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[DallasMaverick]

Third Apron has an expansion draft episode up with Kieth Smith and Bobby Marks.  It didn’t take long for the Mav’s to be mentioned.  Keith took Mara from OKC with the first pick and Bobby tried to get some draft capital from Portland to take Morant off of their hands.  Portland (Yossi) said no and Marks picked Mousa Cisse second overall.

Yossi said Dallas was one of the more difficult teams to figure out who to protect.  He protected Kyrie, Flagg, Lively, Risacher, Aldama, Christie, Morez and de Larrea.  So, unprotected were PJ, Gafford and Naji plus Sasser, Caleb Martin, Cisse and Biberovic.

It will be a year later at the earliest as the episode was done as of the 27 offseason and expansion will be 28 at the earliest.  It was also done with the old rules of protecting 8 and we have no idea how many we will be able to protect by then.  Kyrie will be two years older and on a new contract by 28, so not sure what he will look like by then.  In fact, Christie, Aldama, Lively and Risacher will also be on new contracts by then.  One positive of not having a draft pick in 27 is we won’t have to worry about protecting him in 28.

One takeaway for me is the expansion draft kind of argues for a consolidation trade rather then selling off Kyrie for younger talent or picks.  Late firsts in 27 might be cheap though.  OKC already has way too much talent to protect and it just gets worse if they use their pick in 27.  I suspect there are other teams out there in similar situations.  If you nail a late first in 27 and have a good roster, you are likely going to lose that late 27 first.

FWIW, the next few picks were:

Trading a first and Will Riley for Seattle to take Trae Young off of Washington’s hands

Marks circled back to Portland and paid two seconds for Nashville to take Morant from Portland

Terrance Shannon from Minnesota to Seattle

Jordan Walsh from Boston went next to Nashville, but Boston convinced Marks to take Hauser instead by attaching 3 seconds to him.

Seems like the smart play is to leave any underperforming payroll unprotected.

The Mavs have done a pretty good job of jettisoning bad payroll over the past couple of seasons.

So who’s left? 

Martin. 

Klay was, but he’s gone now.

Gaff? PJ? Naji? My opinion is that all three are neutral to positive. Perhaps by next year they won’t be.

If Lively continues injured, and the team believes it’s chronic, then he’d be a candidate.

If Kyrie’s performance drops significantly, he’d be a candidate.

If any of the rookies appear not to be NBA players, they’ll be unprotected.