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

[Jason Terry]

As I'm sure you know, buyout guys almost never incite a bidding war. These are players their team has paid to go away, and they have already been paid for the season. So in virtually every case it is a rest-of-season pro-rated minimum, which any team can offer, and is going to be about $700,000 this season (depending on when the player signs).

After today's trades, the Mavs have one empty roster slot and still have about $2.66M of room under the tax line.

Also noteworthy is that the rest of the season from here is the time frame when smart front offices assess youngsters not on NBA deals (including their own 2-ways) and sign one of them to a multi-year deal at minimum salary with almost no future guarantees. That's a good use for leftover MLE which can lock up a player for 3 years or even 4 for such a player. That works if (but only if) your staff has done a good job developing those fringe youngsters.

This is where we need to do a better job