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

[cow]

Here is the big question: How will Mark Cuban react to the nuclear winter we have seen the last 72 hours?

Nobody with capspace seems to have any interest in Kyrie. This might truly be a Mavs or MLE situation, if you really want to play hardball. 

I think in this market you only opt out, if you know your old team will re-sign you to agreed upon conditions.

Or like Kuzma you don´t want to spend the next five years on the worst team in the league.

Otherwise guys like Porzingis and GTJ opted in, cause seriously, where can you go and get paid, if you want to change teams?

We have already seen it last year, when Malik Monk at $10-12M was the 2nd highest paid player to change teams in free agency.

It will be more of the same this year.

Imho if you pay Kyrie over 40M p.a., you can start the clock on Luka. He´s not even worth that much imho.

A few thoughts:

-Let's say you play hardball with Kyrie and get him on a more favorable deal (what is that anyway?  $25-30 per), that's still a massive investment.  Do you want to introduce that volatility into an already volatile situation?   Does the timeline on said volatility change the timeline if you gave him what he thinks he's worth?
-Giving up that future unprotected first feels like we are pot committed.  So unless you can find a suitable SNT partner, I think both sides play nice even if he isn't the ideal player and Dallas isn't his ideal team.
-I think Luka's clock has already started.  A year after his next contract is the timeframe.
-Maybe cutting bait is the smart move but then you have to ask why the move was made in the first place.  We just might need to accept that getting players to Dallas is going to come with warts because of how the franchise has and continues to operate.