Only Fantasy Traders in the Building (The Mitchell Case)

[cow]

Getting RW is a move backwards, on the court. I wouldn't be interested in doing that. You want to make life easier for Luka, and having shooters rather than bricklayers is the right route.

Getting RW is a move backwards in relation to trade assets. You can't trade him. OTOH the trade values of THJ and Bertans will likely increase as we move forward, as will the value of Powell (expiring) as we near the deadline. And in ensuing years, it's problematic if you are positioned where your only trade pieces are the core pieces you need to keep.

Getting RW in relation to some pie-in-the-sky free agency pursuit in 2023 (where no one can pinpoint an actual team-changing player to feasibly target), it would come at the cost of gutting the team, which makes it undesirable too.

Repeat after me:  No one is advocating for trading for RW the player.  Now repeat it again.  

There is merit to your line of thinking about tradeable assets.  That doesn't mean it's the only path forward.  It doesn't mean it's the correct nor incorrect path forward either.  We are just talking about options.  There are also valid questions for how successful Dallas can be in those trades if they use them at all.  Imagining you are going to turn Powell's expiring or Bertans into a useful asset is as pie-in-the sky as hoping we can use cap space well.  The likelihood is that we'll have both on our books until they expire.  

Maybe you have a higher opinion of that trio but it's hardly gutting the team.  And sometimes you need to take a step backwards to move forward.  And often times that is way more desirable than spinning your tires in the mud.  

You can't pinpoint targets now because a lot can change in a year related to free agency status.  But there will be free agents and desirable free agents at that.  If you could get two Bullock level players from that class, wouldn't that alter the on court product?  Wouldn't that also give you two additional highly desirable trade assets?  Who is easier to trade:  Bullock or Powell?  THJ or Bertans?  I'm just theory crafting that cap space could get us much closer to a roster full of Bullocks and DFS level contracts and out of Bertans and Powell type contracts.

In the end.  Lakers probably say no.  Mavericks definitely say no.  So this is all just discussion porn.