Trade & Free Agency 2026/2027

[DanSchwartzgan]

Not rally surprised.  There were reports that some of the new players wanted the number that Dwight has and they were told that number is already taken.  

I would put the odds that Powell is not back.   Although this tells me Dallas is still looking at 2-1, 3-1, 3-2 type of deals and are keeping their options open.   It appears they are very deliberate and keep doors open until they close.  Once they pick a path they are pretty aggressive but until then they are good keeping their cards.

Having Powell as your 14/15th man is not the worst thing.    I just think the odds are probably against him being back next year.

Note that it says Powell is keeping in touch with Dallas and not the other way around - although this is sometimes the kind of note where Stein will later come back and say "as we've been saying" as if that report was his way of saying be on the lookout for this possibility.  The number thing is interesting.

The issue I see is Powell may not be the highest priority for the 15th spot if there was a consolidation trade.  It would take a 3/1 deal to get us to the point where we can add back a 15th guy.  Would they prioritize Powell over Seva?  Of course, you have to get to the point of actually finding a 3/1 deal before you can talk about that.  

The only thing I see out there that might be palatable would be Butler for three to four of our guys.  Golden State has a ton of open roster spots and could help us restock the draft cupboard.  I think Gafford and Klay make sense there.  I'm not sure I see it with PJ if Draymond returns.  But, you need PJ's money in the deal unless you move this to a 4/1 or 4/2 type deal replacing PJ's money with Naji and Martin (and no, I don't see a world in which they send us Yaxel).

This is another one of those situations where something has to happen (for both teams really) and now that the Lebron thing is over, I'm not sure what else would be holding things up.  I'm in the camp that we will try to be competitive this season with the young guys having to fight for minutes.  But, trading this number of vets would change the outlook considerably.  The draft compensation would be the key here, but if Butler shows himself healthy at some point, there is a fairly good amount of things you could do with him later to extract additional value.  I wouldn't envision him around the team necessarily.  He lives in Houston if I'm not mistaken, so it would be easy enough for him to rehab there and check in with the team from time to time.