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

[F Gump]

Is there a 3-team deal here where:

PHX gets: Collins+Reggie   
ATL gets: Bertans+THJ+#10 + McGee
Mavs get: Hunter+Ayton+#15  + Johnson

[...]

Luka
Kyrie/Hardy
Green/#15
Hunter/Maxi
Ayton/ McGee Johnson

And they should be right below the 1st apron by my math with this top 8. ~166ish.

You left out McGee. Total (apron accounting) is about 172M (over Apron 1).

I would want to add a McGee/Johnson swap to the equation as noted above, for several reasons. It would make the money shift less extreme and balance the values better, since ATL is getting a significant draft jump AND getting rid of Collins. I think Johnson would be very needed in Dallas, but he's buried in the pecking order in ATL, which is the kind of swap that both teams would go for. But most importantly, that addition would allow Bullock to be traded without having to guarantee his salary, leaving that choice to PHX's discretion in case they want to s-w and erase about 9M in salary from this season's cap.

With Apron 2 the limit, the Mavs can do something else later.
* In your original trade, could use TxMLE of 5M, and pay DP 5M, and still have a cushion of about 2M under Apron 2. Or could instead use Wood or Powell as a SNT chip for something coming back (up to maybe 12M in salary).
* By including the McGee/Johnson swap, those various spending possibilities increase by about 3M, which might be useful.