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

[F Gump]

You’d think (classically) AD should net expirings, a young player, and a pick (at least)

McCollum (expiring) - Risacher (young player) + pick …. sure fits the bill. You’d need to add a spare from the Wiz and maybe a spare from Dallas to make it work but there are lots of options

I've seen people knee jerk and put Kispert in the deal, but that much salary isn't necessary.  You can get there with something like Bub and expiring Anthony Gill.  The one I like is:

CJ, Risacher and Bub Carrington to Dallas for Davis, D'Lo, Powell and Exum

Young, Powell and Exum to Washington for CJ and Carrington 

Davis, D'Lo and Gill to Atlanta for Young and Risacher

Those are certainly salary matches that would not force Trae's future salary on the Mavs, which helps. But I think both fall way short on value for AD, and the only meaningful value would be the pick(s). If strong enough, yeah, but otherwise it looks to me like a bunch of journeymen in the making.

I don't have to give up AD to get that kind of player. 

I think about the good GMs around the NBA and what one of THEM would get for AD. When I do, I don't think this is remotely close. To me we have lost sight of what AD offers a team -- he's a 2-way big who plays superior defense, at an all-star level, and is a difference-maker on the court -- and what an expert can sell to a buyer.. 

Finding that Expert GM, that's where the Mavs need to be shopping right now, frankly. Get the world's BEST NEGOTIATOR lined up, to solve this for you. (That means NOT Cuban, obviously.) Someone who understands NBA economics, and player values, and the way other GMs operate, and who can win rather than weakly surrender talent in a panic.

So unless the picks are strong enough to make a HUGE difference, I would rather keep AD because I don't see this helping the Mavs at all. 

I don't see a problem if this means they have to wait. It gives them time to try out Kyrie-AD-Flagg, and to let the other teams build interest. This is far from the last offer that would be made for him. More teams will emerge, if these fall away. Or these may decide they need him more urgently than they thought. But  get an EXPERT negotiator, whatever that takes, and then work from there.