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

[Tyler]

Listening to Bill Simmons this morning with Jacke MacMullen, and they were noting that Kyrie, Gordon Hayward and Al Horford just walked away from the Celtics rather than resign with them ... Simmons said he believes word has gotten around the league that Danny Ainge is absolutely ruthless and will trade you the minute he can get 10 cents more on the dollar for you, noting that the Celtics were already shopping around Kemba.    But then Simmons said he thinks Dallas  is the  other franchise in the league where players feel that way.  MacMuillen said she knows that other agents around the league didn't like how chummy the Mavs front office was with Fegan

Where do I start...

1. Kyrie, Horford, and Hayward didn't all leave at the first opportunity because they feared Ainge would trade them away from Boston. They left because they wanted out of Boston. 

2. When looking for an example of a team known for having a reputation of trading players every chance they get, he doesn't pick Morey's Houston or any team run by LeGM. Nah -- that wouldn't fit the narrative. So he throws shade at Dallas who hasn't had many stars to trade and who built the team around Dirk for 21 years. 

3. Calling out Dallas for having a good relationship with an agent who died two years ago? Yeah, that's totally it.

4. There are now at least 5 agents literally running NBA franchises -- Myers, Pelinka, Tellem, Zanik. and Perry. If Simmons and MacMullen believe chummy agent relationships are truly a problem in attracting and retaining free agents, the rest of the league seems to have not gotten the memo.

Sure, Dallas has a storied history of falling short in big-name free agency. We've talked about that ad nauseum, and can also have good reason to believe the tide may soon be turning on that front. But the Celtics have a very different problem. They have a new reputation of doing very well in free agency while chasing off the guys they acquire as soon as they get a peek behind the curtain. Something is very broken with their team culture right now.

Simmons has always been a massive Celtics homer, and IMO he's just transitioning between the denial and lashing out stages of grief.