06-26-2023, 05:34 PM
(06-26-2023, 05:14 PM)dirkfansince1998 Wrote: Mavs made the WCF with Kleber/Powell. Kleber is still on the roster and the Mavs didn´t draft someone with the 12th pick to bench him for the entire season. Lively will get some minutes. Maybe they think that Holmes can resurrect his career. Maybe they need another guy for 10-20 minutes (Saric, Wagner, even Powell are more than enough for a role like this) but with limited assets they cannot overpay on one position as long as they still have holes in other areas.
There is no perfect fix all solution for all positions. Too many holes. Not enough assets. Going to take some time to undo the damage of past trades/offseasons. Mavs used the most valuable asset they had to draft a young big. Don´t think they can afford to invest even more valuable assets into the center position.
Talk about a straw man. When did I say to bench Lively all year? My comment was he is at least 3 years away from being a starter on a championship team.
The second part puzzles me. We used a draft pick that would have gone elsewhere had we not tanked. You make it sound like we mortgaged our future for Lively. He is a plus to what we have last year, without a minus in assets out.
All that said, Luka has a player option in 2026. So we have 3 years to be contending, and I'd argue we have more like a year, given Luka's frustration level last year. What you are proposing is the Luka Exit Strategy.