2021-2022 MAVS NEWS: 4th in West | WCF loss [ARCHIVED]

[F Gump]

No. Sign and trade. I believe there is like a 75% chance ATL signs and trades JC to SAS or DAL.

A sign-and-trade sure feels like the most desirable path if Dallas wants to pursue Collins.

But in an over-cap deal, the salary match would be complicated, because Collins in a sign-and-trade would be a "base year" player, ie the Hawks would only get 50% of his salary counted for matching purposes (whereas for Dallas, it would count 100%). It's not nearly as easy as "match a max salary and call it a day."

While it can be solved by adding more salary in a 2-way deal (at least another ~10.5M outgoing by the Hawks), or finding a 3rd team to take some outgoing salary from the Mavs, neither of those options are all that easy, because you end up with added issues of trying to stay within the limits of what each team really wants to give up, while also dealing with appropriate compensation for all teams involved.

The only alternatives force the Mavs to clear cap space, and shoot for Collins via the RFA waiting game, or getting ATL to take some limited compensation in a cap-room sign-and-trade that might include some salary going to ATL, but not more than 17.5M.