Are you satisfied with the offseason (so far)

[Jason Terry]

I don’t agree with all of this, but I think it’s a fair perspective and nothing is over the top. 

I feel a little sorry for other folks who can’t get past the Powell thing. Sure, they clearly wanted to do better at that, specific position, but they are allocating resources responsibly for the first time in like a decade, and imo they have a lot of tangible improvement to show for it. I’d go so far as to say they had a superior off-season by employing a frugal approach than they would have had they spent freely. 

They went from 0 athletic, defensive forwards to 2. That, alone, will change this season’s outlook for me. Williams and O-max are BOTH going to be so much more impactful than I think most realize. 

They got younger. That won’t help win games this year, but it sure does pump some hope into a situation that was pretty damn bleak a couple of months ago.

They re-signed Kyrie on a more team-friendly deal than I expected. Either he works out here or he doesn’t, but if it’s the latter, I can now envision him being tradable to positive effect, and the rest of the roster makes it clear what you’d want back in that eventuality.

Say what you want about Powell, but on THIS contract? Yes, please. 

The Curry move is “meh” from me, but it’s certainly more positive than negative. 

There’s reason to hope that both Green and Hardy can take a step this season. In Green’s case, that step means he’d be a quality high-minute player. 

They replaced Bertans with Holmes, a player who has an outside chance of actually being useful, and a player who just last season (and certainly the season before) people were proposing as a target for the Mavs to actually spend assets to acquire.

They added Lively as a project center. “Project” has a wide array of meanings around here, but come on…can’t we all agree that he’s a better use of time/resources than Bamba or Bol Bol? Surely, we can. If not, think about the recent swings from the past: WCS…Moses Brown…Chris. I have a good feeling about this one.

They subtracted Bullock, the biggest disappointment of last season for me. 

Even the end of the bench swing they took on Exum has me a little jazzed. I like him more than Ntilikina. 

They didn’t blow the last bit of their draft capital, against all odds. 

What I expected is a Kyrie signing and then a trade on draft night involving #10 and probably ‘27 that brought in one underwhelming veteran. If they had gone that way, we’d have realized by the all-star break that this entire era was done because there would have been no room to move forward from there. All draft capital gone. Same level of team, only older and sadder. Most importantly, asset-poorer.

The Mavs just gave themselves so many ways to improve in the near future. This off-season has exceeded my wildest expectations and they might be able to accomplish one more thing. Those who see Powell’s name jotted into rotation speculation and can’t get past it are losing the plot a little, imho.

Love this post. It’s fun to think about

Lively
OMax
GWill
Green
Luka
Hardy

Does anyone in the entire league have a better under 25 core? Memphis/Indiana seem closest