get rid of all of our current players but those who are still here are very likely to play better with our 2 superstars with training camp combined with filling some horrible but temporary holes we had last year.

[The Jom]

Like the positive vibes and agree with them. Interesting that Cuban suddenly seems willing to embrace spending as the rest of the league contracts. Perhaps he was less heavily invested in crypto than some speculated? Perhaps he really is committed to zigging when everybody else zags? Will be really interested to hear whether “shared sacrifice” gets mentioned in connection with Kyrie.

[F Gump]

1 About the issue of playing for now or later, the Mavs have been prioritizing "now" for a long time, and at the cost of obtaining players who can grow into really good talent. But if we had done this 2,3,4 years ago then we would be having different conversations. At some point, they have to start the pipeline of talent that is developing, and this was a good beginning.

2 The name of the game is TALENT. Not cap room or picks or trades. It's a quest for more talent. You have to get it from somewhere. Trades are usually mine for yours. The smartest move is to grow your own, develop them, and then use them or sell them off, but still keep a pipeline going.

3 They had to start getting some in the pipeline, and they began with Hardy. Going forward, they need to add one a year at least to the pipeline, and at some point some of these will pop out and become solid players.

4 I highly applaud the draft-day trades, and don't understand the criticism, because I can't see any way they could have been reasonably expected to extract more.
Mavs trade Bertans + 10
Mavs get Holmes +12 +24

Holmes is more useful than Bertans. Overall money about the same, but more space for this season. And getting pick 24 for trading down 2 spots and still getting the same player (now at a smaller salary, which adds some spending room for elsewhere) is a really good deal.

5 I think there is still lots of opportunity to now pivot to veteran talent, because multiple teams are trying to whittle down long-term salary. Bullock (10.5M expiring), McGee (2 yrs 5.8M avg), THJ (2 yrs 17M avg), and maybe even Holmes (2 yrs 12.5M/14.5M avg*) might be seen as acceptable return salary for a team trying to whittle down a nasty payroll where the Mavs take on bigger longer salary in exchange.

*Note: While Holmes has a trade kicker, the team getting him won't have to pay any of it (although it does go on their cap). And it can be negotiated to be waived in whole or part.

[DanSchwartzgan]

*Note: While Holmes has a trade kicker, the team getting him won't have to pay any of it (although it does go on their cap). And it can be negotiated to be waived in whole or part.

Thanks for this note.  I'm carrying Holmes as $13.9mm on 23/24 salary, but waiving the TK to get out of Sacramento seems a reasonable possibility.  At this point every little bit helps.  It makes the TK 'sliver' a little bit bigger and moves us that much more under the apron.

[Mavs2021]

The "new" Mavs2021 is pretty awesome!

I´m not going to change. I call it like I see it. If they do some dumb sh*t in 10 days. I´ll call them out again.

Last night was proper GM work.

They understood Orlando/OKC were fighting over Wallace (or at least OKC was sufficiently scared by Orlando´s need for a PG). OKC didn´t care about Bertans, cause they are like $50M under the floor and have to pay somebody anyway. Bertans´ expiring deal might even be a trade chip for them. Mavs wanted Lively and they knew Orlando is not taking a 7th center, so this made perfect sense for both parties. Win-win situation.

Same with the trade for OMP. The Kings seemingly have a very specific free agency target in mind (Grant, Kuzma, Draymond?) for which they needed additional capspace. Meanwhile the Mavs needed to jump the Celtics line. So once again a win-win situation.

You did not have to overpay in either situation, cause you negotiated from a position of equal strength and not the usual weakness and desperation.

[Jym]

I´m not going to change. I call it like I see it. If they do some dumb sh*t in 10 days. I´ll call them out again.

Last night was proper GM work.

They understood Orlando/OKC were fighting over Wallace (or at least OKC was sufficiently scared by Orlando´s need for a PG). OKC didn´t care about Bertans, cause they are like $50M under the floor and have to pay somebody anyway. Bertans´ expiring deal might even be a trade chip for them. Mavs wanted Lively and they knew Orlando is not taking a 7th center, so this made perfect sense for both parties. Win-win situation.

Same with the trade for OMP. The Kings seemingly have a very specific free agency target in mind (Grant, Kuzma, Draymond?) for which they needed additional capspace. Meanwhile the Mavs needed to jump the Celtics line. So once again a win-win situation.

You did not have to overpay in either situation, cause you negotiated from a position of equal strength and not the usual weakness and desperation.

Kinda hard to believe that the same FO that signed McGee and did that horrible trade with the Wiz managed to pull off what they did last night
Hopefully a sign of things to come when Cuban isn't meddling in every decision

[KillerLeft]

For all the folks wondering if the Mavs can add youth AND contend now, given their asset-poor situation (a concern I can understand):

1) Imo, they are SO asset-poor that even one more summer of "win now" moves would have been a complete and total dead end. Game over. The only way to refill the asset chest, from where they are today after so many years of missed swings, is literally to start DEVELOPING some NEW assets.

2) Luka is only 24. Whether Dan is right about him sticking around at least long enough to sign that supermax or not (I think he is right), the glaring fear for me is that IF Luka is in a "I'll give them one more year" mindset right now, the chances of fixing all of this so quickly are at like 0.00001% anyway, so to me, that ship has sailed. Meaning, just start doing what the TEAM needs you to do. Treat Luka like a 24 year old and plan for THAT timeline. If it works, great. If not, nothing was going to work (from this starting point) anyway.

3) None of us really saw this level of organizational competence coming. Even those who disagree with the results have to admit that the approach was professional. So...what can that tell us about the rest of this summer's plan???? Is it possible that Luka and/or Kyrie have been handled well enough that they're OK with this approach already? Hell, I'll go one step further: Is it possible that we're assuming Kyrie is back, when we shouldn't be? Is it possible that they will now use HIM as an asset to get MORE young talent in a way that we can't see coming, just like we didn't see this draft night approach coming?

All I'm saying is that last night should've bought them a little bit more of a "let's wait and see what they do next" type of attitude. It did for me.

[cow]

Kyrie is a win now move though. I do like the around-the-edges maneuvering that was done in the draft last night. Let's see if that continues into free agency which is another area we are woeful in. Last night does give me hope though.

[chaparral]

Nico's new advisor (Timithy Leary, I mean Dennis Lindsey) must have been giving him some good mind-expanding drugs (I mean Info) the past few weeks. Nice job by the new MBT last night and another good Thread.

Now let's see how they complete the 2 open trades next week. And then see what they receive in a Kyrie S&T in July.

Buckel up my Mavs Friends, the fun is just about to start...

[Jason Terry]

1 About the issue of playing for now or later, the Mavs have been prioritizing "now" for a long time, and at the cost of obtaining players who can grow into really good talent. But if we had done this 2,3,4 years ago then we would be having different conversations. At some point, they have to start the pipeline of talent that is developing, and this was a good beginning.

2 The name of the game is TALENT. Not cap room or picks or trades. It's a quest for more talent. You have to get it from somewhere. Trades are usually mine for yours. The smartest move is to grow your own, develop them, and then use them or sell them off, but still keep a pipeline going.

3 They had to start getting some in the pipeline, and they began with Hardy. Going forward, they need to add one a year at least to the pipeline, and at some point some of these will pop out and become solid players.

4 I highly applaud the draft-day trades, and don't understand the criticism, because I can't see any way they could have been reasonably expected to extract more.
Mavs trade Bertans + 10
Mavs get Holmes +12 +24

Holmes is more useful than Bertans. Overall money about the same, but more space for this season. And getting pick 24 for trading down 2 spots and still getting the same player (now at a smaller salary, which adds some spending room for elsewhere) is a really good deal.

5 I think there is still lots of opportunity to now pivot to veteran talent, because multiple teams are trying to whittle down long-term salary. Bullock (10.5M expiring), McGee (2 yrs 5.8M avg), THJ (2 yrs 17M avg), and maybe even Holmes (2 yrs 12.5M/14.5M avg*) might be seen as acceptable return salary for a team trying to whittle down a nasty payroll where the Mavs take on bigger longer salary in exchange.

*Note: While Holmes has a trade kicker, the team getting him won't have to pay any of it (although it does go on their cap). And it can be negotiated to be waived in whole or part.

Yes, pivot to veteran talent now that we took care of business. And also be opportunistic with this as well. We have those 4 very tradeable contracts. Find something with no picks going out. Add as much value as possible. Use the exceptions properly