Trade & FA 2025-26: Free Agency Starts 5pm CST/6pm EST

[F Gump]

I am not as pessimistic over the future as some here, because I am optimistic the Mavs will get Lindsey-or-better (and I'm still on the Presti bandwagon, of course) to run the room as they remake the roster. And that all by itself changes the assets available.

How does that matter? If you will remember the way-too-brief period of time when Lindsey was guiding negotiations, and out of nowhere the Mavs were getting the assets on the margins of trades, as they made deals. Never before, never since. We saw picks coming back this way, as a rule, whenever one was outgoing. We saw players being acquired for PART of a FRP (rather than just shipping off a pick or 2 each time). Once Lindsey left, the picks started getting frittered away again -extras tossed into every trade just because Nico was so weak as a negotiator. (THINK: can you believe the MAVS paid a pick to trade Luka, and also paid a pick to take on the grotesque C Martin contract??? How utterly absurd are those things???) I think the potential exists for Mavs picks to GROW rather than shrink, as they rebuild, assuming they get someone who knows what he is doing as a negotiator.