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

[HanspardsShowerVoice]

I think this is close to what I’d predict.  I will leave out picks, though I suspect Indy will end up with at least one pick out of all this.  I see

Dipo-Alize Johnson to Dallas
Maxi/Wright to Indy

You could add Turner plus some salary to Boston for Hayward and make it a 3 way or you could let them work that out themselves as a S&T in the new season.  I’m not smart enough to figure out who gets what picks.

I might be crazy - and I have been very wrong about a couple of things, recently, but I would be shocked if the Mavs ended up with Oladipo. I have gone out of my way to read up on him (local Indiana beat writers and national ones I respect) and without exception, those who know about him say some version of:

1. His injury was REALLY bad. Way worse than fans think. Like, worse than an Achilles injury, possibly, and DEFINITELY way worse than what's being rumored for Hayward 
   
2. He has been BAAAAAAD since coming back, and if he hadn't been "Oladipo" he would've lost his job by now. The consensus is that he's like the 4th best guard Indiana has now. 
   
3. There's lots of speculation that he's not a great person (though what the Indiana community thinks about this might not mirror what we'd think). 
   
4. The entire reason his name has been so in the news as a trade target is that he wants a new contract and Indiana does NOT want to give him one. I'm not saying he doesn't want to get out to a bigger market (he might) but even if they COULD sign him, they don't want to. Indiana wants him gone. 
   
5. Lots of skepticism that he'll ever again be a good player. LOTS. 
   

This would be Wesley Mathews 2.0, only way WORSE, because A) he'd cost more and B) at least Mathews played as hard as he could at all times. Oladipo has not played hard consistently at all, recently. 

If you can get him for something very small, like what you guys keep suggesting, and then treat him like an audition/rental, then that's not the end of the world, I don't guess, but I don't think that's what's being dangled out there to teams. If that DOES happen, I would view it as 100% a move to create CAP SPACE, not to bring in a good player. 

Remember when Andrew Bynum's career was over, and fans of every team (including the Mavs) kept expecting their team to sign him so he could be their savior? This went on for like THREE YEARS. Sometimes, the "name brands" of these guys are so big people just can't process the idea that they're done. 

I think Oladipo could be the single most underwhelming, disappointing move we could possibly see, especially for those who are NOT excited about being cap space players next off season.

Yeah, really think a lot of the Oladipo thirst is from the fact that not many people have a reference point for a quad tendon rupture and how serious it is because it's rare among athletes.     It hardly ever happens in young athletes.   In the few occasions it happens in the NBA it happens to old players at the end of their careers anyway (Barkley 1999, Tony Parker 2017) so it's not really associated as the career ender anymore than any other common lower leg injury would be for a player at the end of the line. Oladipo is a 6'4" combo guard who's entire game was built around explosion ... if he loses even a fraction of explosion, he loses what made him exceptional.