Only Fantasy Traders in the Building (The Mitchell Case)

[mvossman]

Dinwiddie + THJ + Bertans for Westbrook is the much more realistic trade.

That leaves us with

Doncic 40.0
DFS 13.4
Bullock 10.5 (5.5 guaranteed)
McGee 5.7 (guaranteed LOL, see how much that also matters in trade discussions, because it is not expiring)
Green 4.7 (non-guaranteed)
Hardy 1.7
=======
Total: 76

So that is $54M in capspace, which can be extended to $64M by waiving Green/Bullock. 

That is NOT NOTHING like many here try to suggest.

With that money you can look for free agency upgrades, you can extend Wood/Kleber, you can eat bad contracts or can make smart signings.

You can use the capspace threat for an early trade Powell + pick for Myles Turner trade.

This is exactly what (NOW) allegedly happened with Brunson. Everybody knew he was going to the Knicks, so Mavs couldn´t get sh*t for him at the deadline. So if everybody knows Turner is going to Dallas and we actually have the capspace, then it becomes a discussion. When you are sitting on the THJ + Dinwiddie + Bertans contracts, it does not.

Same goes for the threat to sign Gary Trent Jr. outright. He has a player option with Toronto in 2023. Hey Toronto you want to lose Gary Trent Jr. for nothing, cause we have capspace my friends or would you like Powell + Green?

You can also use the Westbrook expiring in a trade again. Trading an expiring is valuable to teams trying to get off "bad" contracts. THJ + Bertans + Dinwiddie are not. They are the bad contracts.

Of course we can also sit here and pretend that a Westbroook trade also means they cannot do anything for the next 12 months, then (un-successfully) have to offer Wiggins the max, while Kleber + Wood have to walk.

I'm lost.  Didn't we just go to the WCF?  You want to dump Dinwiddie, Timmy, Wood, Maxi and potentially Bullock for air so we can generate cap space?  If you put that group along with Bertans and Powell on the open market you are probably looking at over 80 mil.  We would take a huge step back next year so we can go chasing powder and likely (given the entire history of this FO in free agency) get less value out of than we gave up.