Trade & FA 2023-24: Stein-Ingram Trade Inevitable| LAL Want Lebron Back On Any Terms

[omahen]

Just super difficult to come up with fair value for Kyrie.

Not sure which value do you mean. His salary or his trade value? I am refering to trade value and I think we have to have a different perception here. Mavs are not trading Kyrie. He is a FA, they have no rights to trade him. They are selling a service of enabling Kyrie to be where he wants to be, if he chooses to be elsewhere. I think this is the key, as the value of this service is not connected to the trade value of the player. It represents the trouble team has to help him. At the minimum they can just sign (and trade) him, the receiving team sends salaries elsewhere and Mavs get a bit of compensation for their trouble. If Mavs are receiving salaries, than it is the question of worth of this salaries for Mavs. So perhaps best way to value this service would be, how much would it cost the receiving team to send this salaries elsewhere. At least this is how I see it.

The limiting factor for Kyrie is pretty obvious. How many teams besides the Mavs have capspace/can create capspace and are willing to give him the max.

I think this is one part of the limiting factor. The other is Kyries himself. How much is just about the money or has a place where he would prefer to be also value for him and is prepared to take less money to be there.

We have mentioned the Suns and Heat. Maybe the Clippers? Who else is even an option?

In any case, I think it only takes one team. 

Lakers might still be in play. DLo is not playing well at all. Cap space is costly for them and not realistic, but SnT could be an option. Still difficult to place three big contracts and stay below the apron, though. Unless of course Kyrie would take something around 30 mil to be with them instead of full max. Are we really sure he wouldn't be willing to do that? In that case they are paying 125 mil for the big three and have 40 mil for rest of the roster with only 6 mil guaranteed (Vando and Christie) on the books. So perhaps still enough room for Reaves, Hachimura, while the rest goes for vet min deals. Looking at teams able to execute very complicated deals, Lakers are definitely in the top five in the league, imho.

Assuming they can figure out the math of SnT for Kyrie and sign rest of the roster, the basic deal could look like Dlo, Beasley and or Bamba as outgoing salary. I am not enthusiastic about any of them. So perhaps 2023 to Dallas for their trouble and 2029 pick to third team for taking the needed salary. I am aware of the timing problem with 2023 pick, but again - Lakers might be capable of executing very complicated deal.