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

[KillerLeft]

Totally agree with you about the high risk of the Kyrie trade, just not as convinced that it will lead to losing a top pick since so much (good or bad) can happen between then and now.

Ok, last one and then I'll let this die for now because I can tell I'm the dude whose mood is ruining the party for everyone else, and generally speaking I'm actually in a pretty positive place with my Mavs relationship right now. 

But...I'd argue that if the Kyrie thing goes belly up (and, it's so far into the future that this probably true even if it does not), the need not to let that pick become a top pick will have a noticeable and significant influence on tons and tons of decisions leading up to that summer. 

When I criticize the last decade, I'm not talking about the couple of seasons immediately after the championship. I was one of the most vocally against letting Chandler/Barea walk, don't get me wrong. But what I'm talking about is what happened after hope was gone - the ridiculous "well, Dirk is still here, so they've got to TRY to compete." Insane. Wheel-spinning. Sometimes, you need to bottom out and start building the next thing. 

Fortunately, Luka is still so young that the Porzingis thing and even the Brunson thing aren't going to kill his career here. I just don't know if that can still be said for the post-Kyrie portion of it, if in fact that era of his Mavs tenure ever even exists.