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

[F Gump]

That's were my mind naturally goes too.  It could be as simple as they intended to do this all along (as Morris predicted after the season).  We ended up so tight to the tax that we had to do the S/W to add Morris and stay comfortably under the tax.  It could also be that all the things we pursued are all dead and they gave up and fell back to plan S/W.

With all that said, we do have a lot of PF types in Maxi, OMax, GWill, DJJ and Morris.  Yes, some can play other positions and some may never see the light of day.  But, that is still a lot.  Makes me start to look at Maxi plus space under the tax or Maxi/THJ plus space under the tax deals.  Players between $27mm and $32.5mm include Herro, J. Grant, DeRozan, Lowry, Hayward, and Ayton.

I see Ayton as the Mavs most likely target, with "THJ-Holmes-cap savings" the essence of the package. With JM waived rather than included, in such a deal there's now more potential for PHX to get under Apron 2, with DAL staying under the tax line. To make that work for both teams, the Mavs need to have >4.36M in under-tax-line cap savings to offer, and if we count Morris at $0 cap, they have that much available and a slice more. Holmes inclusion would require it to be done after 9/6, but waiting past 12/15 offers better flexibility in getting PHX under Apron 2.

Ayton doesn't interest me enough to justify having him with his contract (and not even close). But the Mavs may feel very differently.