Trade & Free Agency 2026/2027

[KillerLeft]

If this team *with* Kyrie this coming year isn't at least a high level play-in team (7-8 seed), then that tells me that 1) Cooper Flagg probably isn't the player we think he is, and/or 2) Masai/Schmitz aren't the FO we think they are. Or, alternatively, that they made a really horrendous HC hire (which would raise the question on #2). I mean, come on. We could have easily won at least ten more games than we did last year if not actively (and yet ethically) tanking. Kyrie on court would have improved (and will improve) Cooper's play, and CF will improve substantially this coming year whether Kyrie plays or not.

My take on Kyrie is simple - he is worth far more to the Mavs than to another team until he plays and reveals what everyone in their heart of hearts really knows - he's a really good player (even if he isn't quite as good as he was pre-injury - it's not going to be like AC Green getting hit in the mouth and never being the same, or like Kobe's late-career Achilles) who can help a team win. Masai can choose, at the deadline, to keep him or get a pretty good haul for him.

In the meantime, taking offers on him now is a "duh." I think the "Giannis return" assertion you're making about some of us is rather straw-manning. For it to be worth it right now for the Mavs, imho, it must include either a top 20-or-so pick in this draft (probably higher for most), and/or a guy 25 or younger whom we can project to be in the Mavs' top 8 rotation with Cooper for many years to come. Probably both. That's not a Giannis return. And if there are really teams lined up around the block for Kyrie, then most of the suggested trades are pretty silly (in terms of not enough coming back to the Mavs).

Flagg is great. Carry a playoff team great?? I don't see it yet, and there's the matter of all the support players being a fit with Luka and not him to think about, too. Kidd/Harrison seemed to want to get around that by sliding Flagg into the vacant hole left by Luka in the offense, a strategy I'm very much hoping is not continued by the new coach, but we'll see. 

Point being: I disagree with your binary view on it. In my NBA following experience, guys on rookie contracts don't lead teams to the top of the sport very often, if at all. I'l stand by what I wrote: I don't think a fully healthy season of Kyrie gets this thing into the playoffs next year. Sorry, I just don't. A fully healthy Kyrie, a fully healthy LIVELY and an AMAZING coach upgrade (not a first-timer), maybe. Still lots of time to figure a lot of things out - I'm just going off of what we know right now.