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2020-2021 ROSTER TALK: Archived
Hopefully this looks ok

Offseason moves for the Dallas Mavericks: How to build a contender around Luka Doncic
6:13 AM Bobby Marks
[color=var(--newCommunityTheme-linkText)]https://tv5.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/31574554/offseason-moves-dallas-mavericks-how-build-contender-luka-doncic[/color]
For the Dallas Mavericks, last year's loss to the LA Clippers in the first round of the NBA playoffs in the bubble brought a sense of achievement and hope for the future. However, this year's loss despite coming in seven games rather than six, has the feeling of disappointment. Dallas was up 3-2 in the series and couldn't close things out, and now the Mavericks are at a crossroads with their roster.
While they have a franchise player in Luka Doncic, there are questions about whether the rest of the roster is enough for Dallas to take the next step.
This offseason will see the Mavericks focus on Doncic's rookie extension, deciding between re-signing Tim Hardaway Jr. or creating cap space, and the uncertain future of Kristaps Porzingis.
Luka's max extension The Mavericks face many questions this offseason. Doncic's rookie extension is not one of them. Doncic is set to become the first player in league history to sign a rookie extension that exceeds $200 million. Because Doncic was named All-NBA in 2019-20 and is a virtual lock to earn the honor again this year, he'll meet the All-NBA criteria necessary to sign a five-year max extension worth 30% of the salary cap in 2022-23.
2022-23 | $34.7M
2023-24 | $37.5M
2024-25 | $40.3M
2025-26 | $43.1M
2026-27 | $45.9M
The $201.5 million projection could increase if the business of basketball reverts back to normalcy pre-COVID-19, and cap levels rise more than the projected 3% for the 2022-23 season.
The lone sticking point that Bill Duffy, his agent from BDA Sports, and the Mavericks will have to sort out is whether Doncic will have a player option in 2026-27. While the player option seems irrelevant now, including it in the contract gives Doncic a way out if the Mavericks do not build a championship roster around him in the foreseeable future. Considering that the Mavericks have little to no leverage in the negotiations, expect it to be included in the extension.
Once Doncic signs the extension, the Mavericks will be prevented from trading him in 2021-22, not that they'd look to do so. However, the Dallas front office cannot rest solely on the fact that Doncic is under contract through 2026-27. The clock now starts for them to put together a roster that has more than a first-round ceiling.
"Every summer has the same pressures to add to the team," GM Donnie Nelson told mavs.com in late March. "Look at where we are, we certainly like a lot of the pieces. We got to give ourselves a chance to see what we have. Anyone that plays next to Luka seems to take an uptick and I think that's going to bode well for us this summer in terms of the kind of attractiveness to this style of play, a championship coach, and Mark [Cuban]."
Tim Hardaway Jr.
When the Mavericks traded for Kristaps Porzingis in 2019, the inclusion of Tim Hardaway Jr. was seen as a salary dump from the New York Knicks' end. Few predicted that Hardaway would end up being the better contributor on the court.
At the time of the trade, Hardaway was shooting a career-low 38.8% from the field. Over parts of four seasons in two stints with the Knicks, he'd averaged 13.8 points per game and shot 40.7% overall. When he was acquired in January 2019, the guard was underperforming his $17.3 million contract by $5 million, according to ProFitX, and had more than $50 million left on the deal.
Now 32 months later, it is Hardaway, not Porzingis, who has turned into the Mavericks' most valuable player outside of Doncic. Besides being durable (he only missed two games this season), Hardaway is the rare player who excels either coming off the bench as a sixth man or as a starter.
"With Tim, the proof is in a sample size of well over a year," coach Rick Carlisle told mavs.com. "When he was starting last year, he had a great flow. He started early this year and we made the change to go to more of a defensive lineup and bring him off the bench because we were really struggling with defense. "He was willing to do it. That's one reason that I'm willing to make other changes in the lineup, when you have a guy like him who's one of your top players willing to do it."
In the first-round loss to the Clippers, Hardaway started all seven games, averaging 17 points and shooting 40% from three. Not bad for a player who was a throw-in back in 2019.
Now entering the offseason, the Mavericks and Hardaway have a decision to make regarding the future. Because of Hardaway's $28.6 million free agent cap hold, Dallas enters the summer over the salary cap despite having only $85.1 million in guaranteed contracts.
While it is highly unlikely that Hardaway will see a contract that resembles his cap hold from Dallas or a team with cap space, the guard has a salary projection that ranges from low of $15 million to a high of $18 million, according to ProFitX.
A starting salary in the $18 million range would put the Mavericks right at the salary cap and left with the $9.5 million midlevel and $3.8 million biannual exceptions to use in free agency.
Dallas could create up to $20 million in room while still re-signing Hardaway, but that would require the Mavericks to decline the team option on Willie Cauley-Stein and have Josh Richardson decline his player option (or be traded in the offseason after picking it up). With Doncic's salary increasing from $11.1 million in 2021-22 to $34.7 million in 2022-23, the window for Dallas to use cap space on players outside of their own is closing.
Of course, Dallas could have more than $35 million in room, but that would come at the expense of Hardaway, Richardson and Cauley-Stein.
Jalen Brunson
The Mavericks took an unorthodox approach when they signed Brunson to a four-year contract after he was drafted in 2018. Because the contract does not contain a team option for 2021-22, the Mavericks are at risk of Brunson playing out the contract and becoming an unrestricted free agent next offseason.
The inclusion of a team option would have allowed Dallas to decline the option and make Brunson a restricted free agent this offseason. Brunson's cap hold in that scenario would've been just $2.1 million, and the Mavericks could've re-signed him to a longer deal or matched any offer he received from another team. Instead, because his unrestricted free-agent status hangs over the organization, Brunson has leverage as it relates to the maximum allowed in an extension.
Brunson is coming off a season where he averaged a career high in minutes (25.0), points (12.6), field goal percentage (52.3%) and 3-point percentage (40.5%). Per Cleaning the Glass, Brunson ranked in the 97th percentile of all players in points per shot attempt. As Zach Lowe wrote in late February, you could make the argument that Brunson was, at times this season, the Mavericks second-best player.
The Mavericks clearly dropped the ball in 2018 when they structured his contract but could get a mulligan this offseason.
Dallas can offer the guard a four-year, $55 million extension (the maximum allowed) on the first day of free agency, eliminating the threat of him becoming an unrestricted free agent. According to ProFitX, the projected salary in 2022-23 for Brunson is $12.8 million -- comparable to the starting salary in an extension.
Brunson also has reached the third-year anniversary of his contract, allowing the Mavericks to renegotiate his $1.8 million salary for 2021-22. However, that would require Dallas to take away valuable cap space that could be used to upgrade the roster for a player already under contract.
If Brunson declines the extension, he'll enter a 2022 offseason with close to half of the league projected to have cap space to use on him or a group of unrestricted free agent guards that will likely include Terry Rozier, Tyus Jones, Patrick Beverley and Marcus Smart.
Kristaps Porzingis
When Dallas traded for Porzingis in 2019, they thought they were adding a second franchise player alongside Doncic.
Instead, a combination of injuries, inconsistent play and an unidentified role has now turned Porzingis into nothing more than an expensive starter. Don't get me wrong: Averaging 20 points during the regular season and shooting 37.6% from three is nothing to complain about. But Dallas could go out on the free-agent market and sign a player at a third of the cost if they are looking for a spacing big man to average 12 points per game, which is what Porzingis produced in the first-round loss to the Clippers.
"It's obviously not easy, but I accept it," Porzingis said of his floor-spacing role after the Game 6 loss. "That's what the team is asking me to do, and I'm willing to do whatever, whatever is necessary for us to go forward. As soon as I accepted that, then it's not a psychological battle with myself anymore. I'm just out there playing and doing things that the team's asking me to do and trying to do the best I can."
Porzingis is entering the third year of a max contract that has $100 million left, including cap hits of $31.7 million, $33.8 million and $36 million. As the chart below shows, his play on the court resembles that of a player earning $17.9 million.
The Mavericks will likely be right around the cap line entering the 2022-23 season just accounting for the Doncic extension and likely new contracts for Brunson, Hardaway and Dorian Finney-Smith. Because of that, the nearly $34 million owed to Porzingis carries extra weight. For the Mavericks to be more than just an annual first-round loser, Porzingis has to stay healthy. More importantly, he has to become that franchise-level star the Mavericks thought they had acquired in 2019.
If the Mavericks don't believe he can be that anymore, they could look to trade him, but other teams will be wary of his injury history. Besides missing the 2018-19 season while recovering from a torn ACL, Porzingis has played only 100 regular-season games over the past two years, missing 33 games alone because of right knee soreness.
Offseason cap breakdown
Mavericks' Projected Cap Sheet
PLAYER 2021-22 SALARY
  1. Kristaps Porzingis $31,650,600

  2. Dwight Powell $11,080,125

  3. Josh Richardson $11,615,328 (player option)

  4. Luka Doncic $10,174,391

  5. Maxi Kleber $8,825,000

  6. Dorian Finney-Smith $4,000,000

  7. Trey Burke $3,150,000

  8. Josh Green $2,957,520

  9. Tyrell Terry $1,517,981

  10. Willie Cauley-Stein. $4,100,000 (team option)

  11. Jalen Brunson. $1,802,057 (non-guaranteed)

  12. Tim Hardaway Jr. $28,462,500 (free agent hold)

  13. JJ Redick $16,917,810 (free agent hold)

  14. Boban Marjanovic $4,709,900 (free agent hold)

  15. Nicolo Melli $5,066,666 (free agent hold)

  16. Nate Hinton $1,489,065 (free agent hold)

  17. Tyler Bey $1,489,065 (free agent hold)
Guaranteed contracts $85M
Partial/non-guaranteed $5.9M
Free agent/draft holds $59.9M
Total $150.8M
SALARY CAP $112.8M
LUXURY TAX $136.6M
Team needs
Porzingis to stay healthy
A reliable second option next to Doncic
Shooting off the bench if Hardaway leaves
Resources to build the roster
The free-agent attraction of playing with Doncic
Projected $20M-30M in cap space, but at the expense of Hardaway
Cash: $5.8 million to send or receive in a trade
Dates to watch
• The only thing guaranteed outside of Doncic receiving a max rookie extension is that the Mavericks will guarantee Brunson's contract. The 2018 second-round pick's $1.8 million contract becomes guaranteed on Aug. 2.
• The Aug. 1 decision by Josh Richardson on whether to exercise the $11.6 million contract will dictate which direction the Mavericks go with available cap space. Before the season, we could have penciled in the guard as declining his option and becoming a free agent. Now, after an inconsistent season that saw Richardson get traded for the second time in as many offseasons, deal with a bout of COVID-19 and eventually lose his spot in the starting lineup, testing free agency is not guaranteed.
• How the Mavericks prioritize cap space this offseason will dictate the $4.1 million team option on Willie Cauley-Stein. Dallas has until Aug. 1 to exercise the option on the backup center. In his second season with the Mavericks, Cauley-Stein played in 53 games, averaging 5.3 points and 4.5 rebounds. Because his contract is of value for a backup center, the Mavericks could pick up the option but trade him down the road if they need to clear room.
Restrictions
• Richardson and Cauley-Stein are not allowed to be traded until they exercise the options in their contracts.
• Brunson is a non-guaranteed contract and counts as zero outgoing salary in a trade.
• The earliest first-round pick that Dallas can trade is in the 2027 draft.
• Porzingis and Trey Burke have trade bonuses. The Porzingis 5% trade kicker would get voided because it exceeds the maximum salary allowed in 2020-21. The Burke trade bonus is 7.5% of the value remaining on his contract (minus the player option in 2022-23).
Extension candidates
• The Mavericks could be in the business of giving out extensions this offseason. Besides Brunson, the contracts of Finney-Smith, Maxi Kleber and Dwight Powell are extension eligible.
• The Mavericks cannot afford to allow Finney-Smith to enter free agency in 2022. The 28-year-old is the Mavericks' top defender and ranked 14th among all power forwards in defensive real plus-minus. In 60 regular-season games, Finney-Smith averaged 9.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and shot 39.4% from 3. Because he is in the last year of his contract, Dallas can extend him for an additional four seasons and up to $55 million in new money. In 2020-21, he outplayed his $4 million contract by $5 million, according to ProFitX.
• Kleber has two years left on his contract, with the last year being non-guaranteed. A starter in 40 games this season, the 29-year-old shot a career-best 41% from 3. The Mavericks can extend him for an additional three seasons starting at $11 million up until the last day prior to the start of the regular season.
The draft
The Mavericks do not have a pick in the 2021 draft. Dallas traded its first-round pick to New York as part of the Porzingis trade. Its second-round pick was sent to New Orleans to acquire JJ Redick.
Dallas owns its 2022 first-round pick, but cannot include it in a trade because the team still owes an additional first-round pick to the Knicks. That pick is top-10 protected in 2023, and that protection carries over to 2024 and 2025. If the pick hasn't conveyed by 2025, it becomes a 2025 second-round pick.
The Mavericks have made two draft-night trades in the past two years. In 2020, as part of the trade that sent Seth Curry to the Philadelphia 76ers for Josh Richardson, Dallas acquired the No. 36 pick in the draft (the rights to Tyler Bey). The previous year, Dallas moved back in the draft, trading the No. 37 pick (Deividas Sirvydis) to the Detroit Pistons for the No. 45 pick (Isaiah Roby) and two future second-round picks (both of which were traded before Dallas could use them).

I couldn't post Bobby Marks article, so here is the link

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mavericks/comme...ks_how_to/
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2020-2021 ROSTER TALK: Archived - by Kammrath - 11-30-2020, 11:21 AM
RE: ROSTER TALK: Mar 25, 2pm TDL - by TXBamanut - 03-24-2021, 03:28 PM
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