DAL OFFSEASON: Trade & FA | Mavs "mostly done...but you never know."

[Mapka]

I still think Batum is our one option out of this mess. Other than trading for John Wall.

Well, Cuban did reportedly say the Mav's are willing to eat salary to get a star.  Wall is salary and Beal is a star.  So, would you/would they:

Wall/Beal

for

THJ/Powell/Wright/Jackson and Lee signed for 1 year at $12mm


Does Washington want a total reboot.  This saves them $16mm in 20/21, but a ton over the lives of the contracts of Wall/Beal since Lee, Jackson and THJ are expiring.  If they were willing to let Bertans walk, they could pay VanVleet $20mm this summer and still have max room in 2021.  This is almost literally a nuclear winter type deal depending on the temperature in DC at Thanksgiving.

There is video out there showing Wall dunking and making spin moves.  Could you turn him into a one year reputation rehab like Chris Paul?  Would you deal him afterwards or keep him?  Should one team of the other get some draft compensation?  That is an unbelievable amount of money to take on for Dallas.  Swap 9 for 18 and 37 for 31?  Beal takes THJ's place in the lineup.  Wall could be on a minutes restriction and still get more minutes than Wright played.  He's so ball dominant that he'd probably work better as sixth man than starting next to Luka (poor Brunson).  We aren't counting on anything from Jackson and #9 could be used to draft a replacement for Powell (Tobin, Precious or Williams?).  Or, if you stay at 18, maybe Jalen Smith?

Do I think this is likely?  No.  But, it probably best embodies the spirit of what Charania wrote this week.  I could actually see Dallas do this as Wall isn't totally dead money.  Tons of teams are going to have cap room  in 2021 and someone is going to be left without a chair when the music stops.  If Wall could hold it together for just a little while, Dallas could sent him somewhere in a year and possibly get some value for him.  Washington would be historically, New Jersey Generals bad for a long time.  The question is do they want a total do-over or do they want to get real on-court value for Beal and struggle through 3 more years of Wall while doing so.

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In other words, outside of KP and Luka, our entire team is high-end bench or low-end starters (Which we all know).  They can all be replaced and we shouldn’t be nearly as wed to these guys as many of us are.  BTW, these ratings are WITH the lift that comes from playing with Luka.  Some thoughts:

THJ:  This is the path to cap room in 2021.  If he goes this off-season it is either for a higher priced expiring deal or Plan Powder is off and we are making a series of deals to lock down better players.  THJ isn’t our problem except that we need another playmaker somewhere and he isn’t it.  There is also the concern as to whether his elite volume three point shooting is repeatable.

Powell:  It is kind of ridiculous to put Powell in deals right now.  Classic Sell-Low.  No team is giving up value for Powell until they see him on the court.  I like Powell and still think he is negative value in trades.  Unless John Wall is coming back, there just isn’t much point in including Powell in deals right now.

Brunson, Wright, DFS, WCS:  It is great that our backups are “high-end” backups.  Unfortunately, DFS is a starter and Wright makes starter money.  A team can probably afford to start one “high-end” backup if it is stronger in its top four.  Unfortunately...

Maxi, Curry:  These two along with THJ don’t provide enough to qualify for being strong at spots 3 and 4.  Basically we have seven guys who would make good 5th/6th man types (eight if Powell is healthy).  

It would be a fantastic luxury to be that strong at the top of the bench/5th man if we had that 3rd/4th guy.  Until we do, everyone should be fair game.  You can find what Maxi and Curry and THJ and DFS and Brunson provide fairly easily.  To say that any of these guys is off limits is nuts.  

Since Maxi is the one most often tagged as untouchable, I’ll just say that if someone suggested trading for a big with a PER of 13 and a negative On Minus Off who put up 12 points per 36 and a TRB% of 10, we’d not be particularly excited.  But since he is OUR PER of 13 and TRB% of 10, he’s great.  We are cheering for laundry.

Awesome analysis. Looking at the graphics, we see that:

- Brunson and DP were very inconsistent;

- Wright decreased as the season went on (and his role diminished);

- Maxi and DFS were consistent in their roles;

- Curry was trending upwards until the break;

- KP had a very rough start, but after some time he got to that All-Star level and never looked back;

- Luka Doncic is the real deal.

They haven't done many teams yet, but from the names discussed here, ThadYoung is a high backup and OPJ is a low starter. Can we find solid starters for the Forward position with what we have?

I was just looking on last years list of players. There were about 120 Players better than 5.0.  But checking this list I have a really hard time finding a player who isn´t an oldschool center, untouchable, payed more than 35M, freeagent or someone I really don´t want on the Mavs. 

I just can´t find a trade I would like and isn´t total homerish.

I went through their multi-year data.  They really like Gallinari.  Pretty much the entire Bulls team shows well on a multi-season basis (maybe coaching does matter).  But, you are right that improvement doesn't come easy.  When we put some of our 5th starter/6th man types on the untouchable list then improvement is even harder to come by.

I wouldn't say untouchable, but we have such unique fitting roleplayers that we need a real upgrade to be worth it.
 
I'll keep looking for draft and MLE and deadlinedeals