NBA TRADE TALK: TDL over

[DanSchwartzgan]

The Mavs cannot include their 1st this year legally in any trade. At all. Full stop. The Stepien rule explicitly states you can't go 2 drafts in a row without a first round pick, so you can't do a pick swap between a 1st and a 2nd to circumvent the Stepien rule. 

Just to be clear, it is two consecutive “future” drafts, not two drafts in a row.  The issue now is that we don’t have a 2023 pick, not that we didn’t make a pick in the 2021 draft.

We can do a pick swap for another 2022 pick if it is guaranteed to be made in the first round.  The issue with 2021’s proposal was swapping our 22 first round pick for a 22 pick in the second round.  That is a no go because we don’t have our 2023. 

You are correct that removing the protection on 2023 is not as easy as snapping one’s fingers.  There is a precedent for the team requesting the removal of protection having to pay to do it (see the Jrue Holiday deal where the Bucks had to pay to remove protections on a pick to allow them to send picks to NO).