01-21-2026, 08:57 AM
I keep coming back to this - these players are persistently landing on the "not playing" list:
AD and DAR
KP and Risacher
We are only 2 weeks (and a day) from the trade deadline. I keep wondering if that foursome would be the already-agreed-upon player structure of a trade. Of course, it takes more.
The payroll change in that 2-for-2 doesn't work for ATL (it lands them not only over the tax line but also over A1). The return imo is way too light for DAL too. Presumably the inclusion of the NO pick that the Mavs are clearly pushing for could make up the difference from there, but if ATL will NOT include the NO pick and insists on lesser-valued ones than the NO pick, then can they make up some of the difference in the players being swapped?
If Kennard is added, that makes the money work for ATL but it does nothing to fix the talent shortage to the Mavs.
The best solution from there that I can see is Okongwu, who would be the replacement in the lineup for AD. Very playable. Nowhere near the impact of AD, of course. But potentially useful. A bit different skill set than Gaff and Lively.
As for what comes back to ATL and the match/payroll issues, Okongwu's 15M salary added would allow the Mavs to add 2 players, and Martin would need to be 1. The length of contracts is the same with OO, and ATL actually gets almost 6M per year in savings. Martin has shown himself lately to be playable, just not a supplier of offense, but sometimes a player who does NOT need shots is helpful if you have a team full of players who want the ball.
That leaves room for Dallas to send another player up to about 7M in salary. I would prefer Hardy as that 2nd player, but there are other choices that could work, and that leaves wiggle room to adjust the deal a bit one way or the other in filling out the end of the deal. I'll leave that as a fill-in-the-blank.
But to me, maybe that gets enough value to DAL that they can get there by a compromise on the NO pick. (There are multiple ways to compromise on the pick compensation and still get a reasonably strong package of picks. I'll leave that as a fill-in-the-blank also, with the idea that if not via the NO pick, then the Mavs need to see an avenue to getting a really good player out of whatever picks.)
AD, Martin, DAR, ______
KP, Okongwu, Risacher, Kennard + picks
AD and DAR
KP and Risacher
We are only 2 weeks (and a day) from the trade deadline. I keep wondering if that foursome would be the already-agreed-upon player structure of a trade. Of course, it takes more.
The payroll change in that 2-for-2 doesn't work for ATL (it lands them not only over the tax line but also over A1). The return imo is way too light for DAL too. Presumably the inclusion of the NO pick that the Mavs are clearly pushing for could make up the difference from there, but if ATL will NOT include the NO pick and insists on lesser-valued ones than the NO pick, then can they make up some of the difference in the players being swapped?
If Kennard is added, that makes the money work for ATL but it does nothing to fix the talent shortage to the Mavs.
The best solution from there that I can see is Okongwu, who would be the replacement in the lineup for AD. Very playable. Nowhere near the impact of AD, of course. But potentially useful. A bit different skill set than Gaff and Lively.
As for what comes back to ATL and the match/payroll issues, Okongwu's 15M salary added would allow the Mavs to add 2 players, and Martin would need to be 1. The length of contracts is the same with OO, and ATL actually gets almost 6M per year in savings. Martin has shown himself lately to be playable, just not a supplier of offense, but sometimes a player who does NOT need shots is helpful if you have a team full of players who want the ball.
That leaves room for Dallas to send another player up to about 7M in salary. I would prefer Hardy as that 2nd player, but there are other choices that could work, and that leaves wiggle room to adjust the deal a bit one way or the other in filling out the end of the deal. I'll leave that as a fill-in-the-blank.
But to me, maybe that gets enough value to DAL that they can get there by a compromise on the NO pick. (There are multiple ways to compromise on the pick compensation and still get a reasonably strong package of picks. I'll leave that as a fill-in-the-blank also, with the idea that if not via the NO pick, then the Mavs need to see an avenue to getting a really good player out of whatever picks.)
AD, Martin, DAR, ______
KP, Okongwu, Risacher, Kennard + picks
* Dumont reportedly "has no problem going into next year with a healthy AD and a healthy Kyrie with Cooper Flagg and seeing what it looks like."