Trade & Free Agency 2026/2027

[F Gump]

Sure, it might've started there, but as we see, that's not where it ended. I assume ATL wasn't the only team OKC offered Wiggins to. Are you suggesting everyone should've colluded to ensure OKC were punished for building a good team? I think that's ridiculous. It seems to me like ATL wanted Wiggins, not as a means of opportunistically extracting a toll, but just because they wanted the player. You have to assume they weren't the only ones bidding.

1 Presti gets it. Talent is value. 
2 Other teams want talent. You don't HAVE TO pay them to take your talent, or give it away for free. 
3 The key is to have a GM who gets it, and who is superior at negotiating and dangling talent until one or more teams come to get it and pay for the privilege. 
4 I think Presti is the best in the business at understanding how to negotiate, and extracting full value (or more) from trades he wants to do. Every team in the NBA knew how badly he needed to get someone to take some of his 2nd and 3rd string guys with 10-15M contracts. Yet he knew how to get THEM to pay for the privilege of being the one to do the trade. Sheesh.

MY TAKEAWAY. The same could apply to DAL, if/when the Mavs decide to move players. Could. Should. But they need to have a negotiator that knows how to play the game of negotiating. Cuban wasn't it. Nico was even worse. Masai? TBD.