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

[omahen]

This seems to be the crux of it all. Is this an OG situation where he’s going to sign with Philly no matter what if Toronto doesn’t give him supermax? If so then we should be out. All Philly can really offer is expirings and they have LAC 2028 unprotected and their own 2030 unprotected. If this is what it is then Toronto should take the deal, but it sure seems like Toronto would rather have players than picks. Picks that far away don’t do anything for the Barnes/Barrett/Quickly/Poeltl core they’ve already invested heavily in

It’s a similar situation to Kyrie. If we know we can re-sign him then perhaps we can pay rental prices for a long term investment. Siakam(29) and Kyrie(31) would be on a similar timeline. This iteration of the Luka Era mavs would run it’s course and then we build another team after Luka’s extension kicks in 

There’s Luka, Kyrie, Kidd, Nico…..that’s a strong team of player friendly recruiters we haven’t had in the past (Dirk, Cuban, Rick, Donnie was so weak). There’s Siakam ties to Texas. Siakam and Omax have the same agent. Omax was born in Canada (same as Barrett) and his folks are former Canadian basketball players. Omax could be the best asset on the table for Toronto, so they could have motivation. Omax alone is a strong offer after Toronto did us the favor of waiting too long to trade their guys

The basketball fit is there. Siakam checks all the major boxes of size, toughness, defense, rebounding, offense generation for self, offense generation for others. The biggest warts are the 3pt shooting and the contract size he will demand(max). Luckily we have new owners with deep pockets and if it makes basketball sense to go deep over the 2nd apron for a bit, then we have that ability. 

The cost for a comprable player like Jerami Grant seems like it would be higher. This doesn’t feel desperate or rushed. Feels more opportunistic if the price is low enough.

I like your post a lot, it shows you have years of NBA experience as a player

I think recruitment is the key and I would really like to see Dallas to finally convince someone good he wants to be here. Perhaps Kyrie is first example, though we are not sure, perhaps he just picked best option he could get. I am not sure Siakam is a great fit for Philly. Embiid needs space to operate and Harris might be better fit at considerably lower cost. I think Siakam would be easier to incorporate in Dallas offense than to Philly. Player like OG would be perfect for Philly.

I think I would prefer Grant to Siakam. He is a better fit offensively, perhaps more inclined to accept the "third banana" role and his salary is probably much lower than what Siakam will expect. He is also 2 years younger than Siakam. He doesn't fit the Portland timeline and they are far from contending. But, they are also in no hurry to trade him really. All of their high salary guys have a contract for future seasons and only Brogdon will be expiring next one. They would need to trade way more players (Ayton, Brogdon, perhaps also Williams) to get to any flexibility cap space wise. So I agree, his price might actually be higher than just one FRP. But, he would be one of the prime targets for me in the summer. 

I think time until end of summer will be really crucial for Mavs. They need to make that one big move (plus some smaller moves) to maximize Kyrie window. If they are not successful, getting most for Kyrie would likely be the next most reasonable strategy after the summer. Failure to get that move done, would be another test how patient Luka will be with them.