Trade & Free Agency 2026/2027

[Jmaciscool]

Wow. Strange move for both teams, imho. Not sure I like it. All of a sudden Minny became very thin at PF and only has one proven C in Gobert. McDaniels is not big/strong enough to play PF imho and they have no one else that could play the position. They also spend all of their assets now.

Charlotte has traded their offensive engine, that will be likely replaced by White. If he walks, they might be in trouble. Not sure why they drafted a bunch of young centers, that will be battling for minutes behind Reed now. They have Kalkbrenner from last season and additional 2 drafted this year. Even though I am not the biggest Ball fan, assets received seem kind of meh.

I'm not a big Ball fan, so I like the deal from Charlotte's perspective. I recall reading articles around the trade deadline that lumped LaMelo in with Ja and Trae as guards that had talent overshadowed by enough flaws to prevent anyone from really wanting them. Trae ended up as a salary dump and who knows with Ja (but it doesn't look good if even the Kings are like "no thanks"), so if Charlotte could get Reid, some picks, and some swaps...that seems good to me. That being said, I agree that it's a risk to trade the straw that stirred the drink of last season's upswing, so could definitely see it biting them going forward.

Minny has gone from Ant/KAT/Gobert to Ant/Randal/Gobert to Ant/Ball/Gobert. I personally don't see any of those iterations as much better than the others, so they've spent a lot of assets to effectively stay in the same place (imo). I was willing to give Connelly a shot if he ended up as the Mavs GM, but at this point I think the Mavs dodged a bullet there.