EXCLUSIVE: Mavs Will ‘Do All They Can’ to Retain Brunson, Finney-Smith Long Term, Says Cuban

The Dallas Mavericks will ‘do all they can’ to retain both Jalen Brunson and Dorian Finney-Smith long term, Mark Cuban tells DallasBasketball.com. Are other salary-shedding moves coming?

Dalton Trigg | Feb 1, 2022

There has been quite a bit of NBA trade speculation regarding key Dallas Mavericks role players Jalen Brunson and Dorian Finney-Smith in recent weeks.

Despite all the smoke, though, the Mavs have made it clear that they intend to keep both Brunson and Finney-Smith, not just past this trade deadline, but beyond this offseason when both players are due new contrasts and significant pay raises.

“We will do all we can to keep (both Jalen Brunson) and Dorian (Finney-Smith),” Mavs owner Mark Cuban tells DallasBasketball.com.

Considering that Cuban hasn’t paid the luxury tax in over a decade, the Mavs doing ‘all they can’ to retain and pay Brunson and Finney-Smith seems to indicate that other salary-shedding moves could be coming in the near future - if not before the trade deadline, then perhaps around the NBA Draft before free agency begins.

The Mavs, and Cuban specifically, have been thrilled with Brunson’s exponential growth in his fourth season. The 25-year-old point guard is just entering his prime and is averaging career-high numbers across the board this season. And despite what the Dallas salary sheet might indicate, Brunson has arguably become the Mavs’ second-best player this season behind superstar Luka Doncic.

To do what the Mavs are wanting to do with Brunson and Finney-Smith, one would assume that Dallas will be looking for ways to trade other salaries on the roster, like Tim Hardaway Jr., to make more room going forward. Hardaway Jr. just signed a four-year, $74 million contract with the Mavs last summer, but his plummeted three-point shooting this season has made that deal look like a bit of an overpay.

Although no trade rumors involving Kristaps Porzingis have surfaced this season, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing to imagine the Mavs looking to trade off of his max deal, which has two years remaining after this one. How the Mavs, and Porzingis specifically, perform in the postseason could potentially influence that situation.

Follow DallasBasketball.com for all Mavs-related trade deadline updates.

Published Feb 1, 2022

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.