Trade & Free Agency 2026/2027

[cow]

As I've kind of aluded to before, I think that the Kyrie situation is tricky:

Scenario 1: the Mavs only get 80% of Kyrie's value this off-season, but they trade him anyway. He goes on to ball out and the Mavs sold short.

Scenario 2: Again, the Mavs only get 80% of his value this off-season, they trade him and his body breaks down with injury. The Mavs feel like they got out ahead of something, which they didn't do with AD.

Scenario 3: the Mavs keep him and he balls out. Kyrie says all the right things, but next off-season he opts out and either forces the Mavs to sign him to an ugly contract, or else he signs elsewhere.

Scenario 4: the Mavs keep him, but his body goes full "AD". Now his value is at 50%.

Scenario 5: Kyrie stays and, ultimately, the Mavs never wind up trading him. He just plays out the string in Dallas. The Mavs never really add players via Kyrie that fit Cooper's timeline.

Scenario 6: The "Wayne's World 'We want a happy ending'" version - Kyrie stays, plays amazing and the Mavs get 120% of his value at the TDL.

Basically, there's a way this could all work out, but there's more ways it could go sideways.

No scenarios let us get 100% of Kryie's value...got it!