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

[KillerLeft]

... than to make a trade where the PRIZE is Tobias Harris. That move is the spitting image of the Juwon Howard deal.  

I loved the Juwon Howard trade.  He became Raef and Van Exel.  When you don't have much in the cupboard, sometimes you have to take a multi-step approach.  Some of our most successful Dirk-based teams are full of guys who came from the so-and-so trade and so-and-so came from the whats-his-face trade.

But they DO have enough in the cupboard, if they use it more intelligently. Cap Space is MORE in the cupboard than Harris on that deal. Your situation is BETTER with nothing than it is with Harris (and btw, I think they value contracts they have are worth more than some people here. I wouldn't call them nothing AT ALL). 

Yes, they made incremental deals that STARTED with the Howard trade, but they were all out of necessity once that decision was made. Every deal got them further down the road, but along the way there were insufferable moments of tire-spinning and WASTED TIME (Jamison/Walker, anyone?). 

I don't want to sign up for another decade where you're locked into "what mediocre player on a bad deal can I flip MY mediocre player on a bad deal for?" We've seen that approach. It led to one title, and frankly, they were lucky to get it. They have experience doing things that way, which is fine, but until Luka signs his rookie max extension, there remains a chance of something better.

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The Juwon Howard deal was a bad one? Without looking at Wikipedia, my memory is that Juwon begat Van Exel and Raef, Van Exel and Raef begat Jamison and Walker, Walker and Jamison begat Terry, Stackhouse, and Harris, Harris begat Kidd, Stackhouse begat Marion, and meanwhile Dampier begat Tyson, and that all that begat a championship.

I miss Mark's spending ways and hope they're back. But not for Horford or Harris unless we get a mountain of assets back.

This is my entire point. That's what I'd be trying to avoid. Btw, I've been making this point for months here. The above "chain" of turning bad money into slightly less bad money - that's all Mavs fans seem to understand. It's a BAD way to build a team. 

Scott, you're the president of the "better do what it takes to keep Luka here" club, right? Go back to wikipedia and see how long that step-by-step bad contact transformative process took. Think Luka would've been here that long if he had been in Dirk's place?