2020-2021 MAVS NEWS: Archived

[omahen]

In some ways Chicago pre-spent its summer cap room on a two-year deal for Vuc. (and had to eat the difference between Aminu and WCJ).  They can have some cap room depending on what they do with Theis, Markkanen and the partially guaranteed deals for Young and Satoransky.  If they keep LM, the cap room is gone.  There was some thought they were after Lonzo.  PG is probably their biggest need.  But, scrapping together $20 million for Ball means moving on from Markkanen and a couple of guys from among Theis, Sato and Young (or doing a S&T with NO).

I think NO and Chicago are in a similar position and I would expect them to go for a SnT of Ball and Markannen. Perhaps even with each other. I don't see either matching a sizeable offer and I don't see either having enough cap space to go after the other. Personally, I am not a fan of Ball or Markannen. 

I think Mavs will go for talent upgrade and I can see a scenario where they let Richardson and THJ walk. I think they will go after Collins, but I trully hope this will be in agreement with Hawks. Not just offering max salary hoping Hawks don't match. I think Mavs have to operate over the cap. Get creative, expand the deal with other teams. Instead of letting JRich and THJ walk we can use their bird rights and SnT them to a team they want to sign with. Paying cash or second round pick for a favour. What Boston did with Hayward. This allows us to bring in more salary than going out (go over the cap) and use full MLE. Hard cap still shouldn't be a problem. 

Example - there are of course many other variations how this could be done. I assume we don't want to touch our core of Luka, KP, Maxi, DFS and Brunson, but we are prepared to let go THJ and JRich. 

Assuming Collins gets 28 mil, we need 22,5 mil of outgoing salary. Let's say THJ signs for 15 mil with whoever. We only need to add 7 mil, can be covered by WCS and Burke (again, they can go anywhere - we just expand the deal with additional teams) and a reward for Atlanta for not matching Collins in the form of a FRP. So trade 1:
Dal: Collins
Team A: THJ
Team B and C: WCS, Burke
Atlanta: FRP

This would leave us Richardson and Powell salary to operate with. We can either resign JRich or use him in another SnT for the player we want. Let's say we want Lowry for 25 mil. SnT Richardson and a couple of second rounders and ship Powell anywhere with remaining assets. So, trade 2:

Dal: Lowry
Tor: 2 SRP
Team A: JRich
Team B: Powell

Use MLE for back-up guard or SF. This would leave us with:

Luka, Brunson, Terry
Lowry, Green, Hinton
DFS, MLE
Collins, Maxi
KP, vet min and/or Bobi

Of course this kind of stuff needs agreement from a lot of sides. Thankfully, Mavs GM has a couple of months to prepare everything.