Dallas Mavericks: Expect a big trade this season
By Reid Hanson
The pieces are in place so don’t be surprised if the Dallas Mavericks turn to the trade market to rebuild their roster this next year.
The Dallas Mavericks have been busy little bees the past few months. While some think they are taking the long hard road of rebuilding through the draft, the Mavs are making moves that would indicate other strategies were afoot.
The Mavericks are financially situated to be players in the free agent market next summer. By playing hard ball with Nerlens Noel, they have enough room to make a max offer to anyone in 2018. But it doesn’t end there, my friends.
The Trade Market
Free agency is all well and good, but when has it served the Mavs well? Annual losers on the free agent market, the Mavs altered their strategy last season and traded. Acquiring Nerlens Noel allowed them to hold the cards when Noel entered restricted free agency this summer. It also gave him the leg up in future negotiations since they’re able to offer a larger sum of money than outside suiters.
While the current negotiations aren’t going all that well with Noel, the strategy seems to be working. And because of that success, the Mavericks are likely to try it again this coming season.
Even if they are out of the playoff picture, trading for a soon-to-be free agent would give them a leg up come summer of 2018. For a list of some available free agents check out this article below:
Related Story: 2018's NBA Free Agents
The time to start building value for tradable assets starts now. As nice as it is to put the best players on the court as much as possible, it’s more important to develop. If the Mavs were legit contenders it would be a different story, but since they’re not, the story is all about development.
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The Pieces
Seth Curry could be a very valuable piece to any trade scenario. While he’s nearly 27-years old, Seth is still developing as an NBA player. Last season was his best yet as he averaged 42.5 percent from beyond the arch and boasted a 60.1 true shooting percentage. The more he was used in games the better he got. In other words, the Mavs need to play him more minutes and they’ll likely be rewarded.
Dwight Powell, a player we discussed a few days ago, is another player who has the potential to be traded. As he stands now, his contract is untradeable. But like Curry, Powell improves as his minutes increase. And also like Curry, Powell is still improving.
Rounding it out is Josh McRoberts. McRoberts came to the Mavs this summer as more of a contract than a player. Miami unloaded him so they could afford to re-sign their own free agents and the Mavs wanted him for future freedom. The great news is as an expiring contract, it doesn’t even matter how McRoberts plays, he’s valuable just because of his $6 million expiring contract.
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The New “Process”
Developing young talent is great in the long-term but it takes time — a lot of time. Hits and misses are inevitable and growing pains are a must. When “trust the process” is a certifiable joke, teams are increasingly impatient to slum it in the lottery year after year while they build a team.
Next: The Mavs' Expected Starting Lineup in 2017-18
If Mark Cuban and the Mavericks wish to circumvent “the process”, the trade market is probably the best way to go. But since developing tradeable commodities is an obvious prerequisite to any trade, the Mavs have some work do to between now and the 2018 trade deadline.