2020-2021 ROSTER TALK: Archived

[StepBackJay]

Let me offer up the idea that Markkanen could be high up the list of B-Z. Bulls do not seem eager to keep him and are laser focused on Lonzo Ball. The Bulls would gladly swap Lauri for Lonzo but it's unclear whether Pels would have any interest. I do believe Lonzo will be mostly headed to Chicago in one way or another.

Chicago has Aminu, Young and Satoransky. All useful players + Coby White to throw at New Orleans in either change for Lonzo into cap space or potentially salary matching. Young and Sato have buyouts in case Chicago has to cut them to clear out space.

Interestingly enough between Markkanen, Sato, Young and Aminu - all of those guys would be good on the Mavs if Chicago is needing to give away players. My guess is that Chicago will be able to include enough of those players in a trade, even if it's a 3 way so that they can operate over the cap. This will allow them to keep guys like Theis.

For the Mavs I think they could probably get Markkanen for almost nothing in a S&T that sends J Rich to a third team, maybe even as part of a multi-team deal that is constructed for the Lonzo/Bulls trade. If Markkanen wants to play for the Mavs and Bulls are ready to move on anyway then Mavs can probably get him for just a 2nd round pick. The Bulls would get a pretty good trade exception which could be useful for them later.

Markkanen would probably not start on the Mavs and I think Mavs would try to get a team-friendly deal of some sort. I still would project Powell to be the starter in this situation with Markkanen coming off the bench alongside Maxi.

There is some redundancy with KP of course but in a good way I think. For one KP, will probably get some nights off still which means you have his stand-in ready to go. If Markkanen plays as good or better than KP then it makes it all the easier to dump KP even if the return isn't great.

So in this situation again Mavs stay over the cap, adding Markkanen as a talent/value grab for a player that wants to play with Luka. Mavs would use MLE on a ball0handler I think, with Dragic a leading candidate.

Your main rotation guys are:

Luka/Dragic
THJ/Brunson
DFS/Green
KP/Maxi
Powell/Markkanen/WCS