Trade & Free Agency 2026/2027

[Smitty]

It's clearly not an apples to apples situation with Gafford vs Stewart but if it does turn out that Gafford is viewed as a negative contract across the league we may end up finding out that we can't really count on good basketball assets coming back and instead a bunch of additional bad contracts being offered instead.  There is a very real reality where the best we can do is just have someone clear the books for us in exchange for an SRP or two and I think it's fair to brace for that potential reality.

Up until a couple days ago I had been on the side of "the Mavs have a much stronger asset collection than given credit for" side of the fence but it was under the assumption that guys like PJ and Gafford and even Klay to a lesser extent could bring us back assets (potentially even young players that we can try to develop).  After the activity across the league, especially the lack thereof during the draft, I'm not so sure anymore.  Everyone keeps saying vets didn't get moved because of how deep the class was when I'm worried it might be because these ~$20M rotation players are just really undesirable in this second apron era, even if the players are decent.  The next month will be very interesting to see what the truth is there.

I don’t remember where I heard or read it but basically the league is at a standstill for the most part with pick value. There’s no consensus because some teams read the new lottery changes one way and other teams the opposite, so it’s difficult to find a middle ground right now. It’ll take some time, but I think the league will work out the new norm pretty soon. With every trade comes more data. All these analytics departments need that data!