Trade & Free Agency 2026/2027

[KillerLeft]

One thing I'm cautiously allowing myself to get my hopes up for: I think the Mavs are going to use that $20 million TPE, or at least part of it. They're very likely to operate as an over the cap BUT under the tax team (so full MLE), and they are FAR from the tax line, so if there was ever a time when a TPE was actually valuable, this is it.

We've discussed ways in which this could be utilized on draft night, which is certainly possible, but if not, there will be loads of other ways to leverage it for the benefit of the team. Maybe this 2nd apron hell teams are experiencing is finally "nuclear winter" enough for a good player to be jettisoned for next to nothing? As we saw with the AD trade, getting salary off your books IMMEDIATELY, with no strings attached, carries a certain value in the league right now.

In lieu of that, there's always the tried and true "we'll eat that awful contract mistake you made in exchange for ____ promising rookie contract and/or ____ future 1sts." That's basically what we've discussed as a draft night possibility, but it's a button that I believe will be able to push in free agency if the draft is uneventful.

I really can't come up with an excuse for the team not to use it, honestly.