12-12-2025, 12:33 PM
(12-12-2025, 11:58 AM)Winter Wrote: I agree with Dan that we don't truly know AD's value... and probably won't until we see a hard offer from a team. At that point, fans will at least know the baseline. We should know that soon enough.
The Mavericks have signaled that they would wait if the offer at the TDL wasn't good - they wanted to see Kyrie, AD, and Flagg play together. That sounds like FO message to bidders that we won't take a garbage offer, but there's some truth there. I can see why they would want to say that publically, but what is it really saying?
If Kyrie comes back with a reasonable game, AD stay healthy, and Flagg continues to get better... this team will not be a lottery team. But what kind of team is it? To put this a different way, is there really a meaningful one or two-year future that includes Kyrie, AD, and Flagg? Is this team competing for a championship? If you don't believe that, then aren't we pretty much wasting time with AD? (and Kyrie for that matter).
I get the idea of waiting until there's a better offer, but as a fan, that's about as unexciting a thing I can think of. I'll spend the rest of this season watching Flagg develop and hoping the injury prone players over 30 years old don't fall apart on me before we trade them.
Any thought of a window in the next 1-2 yrs with AD and Kyrie is immediately washed away with the juggernaut in OKC and the future one is SA.
I think it would be pointless to try and make it happen right now.
The team has to build AD's value, because right now it's the key to the future. If they fumble this (which is why they need to just hire a GM now) - it could be a pretty bleak future with very limited draft assets and an aging roster.
If they somehow have stuck gold with Nembhard, it helps quite a bit - as him/Flagg/Lively (a healthy Lively) are a very good start.